Pretty much how I play space engineers. I don't build fancy ships. I build ore procesing platforms and just move from rock to rock. One side is the current refinery. The flip side is the next upgraded facility. Once complete I tear down the older side and repeat the process.
“I saw... its thoughts. I saw what they're planning to do. They're like locusts. They're moving from planet to planet... their whole civilization. After they've consumed every natural resource they move on... and we're next.”
Something to consider when discussing a million Oniel Cylinders vs a single planet: Terraforming is one of those things that takes a LONG time to provide any real benefit. On the other hand, you can build one artificial habitat and use that as a jumping-off point for the next habitat. People inside a habitat likely have a better standard of living than folks on a planet being terraformed. Also, if you have a million habitats and one gets taken out by a rogue comet or industrial accident, you lose a millionth of your people and resources. If such a thing happened on a planet, you might lose much more. If one habitat developed some sort of illness, it could be isolated to reduce the spread. This is something else that is difficult to do on a typical planet.
that said each individual habitat is more susceptible to impacts from space debris, requires more repairs than a planet, and can more quickly become a dangerous environment than a planet. It is for example easier for a terrorist to poison the entire atmosphere of a space habitat than the atmosphere of a smilarily sized community on a larger planet
that "sending digitized people at the speed of light": do you think you could send a "sentient message" by entangling the photons that make up the engram in such a way that they can keep calculating on the way? I'm torn between "that'd be really boring without inputs" and "time would stand still anyway", but the thought of being a bundle of light whizzing through the universe and getting some work done while travelling is a bit intriguing
Can you imagine what kind of mythical, heroic figure Isaac Arthur himself would be to this crew in 3434? There might be thousands of planets and several species named after him by then. Personally I plan to take my uploaded consciousness to explore the Arthur-7 galaxy, to see if anyone there knows what the first rule of warfare is.
given how prone we are to re-writing folks in confused an exaggerated fashion, I should imagine if the future recalls me at all it won't likely bare much resemblance :)
@@isaacarthurSFIA Maybe, but nowadays we have video evidence, and you in particular have put out many hours of yourself for the future to look back on.
I have two space nomad concepts, both playing on a similar theme of peoples looking for a promised land but finding all the viable territory they could reach occupied. The first is just a smaller part of a long tapestry of galactic history, who escaped some approaching calamity sweeping through the galaxy, taking a long parabolic flight above the disk and slowly back in when the danger has passed, finding every likely spot to settle down occupied. Eventually a faction within this civilization gave up on the endless journey and took a planet from someone else instead, creating a system between terrestrial and nomad. Second concept is Void Nomads. Early sleeper ship colonists on automated ships who weren't expected to survive the travel time, under the assumption that the ships with their machines would continue to the destination and start building the infrastructure for later colonization efforts. unexpected was the governing machine intelligence catching wise to the intend to let everyone die in transit and prioritized the safety of the colonists over the end results of the mission. fast forward a very, very long time and they are a culture of human minds in machine ship bodies, mechanical hunter gatherers keeping to the ort clouds and extra solar debris, always moving, always staying hidden from the star dwellers. A deep cultual betrayal never truly forgotten
Bro go right a book that’s actually amazing thought. I’m being 100% serious that’s not just silly jokes that sounds more interesting and is actually a new idea unlike 99% of sci-fi
I know this isn’t the place for drug/alcohol talk, but I’m currently coming back to sobriety for the first time ever and listening to this video, I was finally able to relax and I really wanted to thank you sir.
Subscription model for space colonization. The more you pay/earlier you pay it, the more real estate you'll get in space starting in system then beyond
I remember a sci-fi novel series I read (Perry Rhodan) thinking about this in conjuction with "gardening" fleets... just that the "fleets" (they were referred to as swarms) consisted of a few thousand star systems each and did the gardening on intergalactic scales. So they were, literally, "stellar" nomads running around with star systems in their pockets.
Agreed. But before we could move it, we'd need to master electromagnetism and fusion/fission to the point we can make a drone-star. It's cold out beyond Sol. And, I suspect that the oort cloud is not a cloud, it's what the interstellar medium is. We only see what Sol shines on. That said, it would be smarter to remain within the suns protection and devise means to move the whole system. But, fun speculation aside, it's unlikely humans will survive to accomplish such things, as we're too busy killing and hating each other. Too busy ruining our reproductive powers with insane mentalities...
We'd need to figure out how to move our own star. Then it'll be as simple as waiting for our home system to approach a star cluster, where our Empire awaits.
The Planet knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation...
Reminds me of the Vasari in Sins of a Solar Empire, a migrant fleet fleeing from a terrifying unknown enemy for ten thousand years until they reach human space. They leave beacons behind to know when the enemy has reached that point when they are silenced.
