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| The Tsarminocene Epoch; a look 1,000 years into the future | |
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| Topic Started: Nov 26 2011, 07:58 PM (590 Views) | |
| Canis Lupis | Nov 26 2011, 07:58 PM Post #1 |
I'm watching you.
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I've been working on this scenario off and on for the past year or so. Mostly, I've done work on the language of this world, but I've done some culture, history, and biology as well. Basically, this is a world where humanity is still around 1,000 years from now. In the year 2450, after many devastating wars that destroyed cities on Earth, the Moon, and Mars, Earth's major powers came together to form a world government. These major powers are the United States of North America (the United States of America plus Canada), the Socialist States of South America (composed of many of the countries of South and Latin America), the South African Empire (composed of the African countries from South Africa to Kenya (where the main power of the empire is), the Republican of Baltic-Russia (a major alliance between, chiefly, Britain, Germany, the Baltic states, and Russia), and the Sino-Hindi Alliance (composed chiefly of India and China). These five major powers formed a single world government centered in four places: 1. For purely Earth matters, there is a government centered either on the Tibetan Plateau or in Antarctica (I still can't decide which) 2. For purely Lunar matters, there is a government centered in the Chinese Lunar city of Gan De Shi (named after Gan De, the first Chinese astronomer to compile a star catalogue (Shi means city in Chinese just in case you're curious)). 3. For purely Martian matters, there is a government centered in the American Martian city of Bradbury. 4. For matters concerning the entire Human Empire, there is a large space station just outside of Earth's orbit. In addition to forming a global government, the five world powers came together to create a new language that everyone on Earth could speak. Yes, at first they suggested just teaching everyone English, but it was decided to create a new language that would reflect the major languages of the five world powers. This language, called Lemiro (a corruption of the Mirenan phrase "lenguen dumirov," meaning "language of the world"), takes its grammar and vocabulary from English (dominant in the United States of North America), Spanish (dominant in the Socialist States of South America), Russian (dominant in the Republic of Baltic-Russia), Swahili (dominant in the South African Empire), and Hindi (dominant in the Sino-Hindi alliance). Needless to say, technology has advanched quite a bit. Genetic engineering has become a near-perfect science and dominates human industry. Genetic engineering has created many exotic pet animals for future humans (such as puppy bears, mammescents, and chromiguanas) as well as many tools (like extermirats and corn trees). In addition to this technological advancement, humanity has finally spread out from its planet of origin and has major colonies on the Moon and Mars, with a few mining outposts on Titan (which are, in a way, similar to the American Southwest during the days of cattledrives). Humanity has encountered a few alien species and has spread beyond the influence of our home solar system (note: I will also describe these few alien species). Pretty much, in this project, I will be focusing on the culture of human society in this new Earth, the biology of this new Earth, the language of this new Earth (I will provide grammar and vocab lessons in certain posts), and the biology of the sapient aliens humanity has encountered. |
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| Fakey | Nov 26 2011, 10:10 PM Post #2 |
An unreasonable man. Post Rank: What The?
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You doo know that the moon has been declared neutral territory, right? No country can place a claim on it without pissing off the entire planet. |
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| Canis Lupis | Nov 26 2011, 11:40 PM Post #3 |
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I'm watching you.
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It may be neutral now, but who's to say it will still be in the future? When Lunar colonization technology becomes more advanced, more cities will pop up on the moon and colonization will become more plausible economically. The Lunar neutrality might go out the window as a majority of powerful Earth nations gun for the Moon to compete for helium 3 resources (a resource that will probably become the major power source in the world in the near future). |
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| Fakey | Nov 27 2011, 12:20 PM Post #4 |
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An unreasonable man. Post Rank: What The?
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The reason? It'd spark a global war. Plus, y'know, it's neutral in the name of science. 'Cause last I check you don't piss of the people with access to millions of things that could kill you without needing to be in the same room. After all, Sun Tzu once said "YOU. DON'T. GET. SCIENCE. PISSED." I may be paraphrasing. Edited by Fakey, Nov 27 2011, 12:21 PM.
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| T.Neo | Nov 27 2011, 04:20 PM Post #5 |
Translunar injection: TLI
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Here's the thing: despite what space enthusiasts have been saying for decades, people aren't scrambling to get into space. Helium 3 is theoretically a good fusion fuel, the issue is that the commercial breakeven (i.e. "puts out more energy than it takes in") fusion reactors to utilise it do not exist, and will not for some time. And even then, Helium 3-Deuterium fusion is a good deal more difficult to do than the Deuterium-Tritium fusion that has been experimented with for the last few decades. And even then, if D-He3 fusion is more expensive than say, deuterium-deuterium fusion, then there is no business case for He3 as a civillian mass-scale fusion fuel at all. So there is no scramble for the Moon. It isn't an issue of "colonisation technologies" (which do not exist- it is just a collection of launch, spaceflight and speciality but relatively mundane technological fields in this case) not being advanced enough, or not being advanced enough because they're simply so technologically difficult, but because nobody develops them and puts them into practice (because, simply and coldly put: nobody cares enough). There is no business case for it, and return on investment motivates everything, even in the Soviet Union. Nobody is going to do it simply because it's "cool" or "nice". And everything off of Earth is "common heritage of mankind", but this does not prevent the utilisation of resources; the oceans are common heritage of mankind too, that doesn't stop people fishing, drilling for oil or using them as travel routes. That of course doesn't stop people from building outposts or bases on the Moon or other bodies, it's more to stop nations from doing a mad dash "I claim all of X in the name of Y" type of stuff. Edited by T.Neo, Nov 27 2011, 04:21 PM.
