(SPOILERS) Why did they put all their eggs in one basket?

Dilandu wrote:

I don't think there was anything "reasonable" about how many they thought they could save. Operation Ark was the last hope of saving any humans from the Gbaba, so there would have been pressure to save as many as possible and then squeeze in a few more.

Well, in this case, you need to optimize the number of colonists and supplies, and equipment required.

The number of colonists they could get out was dictated by the amount of lift and supply/terraforming they could provide. The limiting factor, frankly, was building the warships for the effort; the colony fleet was being built simultaneously, with a standard number of cryogenically-stored colonists on each vessel. When the time for the breakout came, they took as many ships as they thought they could get through with the covering force available to them --- which happened to give them 8,000,000 people, not 6,500,000 or 800,000 or 80,000 --- and sent them out in an effort to save as many lives as possible.


The mission plan, as I said earlier, called for dispersing them broadly over the surface of whatever world they found, and, frankly, they were lucky to find one as hospitable to humanity as Safehold. The idea was to insure planetary survival by redundancy in case the terraformers had missed something, there was an outbreak of some previously unexpected disease, or other environmental factors turned some or all of the planetary system toxic for some reason. They didn't think that was a likely outcome, but they also weren't disposed to take chances on it. And given the transportation difficulties their pre-tech civilization was likely to experience, they also wanted to be sure that each enclave they set up had enough genetic material and diversity to avoid the consequences of geographically imposed inbreeding. Since they wanted lots of enclaves, that meant they needed lots of colonists.

Now, there's been some talk about a second colony, and I will say that the original mission plan was written before they knew they'd be able to get that many people out. That being the case, there's no reason that Langhorne --- who modified the heck out of the original plan --- couldn't have modified it in a difference direction, instead, and chosen to use the second terraforming fleet to establish an additional colony with 4,000,000 or so colonists, exactly as people have suggested. Except, of course, for the reasons I pointed out earlier about why he and Bedard wouldn't have wanted a second colony which might well interfere with their master plan to save humanity.

Ah, if they were planning for a smaller number of survivors it all makes sense then.

alj_sf wrote:There is a major difference in the numbers needed between a case of absolute endogamy with the case where you can have external apport once every few generations. In Safehold case, the latter is not possible.

Sure, but I had gotten the impression that the Pingelap bit was a case of complete isolation (until the Japanese military showed up anyway). If not, that does change the picture (I agree Pitcairn isn't such a case).

The early Native Americans were probably isolated though, at least for very long periods -- traveling through the Arctic during the tail end of an ice age can't have been easy.

And I suppose that the time that has passed in Pingelap's case isn't enough to prove indefinite viability.

EdThomas wrote:

evilauthor wrote:-Snip

If anything, this may be a more logical "second arrow" for the Federation if lyonheart is right about the covering fleet for Langhorne being the last one of its size. You don't need nearly as many resources to preserve 80 million electronically stored mind copies as you do 80 million flesh and blood human beings.

OAR 8 million As many as half a million on the biggest ship.

Whatever. Exact number doesn't make any difference to my point: It's easier and less energy intensive (read: lower emissions signature that might attract unwanted attention) to store X number of mind uploads than X number of flesh and blood human beings. That makes them MUCH easier to hide from the Gbaba as long as you can pull the same "make em think they got us" trick that Operation Ark managed.

The trade off of course that if all you store are mind copies of human beings, you can forget them ever having real flesh and blood bodies again. You'd have a civilization of electronic ghosts.

Which I have no doubt would scare the bejebus out of Langhorne if he ever saw it.

cralkhi wrote:Ah, if they were planning for a smaller number of survivors it all makes sense then.

alj_sf wrote:There is a major difference in the numbers needed between a case of absolute endogamy with the case where you can have external apport once every few generations. In Safehold case, the latter is not possible.

Sure, but I had gotten the impression that the Pingelap bit was a case of complete isolation (until the Japanese military showed up anyway). If not, that does change the picture (I agree Pitcairn isn't such a case).

The early Native Americans were probably isolated though, at least for very long periods -- traveling through the Arctic during the tail end of an ice age can't have been easy.

And I suppose that the time that has passed in Pingelap's case isn't enough to prove indefinite viability.

I remember reading there was at least 4 Native Americans waves which would bring the needed diversity.

I dont know the Pingelap case, but the fact they have a lot of color blindess in a few generations is not a good indication of diversity. More, it depends if the 20 original settlers were a related group like members of a small tribe or a more diverse group.

Dilandu wrote:It looks almos as the Federation want to loose the war... They aren't fully mobilized, they preserved the capitalist economy (let's imagine that California was suddenly cut off from the rest of the United States, and under siege of the genocidical enemy; you want to convince me that in such a situation capitalist economy of the state wouldn't just collapse?), and they didn't attempt the quantum leap even as the final measure.

I just got pointed to this old thread and I think there are two more very relevant factors:

1) Suppose the human race knew it was doomed. How much war enthusiasm would there be? I believe the result would be a higher percentage of a lower total being directed to the war effort, the result very well might have been less total firepower and thus the earlier failure of the defense.

2) If the people knew Earth was doomed how many would be trying to sneak off to pull a Safehold on a small scale? That absolutely had to be prevented. Not letting the average man know of the threat would be the only way to ensure you prevent it.

evilauthor wrote:Still, the possibility for other surviving colonies exists, and if RFC wants one to appear in any role whatsoever (ally, antagonist, victim in need of saving, etc), then he's pretty well covered.

After all, given all the lies and intrigue that went on in Langhorne's expedition, would it surprise ANYONE that more of it went on back on Earth?

Which is EXACTLY why I take Word of God with a grain of salt. Just because our esteemed author (or for that matter, ANY creative soul) has no intention of there being "other Safeholds" doesn't mean he can't change his mind at a later date.

The entire way information on the Federation is related to the reader - ie, it's what the characters IN UNIVERSE know - has a built in retcon: what the characters "know" turns out to be wrong for one reason or another.

Also, people "going crazy" near the end of the Gbaba war is actually a good reason for why there might be a "colony" or recorded minds that Von Neumann themselves back up to interstellar power status. With everyone "going crazy", someone's bound to see that if they can't preserve biological humanity, preserving humanity's minds and culture will do as a good second substitute.

Also, it's a sufficiently cheap way to "preserve humanity" that it may not even require a government to do it; it could have been done as a government side project or an entirely private project that no one in the government knew about.

Edit: Weird... did I just quote and reply to myself? Or did I just get the quote attribution wrong?

evilauthor wrote:===Snip===
Edit: Weird... did I just quote and reply to myself? Or did I just get the quote attribution wrong?

So you are becoming the ouroboros - are you coming or going? How do you taste?

Charybdis wrote:So you are becoming the ouroboros - are you coming or going? How do you taste?

Not... very good. I think I'm gonna be nauseous...