في المستقبل البعيد وبفضل التكنولوجيا المتقدمة سوف يصنع الإنسان كواكب عن طريقة تجميع الصخور مع بعضها البعض مثل عملية تشكل الكواكب والنجوم عن طريق روبوتات متطورة للغاية أيضا يقوم بتدوير النفايات الكوكبية بحيث لا يوجد أثر على البيئة والفضاء.
I'm still worried about stray pebbles travelling at thousands of miles per hour shooting holes in the Hulls, and people are imagining entire civilizations aboard starships. How could we prevent ships from being damaged or destroyed by high-speed space debris?
I don't think so. In Aliens, they were just doing a paid job. Hauling freight from one particular place to another well defined place. True stellar nomads take their entire civilisation with them and probably never go back. Maybe they can find nice planets and settle there. Maybe they just keep travelling without a plan, only stopping in a star system to replenish their resources.
Good as usual. A couple of ideas occurred to me here, that I freely share. The first is the idea, assuming you believe there are other intelligences out there, that First Contact might come in the form of interstellar nomads/traders coming into the Solar system. There is a whole lot of stuff you could load onto stories around that. The second one was the thought of Cyclers. Myself I think of them as massive ladder of bed frame with small thrusters attached. You can then take anything from an ore ship, or even just a great glob of ore, to cruise ships strap it to the bed frame; and pay for your passage with thrust or even basic maintenance of the bed frame. These could spend centuries doing loops between Earth and Mars or the outer planets. When they lose their usefulness, you sell them as the base frame for an Interstellar Nomad ship.
Assuming lower gravity... will generate giants... you're wrong... although in the future you may control gravity artificially in that case you can control however you want to look also using other techs..
I cant even imagine 21:00 It would be a shock to go from M2 to M42. Unfathomably, from M2 to M502 would be like coming back to fungi being sentient and taking over humanity on earth, or seeing an earth sized stone that used to be the our birthworld.
Battlestar Galactica, naturally I thought of you! but then, I thought of the Travelers from Star Gate Atlantis and the hidden caravan civilizations Elizabeth Weir spoke of that she found after she had "ascended".
Something I've wondered about the Aldrin cycler: doesn't it require just as much total thrust to get your cargo up to docking velocity with the cycler as it would to get it into the transit orbit of the cycler? And then the same amount to move from the cycler to destination as it would to deorbit from your own transit? It feels like the cycler doesn't actually save you anything on thrust, and the only difference between riding the cycler to Mars and going there yourself is the option of having amenities on the cycler that only have to be accelerated to the transit once. Though anything used on the cycler that is not perfectly recycled will still have to be shoved up to docking. Which means that if you have a crew in the cycler, keeping them supplied could severely reduce the efficiency of the idea compared to just sending individual ships. And of course the cycler is useless for cargo shipping.
The way I see it, every time other than the first time, it saves you the mass of acceleration for the habitation module for the extended trip. All you need to boost is the launch/catch up module, the decelararion/landing module, and consumables for the trip.
@@jackdbur not sure that the value added comes close to the costs of getting a manufacturing system and all it's upkeep up to transit compared to just launching dumb cargo and doing the manufacturing at station. There's a huge number of advantages that unmanned cargo has above anything manned, that I think far outweigh the minor potential advantage of working while shipping.
I have a sci-fi narrative im writing that centers on a civilization of space nomads. It exists in a space opera setting somewhere between soft and hard sci-fi, so there's aliens and FTL and a bunch of other genre staples but I've still tried to make it grounded. One of their cultural cornerstones is the belief that they were exiled from Earth and this is some sort of generational penance. While most are spacefaring, some are sea-faring, or have massive moving cities of land-ships on planetary bodies, etc. One the ways they deal with population growth is that fleets will occasionally split apart or have smaller "daughter fleets" form that leave the nest so to speak. But they don't just get members from population growth, as they're more than willing to let other people join them as long as they contribute to the fleet.
i literally dream of being a stellar nomad with roving plot of earth and a teepee shaped soace craft that folds down when moving and exxpands when settled
There is ONE alien civilisation who are stellar nomads in science fiction I immediately had to think about: the Cygnans. In the scifi novel The Jupiter Theft, written by Donald Moffitt in 1977, a large object close to lightspeed arrives in our solar system, slows down and stops at Jupiter. A human spaceship is dispatched and discovers an alien fleet of huge ships. The aliens use gas giants as fuel for their interstellar drive. The giant they used is now depleted, and to the Cygnans, Jupiter seems to be a very nice replacement...
I can see a tiny chance an alien nomad might come and go too our system once in the future. Or we find dril bits on moons as they were already came and gone ages ago.
I could see a fleet of Terraforming experts working as parapotetic nomads, doing spiraling laps around the frontier to start/upkeep projects as civilization expands. Sure Terraforming isn't really worth it for colonists to do themselves, but if a star system has a potential earth-like planet, there wouldn't be much harm in Terraforming it as a back burner side project.
