7 ms·

Evacuation involves conceivable technology.

cfadvan 8y ago
Conceivable, but not remotely available at the moment, or on the horizon. Not to mention, evacuation to where? The whole solar system would be thrown into disarray, and we don’t know of any Earth-like planets in other systems. We’d be toast, end of story. Maybe in a few hundred years, and given a lot of warning we could save some small fraction of humanity.
- weberc2 8y ago
  Shotgun approach: anywhere we think we might have even a remote hope of colonizing, prioritized and weighted (in terms of number of passengers) by likelihood of success. It's amusing to think on two such populations of this human diaspora surviving to eventually reunite one day, probably tens of thousands of years after the original colonization event faded from their collective cultural memories.
  - noonespecial 8y ago
    Reunite? Knowing humans they'd likely battle to mutual annihilation because their toenails were different colors. One would hope having one's solar system murdered by a rouge star might help a species grow up but right now I'm skeptical.
  - mapmap 8y ago
    This was a Star Trek plot that helped explain why most of the aliens were humanoid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next...
    - weberc2 8y ago
      > After studying the ambiguous number blocks for hours, the discovery is made that these fragments are compatible DNA strands which have been recovered from different worlds all over the galaxy. The crew eventually believe that they have discovered an embedded genetic pattern that is constant throughout many different species, and it is speculated that this was left by an early race that pre-dates all other known civilizations. This would ultimately explain why so many races are humanoid. Pretty sure if today's scientists had access to a dozen alien populations, DNA analysis would be one of the first things they set about. I'm not a trekky, but I would think that this should have happened chronologically much earlier in the canon.
      - krapp 8y ago
        >I'm not a trekky, but I would think that this should have happened chronologically much earlier in the canon. Unfortunately, that was a two-part afterthought and the canon in that respect was never really explored. You could set an entire season or series around it, and Star Trek had a lot of dropped ideas with potential like that.
  - meko 8y ago
    This is almost the plot to the Killzone franchise: as in, separate populations of human colonists at war with each other, long after they forgot their common ancestry.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      That is also the plot to all of actual history. It's a pretty general plot.
      - weberc2 8y ago
        Good point. Here I was thinking I stumbled onto something novel...
- DeusExMachina 8y ago
  Well, that is not standing in the way of a good story. Interstellar solved that problem already.
maxxxxx 8y ago
Where do you want to go if planets are thrown off orbit? You need to plan that years or most likely decades before. We also have no evidence that we are capable of surviving off Earth long term.
dharmab 8y ago
Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest explores this idea, mostly to point out that there is no acceptable method to choose who gets evacuated and who stays behind. The author argues through his characters that any attempt at evacuation would create immediate and violent conflict between humans.
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  See also Seveneves[1], where a similar evacuation does indeed have some downsides. It's also a theme in one of my favorite Ted Chiang stories, "Mono no Aware"[2]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves 2: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/mono-no-aware/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/mono-no-aware/
  - mcrider 8y ago
    Seveneves and the Dark Forest series are literally the last two (sets of) books I read and they are so wonderful. The last book in the Dark Forest series in particular has some of the most mind-blowing concepts I've encountered in SciFi.
    - netcraft 8y ago
      I havent read Dark Forest but I also enjoyed Seveneves. If you want more mind blowing sci-fi I can't recommend _Diaspora_ by Greg Egan enough.
      - mcrider 8y ago
        Looks great -- putting it on the list!
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  Violent conflict hasn't stopped things from happening in the past; it seems overwhelmingly unlikely to stop an evacuation either.

Conceivable, but not remotely available at the moment, or on the horizon. Not to mention, evacuation to where? The whole solar system would be thrown into disarray, and we don’t know of any Earth-like planets in other systems. We’d be toast, end of story. Maybe in a few hundred years, and given a lot of warning we could save some small fraction of humanity.

weberc2 8y ago
Shotgun approach: anywhere we think we might have even a remote hope of colonizing, prioritized and weighted (in terms of number of passengers) by likelihood of success. It's amusing to think on two such populations of this human diaspora surviving to eventually reunite one day, probably tens of thousands of years after the original colonization event faded from their collective cultural memories.
- noonespecial 8y ago
  Reunite? Knowing humans they'd likely battle to mutual annihilation because their toenails were different colors. One would hope having one's solar system murdered by a rouge star might help a species grow up but right now I'm skeptical.
- mapmap 8y ago
  This was a Star Trek plot that helped explain why most of the aliens were humanoid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next...
  - weberc2 8y ago
    > After studying the ambiguous number blocks for hours, the discovery is made that these fragments are compatible DNA strands which have been recovered from different worlds all over the galaxy. The crew eventually believe that they have discovered an embedded genetic pattern that is constant throughout many different species, and it is speculated that this was left by an early race that pre-dates all other known civilizations. This would ultimately explain why so many races are humanoid. Pretty sure if today's scientists had access to a dozen alien populations, DNA analysis would be one of the first things they set about. I'm not a trekky, but I would think that this should have happened chronologically much earlier in the canon.
    - krapp 8y ago
      >I'm not a trekky, but I would think that this should have happened chronologically much earlier in the canon. Unfortunately, that was a two-part afterthought and the canon in that respect was never really explored. You could set an entire season or series around it, and Star Trek had a lot of dropped ideas with potential like that.
- meko 8y ago
  This is almost the plot to the Killzone franchise: as in, separate populations of human colonists at war with each other, long after they forgot their common ancestry.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    That is also the plot to all of actual history. It's a pretty general plot.
    - weberc2 8y ago
      Good point. Here I was thinking I stumbled onto something novel...
DeusExMachina 8y ago
Well, that is not standing in the way of a good story. Interstellar solved that problem already.

maxxxxx 8y ago

Where do you want to go if planets are thrown off orbit? You need to plan that years or most likely decades before. We also have no evidence that we are capable of surviving off Earth long term.

dharmab 8y ago

Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest explores this idea, mostly to point out that there is no acceptable method to choose who gets evacuated and who stays behind. The author argues through his characters that any attempt at evacuation would create immediate and violent conflict between humans.

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
See also Seveneves[1], where a similar evacuation does indeed have some downsides. It's also a theme in one of my favorite Ted Chiang stories, "Mono no Aware"[2]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves 2: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/mono-no-aware/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/mono-no-aware/
- mcrider 8y ago
  Seveneves and the Dark Forest series are literally the last two (sets of) books I read and they are so wonderful. The last book in the Dark Forest series in particular has some of the most mind-blowing concepts I've encountered in SciFi.
  - netcraft 8y ago
    I havent read Dark Forest but I also enjoyed Seveneves. If you want more mind blowing sci-fi I can't recommend _Diaspora_ by Greg Egan enough.
    - mcrider 8y ago
      Looks great -- putting it on the list!
thaumasiotes 8y ago
Violent conflict hasn't stopped things from happening in the past; it seems overwhelmingly unlikely to stop an evacuation either.