Reply To: So, they've found a new planet

[Rod Robertson]

Do humans have a right to colonize worlds beyond our own? Is it a moral choice or a biological imperative like that which drives moulds and bacteria to spread. Vidi Veni Vici! Great fun for speculative games but given our record of colonization on our own world, what might we expect from interstellar colonization? If we discover sentient life, which is hostile to our plans of colonization, do our colonists turn back to Earth, commit suicide or attempt to fight the indigenous life forms for their world? Are we explorers or conquistadors?

Another intriguing question is when to colonize. Do we go at sub-light speeds subject to temporal dilation, only to arrive generations later to find humanity already established there by faster spaceships developed and used for colonization in the future or do we wait until those ships are made?

Intriguing question, I think!

Cheers and good sailing.

Rod Robertson.

P.S. Editor Mike, if I have strayed too far from gaming and into the realm of xeno-biological politics, then tell me and I will stop. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s gaming or bug-hunts but such questions fascinate me.