Great episode as always. I think your reference to Reynolds is appropriate, although in a different context than House of Suns. I think the Ultras in Revelation Space may well be the future of humanity travelling between the stars. Adapted for hard vacuum, largely machines with a barest trace of biology, etc… all very thought provoking.
Anyone else really want to hear a video where Mr. Arthur does his thoughts and scientific review on common Sci-Fi games like arc, no man sky, halo etc? I think it'd be fascinating to hear his amazing "yes it's fiction... but it might not have to be!" on the concepts, or science takes on things like interplanetary distances etc.
I think the best nomadic base could be the current Alpha Proxima. Travel there, build up a collection of habitats and a fleet of collier ships, then set the whole system on course for the next place. Why live in stasis if you can build whole worlds and take your star with you!
Wht about The Festival in Charles Stross' Singularity Sky? Everyone was kept digitally and brought online when needed so much less mass and life support overhead
Ships could carry data. A databank could be physically delivered to another solar system, or dropped off to beam the data to recipients, or the ship could do data transfer if the beamwidth existed. Everything known or produced on one planet could be transferred to every other.
Your episodes share a consistent vision for the future, one which I think is unlikely, in that the Milky Way will probably take several million years to colonize a significant chunk of. We're reaching the point where technology is no longer advancing exponentially, and colonization is likely to be extremely slow, even with FTL. Starting from scratch is very hard, as indicated by the fact we don't even have a moon base yet.
if you need a modern example of peripatetic nomads, look towards the disaster repair field many many people travel with hail storms and fix roofs and cars
Noted a small false assumption that the bigger the ship the slower it is. with chemical/ionic propulsion yes, but let's be honest these won't get us nowhere. For the sake of argument, imagine that we have a ship engine based on something akin to a collider, and the bigger the collider is the higher the speed, or, may be a type of engine that produces acceleration proportional to volume(mass)/surface ratio, same result, you got the idea
The solution to FTL and large space habitats can fly interstellar travel is cross train lawyers with the appropriate science skills and mention how big their per hour billable pay could be. They will find the ways and the loopholes in the rules. I just do not have the headolgy skills to organize it all.
Can we be sure plant life is not one of those technology steps towards the computer civilization living at the end of time? They seem very chill and are mindlike. Each branch a thought form.
I know people from the midwest that have never left their state but one or twice in their life. enter the recycler space life. The moon space station project currently in place has a Cycler type orbit of 6 days coming part way of the distance.
Long-term nomadic, interstellar travel as a foundation of a civilization seems exceptionally prone to issues. - Neanderthal-lvl civiliz. poppin up nearby, reaching K1, and then traveling to the next set of systems on your route (claiming them, and denying you access to even Kuiper Bet resources)...in fraction of the time it takes your civil to reach those desto star systems (after departing the previous set you were in). - Hostiles that you may have tangled w/ in a prev. set of systems could advance enough to communicate with their neighboring civilizations/colonies, build a mega fleet of vogon ships; arrive at ur desto systems, (and rather than denying you access to resources) they just vaporize your fleet using some sort of megaweapon (a la photoids in Death's End, where they alter fundamental physics of your target, a la turning 3D-->2D). So you may not even have chance to fight, as you'd be going your 0.1-0.5c and can't just 'hit the brakes'. Wander long enough, and its not just the local stellar group or even quadrant of the galaxy but the entire local galactic cluster could be settled as a few K2 civilizations achieve K3 status and QUICKLY colonize majority of not just their local galaxy but dozens within the cluster. SUDDENLY you have nowhere to 'wander' recklessly, and even the 'frontier' of whole new galaxies (that are otherwise largely unsettled wilds with no/few K1 civilizations in them). THIS IS AN ISSUE: back to those K2/K3s controlling the galaxy, getting tired of "those wandering space gypsies", and using megaweapons to wipe out ur traveling civilization from multiple directions (at once). EVEN IF they didn't wipe you out, the pace at which they may expand (lets say nearest unsettled galaxy is 10x galaxy 'hop's away). Those K2/K3s that have already settled (even partially) a couple of those galaxies in between the one you're in, and that desto one...well they'll be able to reach that galaxy, completely colonize it LONG BEFORE you ever get close to it. You wouldn't even necessarily have option to be "exiled, wandering the intergalactic space" bcuz IF those K3s can settle even a few galaxies; they're going to settle EVERY extragalactic star system, rogue planet etc between those galaxies. You'd be well and truly FVCKed.