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| Canis Lupis | Nov 27 2011, 04:38 PM Post #6 |
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I'm watching you.
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Yeah, it's more of an outpost thing. One group of people doesn't claim to own the Moon; they just set up a city-like outpost filled with that particular group of people and ruled by the government of that group. So if helium 3 is still a long way off, what would be a viable reason for man to set up outposts on the Moon in the next 50 years or so? |
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| Aiosian_Lord_Kaihoan | Nov 27 2011, 04:54 PM Post #7 |
I felt that one...
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Um, when does the scenario start from when it says 1,000 years from today? 1450? |
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| Canis Lupis | Nov 27 2011, 05:04 PM Post #8 |
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I'm watching you.
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1,000 years from now. So the year 3,011. |
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| Fakey | Nov 27 2011, 08:00 PM Post #9 |
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An unreasonable man. Post Rank: What The?
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So it's like Antarctica? |
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| Canis Lupis | Nov 27 2011, 08:19 PM Post #10 |
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I'm watching you.
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Yeah, sort of like Antarctica. |
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| Fakey | Nov 28 2011, 01:51 AM Post #11 |
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An unreasonable man. Post Rank: What The?
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I'm okay with this. Also, we don't need a reason to put outposts on the Moon. One of the fun things about science is that sometimes you don't need a reason. You can just do shit be cause you can. Like the atomic bombs. Einstein came up with it with renewable energy in mind. The guys at the Manhattan project saw the destruct potenial and said "Why the hell not?". So they made nukes. So it'd be like that, only with less depressed German-American physicists. EDIT: I just realised this is the first time in a long time that I've spoken with you, Canis. How's life been? Edited by Fakey, Nov 28 2011, 01:52 AM.
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| Russwallac | Nov 28 2011, 08:54 AM Post #12 |
"Ta-da!"
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I think that humans would advance a lot more within a thousand years... The technology of the period you're talking about seems to be more in the 2100's or 2200's level. In a thousand years, I highly doubt that humans would be restricted to a few planets and moons within our solar system; they probably would have colonized the entire system and the surrounding area as well (that is, unless you subscribe to the "technological plateau" theory). EDIT: A millenium doth not an epoch make, by the way. 
Edited by Russwallac, Nov 28 2011, 08:55 AM.
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| T.Neo | Nov 28 2011, 11:38 AM Post #13 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Nothing. Except a bit of science, so I guess you could have an Antarctica-type arrangement; a number of research bases, and a constant (but temporary) population of scientists and researchers numbering in a few thousands at the most (taking from the Antarctica analogy), but potentially down to several hundred only. And, if it is cheap enough (and this is a big, big, big if), you could have lunar tourism, just like there is antarctic tourism. A trip to Antarctica might cost $10-30 000, and getting the rates down for a lunar trip to such a level would be difficult to say the least, considering that currently it can cost $10 000 or more per kilogram to Low Earth Orbit, and more to the lunar surface.
Reality pretty much subsribes to the "technological plateau" theory. If things kept on advancing indefinitely our world would be very different. But they don't. Things develop to practical and physical limits and are then refined. For example, someone from the 1950s would have not suspected the rapid and influential development of computers, but would probably astounded at the lack of cheap, clean energy or the fact that no supersonic airliners exist...
And I highly doubt that by the 2010s, humans would have access to Low Earth Orbit only, and only via a few expendable tin cans; they probably would have millions living in O'Neill cylinders at the Lagrange points, not to mention cheap and regular access to space.  
Edited by T.Neo, Nov 28 2011, 11:40 AM.
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| Russwallac | Nov 28 2011, 12:18 PM Post #14 |
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"Ta-da!"
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A thousand years is a LONG time; in a thousand years, nanotechnology and other sciences will have advanced enough so that humans won't be human in the way we think of the word. In a thousand years, you won't see humans in the solar system, flying around in primitive shuttles, you'll see nearly immortal post-humans traveling between stars. Unless something sets us WAY back, we'll be unimaginably advanced within a thousand years. EDIT: And OF COURSE we don't have cheap, clean energy! Cheap, clean energy doesn't make a profit, so there's no reason to develop it. We have the technology to build interstellar (albeit VERY slow) spacecraft, solve world hunger through cloning, and do numerous other things, it's just that the people who want to do this lack resources, and the people who have resources don't care. Edited by Russwallac, Nov 28 2011, 12:22 PM.
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| T.Neo | Nov 28 2011, 12:48 PM Post #15 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Immortal post-human nanotechnology? Sorry, but I think you are making the classical mistake of making zany 'predictions' of the future based on what you think is 'cool', not on what actually makes sense. My comment about millions living in O'Neill cylinders is meant to be a semi-humorous example of this. If humans "advance unimaginably" on thousand year timescales, we would have invented the internet just after we invented agriculture. But it doesn't work that way. There are limits. There are practicalities. And interstellar travel is so darn difficult, I would not be surprised if the first humans sent on an interstellar journey do so a thousand years from now, at the earliest.
We don't have the technology do build interstellar spacecraft (low speed places other technological demands on things). We know of some mechanisms we could use for propulsion. We can't solve world hunger through 'cloning' (there are a whole lot of other issues involved), and clean energy can be profitable. It's just that it's edged out by fossil fuels. Not because people are suppressing it, but because fossil fuels are better in some respects. They have more going for them. They're still cheap, abundant, and importantly: the infrastructure runs on them. Cheap energy can be profitable too. You can sell it to more people.
Edited by T.Neo, Nov 28 2011, 12:50 PM.
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