Its not to say the size of your nomadic civilization couldn't number in the 10s of millions of 100km long starships...It easily could. 1-2 star systems the size of ours, just grinding up a few Earths/SuperEarths and you'd have enough material for a fleet this size. The Issue is that any 'sedentary' K2 civilization could well, and truly convert dozens of star systems (via automated self-replicating miner/MFGer drones) into a fleet of 100s of billions of of Imperial Star Destroyer/Star Dreadnaughts. Entirely staffed by droids, or supersoldier clones; having enough interplanetary nukes to turn a planet into molten slag, etc ...Being nomadic is just 'hazardous' at galactic/intergalactic scales; whether you're biologically immortal, post-biologic, purely digital. Doesn't matter. You'd always be the "big fish, from a small pond, drowning in an ocean full of sharks'
You just described how nomadism became unfeasible on Earth as agriculture expanded. But note that it took 10k years for agriculture to outpace nomadism. Analogously it might be millions or billions of years before stellar nomadism becomes unviable. Not to mention, I see little logical reason why all/many post scarcity K2 civs or even a K3 might be against nomads except for personal or group animosity. They would be valuable for cultural exchange and trade between stars.
@@duckpotat9818 Very good point. I hadn't entirely made thought about the anology while writing OP, but you're right, it was something like 10k years between Ur/Mesopotamia (1st agrarian soceity) and 19-20th century closing of 'frontiers' and fully claiming all lands (and preventing nomadic lifestyle). It can be hard to go into in a post, but I also agree. It wouldn't be a 100% for-sure that K2/3 civs would be anti-nomads; but considering the hurdle of 'trust' between 2 alien species (can they lie like us? do they have our emotions and value life at all? do they have any ethics? etc)...I would suspect such things in short term (1000s of years) would be a true hurdle in a galaxy that is rapidly being colonized by K2/K3s.. Ofc, if the galaxy is pretty lifeless and great filters really do limit ability to reach K2/K3, then nomadism could exist for 100s of millions of years. Long-term though, IF they understand universe (fighting heat death/entropy, galaxies becoming farther apart), surviving all this would entice a late-stage K2/3 to be somewhat sedentary and 'build their entropy bunker' somwhere. Cultural exchange is an interesting notion between truly alien species (back to common ground, basic understanding/empathy/morals etc)...If humans had all this, but aliens didn't their 'childrens stories' could seem like ravings of a detached psychopathic serial killer/cannibal. We'd read the stories and be like "nope, we see little value in your 'cultural' library". Trade is interesting as well: Yes K1/K2s would probably trade, but if you can settle not just 10 or 100, but 10mil star systems...do you really 'need' anything somebody else may have? Even your late-stage tech will be tailor-made to each system/planet/environment, to trade it would have to be in scientific information: to assess "what have they discovered/tried that we haven't"... ALTHO HERE is where nomadic K2 could be superior to a galaxy full of sedentary (and mostly isolationist K2s)...IF they could travel between all the empires and trade in info, they'd become "the source of all information", a nomadic repository of knowledge...Whereas a regular K2 might border with 5-10 others, the nomads could regular visit all 100 K2s in the galaxy: neutrality/scientific advancement being their 'selling point' to entice empires to permit them to traverse their space.
@@djdrack4681 cultural exchange doesn’t have to be between two truly alien species but could also be amongst humans who settled other stars. Ofc they would be very alien but still relatable enough. Trade wouldn’t be for raw materials and basic goods but could definitely be for luxury items. Maybe objects from Earth hold a lot of symbolic value. Maybe Europa is known for its sea food. Some people might pay a premium for such things.
@@duckpotat9818 you make a good point. When a K2 civilization gets big enough, humans would be 'evolving' or post-biologic or augmented and quickly become Human Type X (Tau Ceti variant). etc. I was just pointing out that aside from cultural exchange in different branches of your original species, it could be (and ideally so) not possible or practical to do so. Sentimental/'authenticate' trade would be interesting. a la star trek "This is real highland scotch, not that replicated stuff". I could see that if our civilization reached a point where transport/mass isn't an issue: The 'stores' that would stuck such stuff would have a nightmare of a logistics/supply chain issue ("Order 123: ETA 10,456yrs).
I will never understand those who need a reason to exist, and I will never need to, as they won't be around long enough for me to care about it - Eldritch entity probably.
I would love to be a worldbuilding nomad. Kinda like a game developer, but building interesting worlds with maybe puzzles and stories and then just… leave them. Move on to the next system, so that someone else might find the world and enjoy it :)
I loved an idea explored in the three body problem book, nomads travelling closer and closer to the speed of light, with the aim to reach the end of the universe, not in distance but in time
I’m not sure why, but I haven’t seen one of your videos in months. They just slowly stopped showing up on my recommended untill I just forgot about them, weird. But on the other hand I have an even bigger backlog of videos to binge now so all well that ends well
8:58 Send something to build that thing to hold a copy of your mind? An entity within one won't like your mind crowding in, taking over, and enslaving or killing them as a parasite insect have.
Hey Isaac. Your productions have always been very interesting and entertaining. I finally decided to comment and let you know. You obviously put in a significant amount of time and effort into them. Keep up the great work! Ps. Where in the heck do you get all the videos you use?
I was just starting to feel very uncomfortable, almost dizzy with existential dread, at the idea of sending a thousand digital copies of a person on million year journey’s only to be merged into one. Then you said “This doesn’t sound like a great way to preserve your sanity.” I almost laughed out loud, relieved that I wasn’t alone in my reaction to the concept
I'm going to say something like this to you and I hope you like this one. I love the way you talk, and please don't worry. I don't want you to stop talking with me as I have gotten used to it and I thank God for you.
Oneill cylinders are so often mentioned but I think a ringworld is always a better option. No we can't build a ringworld yet but neither can we build an Oneill Cylinder.
Yes i travel from system to system, converting raw metals and minerals into early 21st century retro gaming machines, offloading millions of computers and peripherals at each system. In this way, the ewaste of every planet near sol looks the same
If FTL never becomes possible, I think for the sake of humanity there needs to be an intentional effort to preserve a language. Simply for the shear time tables inter stellar travel would require, over countless generations. Otherwise you'd arrive somewhere find some other humans, and have trouble figuring out what each other is saying.
The first space nomads will ride the cycler between Earth orbit and Mars orbit. The hyper gravity vehicle castle ship would be used to move people and goods. Three transfer ships to have one waiting at Earth and Mars to exchange with the ship from the castle yearly to carry the needed goods and people who sell the not so needed goods. The Nomads would be the people who work and live on the hypergravity vehicle habitat AKA castle ship. The first castle ship would not be too big, but with the shielding around the cars riding the rail in a circle to create the 50% 1G of hypergravity. The castle ship stretches over 200 meters (about two football fields past the goal posts.) The average adult would survive living in 50% Erath Gravity, but after a year it would be difficult to return to Earth. A Month stay in the 1G habitat on Mars, for the growing children, wouldn’t help because the cycler used between Earth and Mars takes a year. Space Nomads need annual calcium shot and daily steroids with a run twice a day around the castle ship... ‘So why isn’t the Hypergravity ship spinning at 1G?’ It probably would???
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be born early enough to experience life on Earth prior to human colonization of space. In saying that though, I am very upset that I likely won’t live long enough to be a space nomad.
Pretty much how I play space engineers. I don't build fancy ships. I build ore procesing platforms and just move from rock to rock. One side is the current refinery. The flip side is the next upgraded facility. Once complete I tear down the older side and repeat the process.
"I am Nomad, I am perfect". (Star Trek TOS, "The Changeling") Always good when Isaac lets us look into the future !
“I saw... its thoughts. I saw what they're planning to do. They're like locusts. They're moving from planet to planet... their whole civilization. After they've consumed every natural resource they move on... and we're next.”
If you understand are path through the galaxy. You'd realize we're screwed. Or rather we're screwing are way thru the galaxy.
Independence day, movie. cool idea, but plotholes the size of the Moon. :D
@@sleepingbackbone7581 Damn, I thought he meant the Expanse and their Builders.
@@janchovanec8624 An Expanse reference is small brain. An Independence Day reference is galaxy brain.
@@janchovanec8624 And I thought he meant the Tyranids.
The Earth is a cargo ship, docked in orbit, carrying 6,585 billion trillion tons of raw materials.
Just who build it ?
@@Tiredjungle13 you will find out supposedly a few seconds after you die/brain death
@@Tiredjungle13 "Aliens...".jpg
Build by the evolution of the cosmos @@Tiredjungle13
We're in quarantine, the raw materials spawned biological slime, and it's been forgotten about long enough we've evolved on it. 😂
Wanna buy a space caravan? How about dags? You like dags?
Got any death sticks?
A bloooo wun. For me ma.
Perrywinkle blue
Dags...? Ohhh, you mean a WOOKIE.
Dogs? I like dogs. But I like caravans better.
"If you kids don't cut it out I'm turning this space ship right around!" 😂😅
😎🤖
That thumbnail was beautiful. I love pictures like that, which provoke thought and hope for the future.
They're often what inspire the episodes too.
Looks like the Yamato/Argo from Space Battleship Yamato/Starblazers.
Something to consider when discussing a million Oniel Cylinders vs a single planet: Terraforming is one of those things that takes a LONG time to provide any real benefit. On the other hand, you can build one artificial habitat and use that as a jumping-off point for the next habitat. People inside a habitat likely have a better standard of living than folks on a planet being terraformed. Also, if you have a million habitats and one gets taken out by a rogue comet or industrial accident, you lose a millionth of your people and resources. If such a thing happened on a planet, you might lose much more. If one habitat developed some sort of illness, it could be isolated to reduce the spread. This is something else that is difficult to do on a typical planet.
As said often on this channel in a space habitat if you don't like your neighbourhood then you can just move.
Not to mention, a spacestead would be easier to evacuate if need be, or moved out of the way.
that said each individual habitat is more susceptible to impacts from space debris, requires more repairs than a planet, and can more quickly become a dangerous environment than a planet.
It is for example easier for a terrorist to poison the entire atmosphere of a space habitat than the atmosphere of a smilarily sized community on a larger planet
@@mme.veronica735 Negative much there. Could you try some positivity.
that "sending digitized people at the speed of light":
do you think you could send a "sentient message" by entangling the photons that make up the engram in such a way that they can keep calculating on the way?
I'm torn between "that'd be really boring without inputs" and "time would stand still anyway", but the thought of being a bundle of light whizzing through the universe and getting some work done while travelling is a bit intriguing
Can you imagine what kind of mythical, heroic figure Isaac Arthur himself would be to this crew in 3434? There might be thousands of planets and several species named after him by then. Personally I plan to take my uploaded consciousness to explore the Arthur-7 galaxy, to see if anyone there knows what the first rule of warfare is.
that made me giggle. :)
given how prone we are to re-writing folks in confused an exaggerated fashion, I should imagine if the future recalls me at all it won't likely bare much resemblance :)
@@isaacarthurSFIA Unless you or a decent chunk of people who interacted with you live well into that future.
@@isaacarthurSFIA Maybe, but nowadays we have video evidence, and you in particular have put out many hours of yourself for the future to look back on.
@@isaacarthurSFIAFirst Star Lord Asimov.
I have two space nomad concepts, both playing on a similar theme of peoples looking for a promised land but finding all the viable territory they could reach occupied. The first is just a smaller part of a long tapestry of galactic history, who escaped some approaching calamity sweeping through the galaxy, taking a long parabolic flight above the disk and slowly back in when the danger has passed, finding every likely spot to settle down occupied. Eventually a faction within this civilization gave up on the endless journey and took a planet from someone else instead, creating a system between terrestrial and nomad.
Second concept is Void Nomads. Early sleeper ship colonists on automated ships who weren't expected to survive the travel time, under the assumption that the ships with their machines would continue to the destination and start building the infrastructure for later colonization efforts. unexpected was the governing machine intelligence catching wise to the intend to let everyone die in transit and prioritized the safety of the colonists over the end results of the mission. fast forward a very, very long time and they are a culture of human minds in machine ship bodies, mechanical hunter gatherers keeping to the ort clouds and extra solar debris, always moving, always staying hidden from the star dwellers. A deep cultual betrayal never truly forgotten
Bro go right a book that’s actually amazing thought. I’m being 100% serious that’s not just silly jokes that sounds more interesting and is actually a new idea unlike 99% of sci-fi
I know this isn’t the place for drug/alcohol talk, but I’m currently coming back to sobriety for the first time ever and listening to this video, I was finally able to relax and I really wanted to thank you sir.
And when I needed this channel the most you drop a video on what I'm most interested in.
Best way to conk out right at the end of a chill weekend. Thanks again!
Subscription model for space colonization. The more you pay/earlier you pay it, the more real estate you'll get in space starting in system then beyond
I've been developing a story setting around a nomadic megastructure so this video is great timing for me.
I remember a sci-fi novel series I read (Perry Rhodan) thinking about this in conjuction with "gardening" fleets... just that the "fleets" (they were referred to as swarms) consisted of a few thousand star systems each and did the gardening on intergalactic scales. So they were, literally, "stellar" nomads running around with star systems in their pockets.
I love the fact that the image at 3:02 includes several 'Eagles' from Space:1999....great retro there, Isaac
He always use 2001 ship when showing Jupiter
@@altha2008 Ya, but the Discovery is ubiquitous...everyone knows it. The Eagles are much less well known ship.
The fact is, the earth itself is spaceship that you can not control where it go, yet
Not really,we need the sun,better to move the whole solar system
@@Firm-Tofu-KingWe could move it to another Star. Might be rocky for a bit but it may be possible to ride it out while we travel to it.
Agreed. But before we could move it, we'd need to master electromagnetism and fusion/fission to the point we can make a drone-star. It's cold out beyond Sol. And, I suspect that the oort cloud is not a cloud, it's what the interstellar medium is. We only see what Sol shines on. That said, it would be smarter to remain within the suns protection and devise means to move the whole system. But, fun speculation aside, it's unlikely humans will survive to accomplish such things, as we're too busy killing and hating each other. Too busy ruining our reproductive powers with insane mentalities...
We'd need to figure out how to move our own star. Then it'll be as simple as waiting for our home system to approach a star cluster, where our Empire awaits.
The Planet knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation...
Goddamnit Isaac, I was just jotting a few of these ideas down for a ttrpg.
Reminds me of the Vasari in Sins of a Solar Empire, a migrant fleet fleeing from a terrifying unknown enemy for ten thousand years until they reach human space. They leave beacons behind to know when the enemy has reached that point when they are silenced.
20:30 such a plot was described in Harry Harrison's fantastic short story "Final Encounter"
When you write a scholarly paper, you don't generally want to use a name like "Buzz"-unless you ARE Buzz.
في المستقبل البعيد وبفضل التكنولوجيا المتقدمة سوف يصنع الإنسان كواكب عن طريقة تجميع الصخور مع بعضها البعض مثل عملية تشكل الكواكب والنجوم عن طريق روبوتات متطورة للغاية أيضا يقوم بتدوير النفايات الكوكبية بحيث لا يوجد أثر على البيئة والفضاء.
No because by that time there won't be any more humans left. Either extinct as a species that is organic or too evolved/bio tera formed
Wall-E
Ai images hit Isaac's channel like Crack in the 90's, and I'm all for it. They've really improved visualization.
I'm still worried about stray pebbles travelling at thousands of miles per hour shooting holes in the Hulls, and people are imagining entire civilizations aboard starships. How could we prevent ships from being damaged or destroyed by high-speed space debris?
Making the hull really thick? Maybe tens of meters, if we're talking about interstellar generation ships.
3:03 - love the Space 1999 ships in that screen shot
Stellar Nomad is basically space trucking. That is example from the science fiction film, Alien.
I don't think so. In Aliens, they were just doing a paid job. Hauling freight from one particular place to another well defined place. True stellar nomads take their entire civilisation with them and probably never go back. Maybe they can find nice planets and settle there. Maybe they just keep travelling without a plan, only stopping in a star system to replenish their resources.
Good as usual. A couple of ideas occurred to me here, that I freely share.
The first is the idea, assuming you believe there are other intelligences out there, that First Contact might come in the form of interstellar nomads/traders coming into the Solar system. There is a whole lot of stuff you could load onto stories around that.
The second one was the thought of Cyclers. Myself I think of them as massive ladder of bed frame with small thrusters attached. You can then take anything from an ore ship, or even just a great glob of ore, to cruise ships strap it to the bed frame; and pay for your passage with thrust or even basic maintenance of the bed frame.
These could spend centuries doing loops between Earth and Mars or the outer planets. When they lose their usefulness, you sell them as the base frame for an Interstellar Nomad ship.
I like the Space 1999 imagery @3:15. Not often I see the old practical Eagle design depicted anywhere.
"So say we all" or "Keelah Se'lai" would be my greeting to fellow traveller as a joke.
nomadic asteroid miners will be called dwarves and eventually they'll start resembling them
But will they resemble mountain dwarves or hill dwarves?
do I hear a rock and stone?
Assuming lower gravity... will generate giants... you're wrong... although in the future you may control gravity artificially in that case you can control however you want to look also using other techs..
They might develop a love of rock and stone
@@totally...124 top 10 mysteries of the universe science still can't answer
Thumbs up for the space 1999 eagles!
This makes for good sci-fi writing.
I cant even imagine 21:00
It would be a shock to go from M2 to M42.
Unfathomably, from M2 to M502 would be like coming back to fungi being sentient and taking over humanity on earth, or seeing an earth sized stone that used to be the our birthworld.
Battlestar Galactica, naturally I thought of you!
but then,
I thought of the Travelers from Star Gate Atlantis and the hidden caravan civilizations Elizabeth Weir spoke of that she found after she had "ascended".
Something I've wondered about the Aldrin cycler: doesn't it require just as much total thrust to get your cargo up to docking velocity with the cycler as it would to get it into the transit orbit of the cycler? And then the same amount to move from the cycler to destination as it would to deorbit from your own transit?
It feels like the cycler doesn't actually save you anything on thrust, and the only difference between riding the cycler to Mars and going there yourself is the option of having amenities on the cycler that only have to be accelerated to the transit once. Though anything used on the cycler that is not perfectly recycled will still have to be shoved up to docking. Which means that if you have a crew in the cycler, keeping them supplied could severely reduce the efficiency of the idea compared to just sending individual ships. And of course the cycler is useless for cargo shipping.
The way I see it, every time other than the first time, it saves you the mass of acceleration for the habitation module for the extended trip.
All you need to boost is the launch/catch up module, the decelararion/landing module, and consumables for the trip.
As for cargo you could pick-up concreted ores & refine them or produce goods . Value adding is profit.
@@jackdbur not sure that the value added comes close to the costs of getting a manufacturing system and all it's upkeep up to transit compared to just launching dumb cargo and doing the manufacturing at station. There's a huge number of advantages that unmanned cargo has above anything manned, that I think far outweigh the minor potential advantage of working while shipping.
I have a sci-fi narrative im writing that centers on a civilization of space nomads. It exists in a space opera setting somewhere between soft and hard sci-fi, so there's aliens and FTL and a bunch of other genre staples but I've still tried to make it grounded.
One of their cultural cornerstones is the belief that they were exiled from Earth and this is some sort of generational penance. While most are spacefaring, some are sea-faring, or have massive moving cities of land-ships on planetary bodies, etc.
One the ways they deal with population growth is that fleets will occasionally split apart or have smaller "daughter fleets" form that leave the nest so to speak. But they don't just get members from population growth, as they're more than willing to let other people join them as long as they contribute to the fleet.
3:18 Eagles? Darn? Those things ARE useful!
i literally dream of being a stellar nomad with roving plot of earth and a teepee shaped soace craft that folds down when moving and exxpands when settled
Examples of parapetic nomads in popculture
1. Tyko station (expance universe)
2. Quarrians (mass effect)
There is ONE alien civilisation who are stellar nomads in science fiction I immediately had to think about: the Cygnans.
In the scifi novel The Jupiter Theft, written by Donald Moffitt in 1977, a large object close to lightspeed arrives in our solar system, slows down and stops at Jupiter. A human spaceship is dispatched and discovers an alien fleet of huge ships. The aliens use gas giants as fuel for their interstellar drive. The giant they used is now depleted, and to the Cygnans, Jupiter seems to be a very nice replacement...
1hr into work and the feed notified me. Great way to start the work day
I can see a tiny chance an alien nomad might come and go too our system once in the future. Or we find dril bits on moons as they were already came and gone ages ago.
I could see a fleet of Terraforming experts working as parapotetic nomads, doing spiraling laps around the frontier to start/upkeep projects as civilization expands. Sure Terraforming isn't really worth it for colonists to do themselves, but if a star system has a potential earth-like planet, there wouldn't be much harm in Terraforming it as a back burner side project.
The FGC of the Aeon 14 universe teraformers in mega ships that ever expand outwards from earth planting earth like planets in solar systems
Great episode as always. I think your reference to Reynolds is appropriate, although in a different context than House of Suns. I think the Ultras in Revelation Space may well be the future of humanity travelling between the stars. Adapted for hard vacuum, largely machines with a barest trace of biology, etc… all very thought provoking.
Anyone else really want to hear a video where Mr. Arthur does his thoughts and scientific review on common Sci-Fi games like arc, no man sky, halo etc?
I think it'd be fascinating to hear his amazing "yes it's fiction... but it might not have to be!" on the concepts, or science takes on things like interplanetary distances etc.
I think the best nomadic base could be the current Alpha Proxima. Travel there, build up a collection of habitats and a fleet of collier ships, then set the whole system on course for the next place. Why live in stasis if you can build whole worlds and take your star with you!
Wht about The Festival in Charles Stross' Singularity Sky? Everyone was kept digitally and brought online when needed so much less mass and life support overhead
Great novel
They arent just good nomads. They're stellar nomads
its the best way. why bother setting up more than essential facilities on a doomed planet if you have a spacefaring civilization.
Another refresh into a brand new video of yours; I guess you just upload whenever I get off work or something...
Well done as always
I thought that the soil depth in a cylinder would be no more than 10 meters or so.
Ships could carry data. A databank could be physically delivered to another solar system, or dropped off to beam the data to recipients, or the ship could do data transfer if the beamwidth existed.
Everything known or produced on one planet could be transferred to every other.
Another episode that makes me go back to my setting notes and make updates…
When will the lore video connecting all of the lore characters be made?
The most important thing when traveling across the stars is to not go mad, for this reason the greatest travelers will be no-mads
Your episodes share a consistent vision for the future, one which I think is unlikely, in that the Milky Way will probably take several million years to colonize a significant chunk of. We're reaching the point where technology is no longer advancing exponentially, and colonization is likely to be extremely slow, even with FTL. Starting from scratch is very hard, as indicated by the fact we don't even have a moon base yet.
!altered carbon mentioned!
if you need a modern example of peripatetic nomads, look towards the disaster repair field
many many people travel with hail storms and fix roofs and cars
Another superb Sunday episode Isaac.
Like the Space 1999 transporter at 3:32....
Noted a small false assumption that the bigger the ship the slower it is. with chemical/ionic propulsion yes, but let's be honest these won't get us nowhere. For the sake of argument, imagine that we have a ship engine based on something akin to a collider, and the bigger the collider is the higher the speed, or, may be a type of engine that produces acceleration proportional to volume(mass)/surface ratio, same result, you got the idea
General Breedlove's logic is inescapable.
The solution to FTL and large space habitats can fly interstellar travel is cross train lawyers with the appropriate science skills and mention how big their per hour billable pay could be. They will find the ways and the loopholes in the rules. I just do not have the headolgy skills to organize it all.
Yes but you have enough to think of it.
Underwater cruise vessels will have a whole new kind of SUBculture.
Can we be sure plant life is not one of those technology steps towards the computer civilization living at the end of time? They seem very chill and are mindlike. Each branch a thought form.
I know people from the midwest that have never left their state but one or twice in their life. enter the recycler space life. The moon space station project currently in place has a Cycler type orbit of 6 days coming part way of the distance.
Long-term nomadic, interstellar travel as a foundation of a civilization seems exceptionally prone to issues.
- Neanderthal-lvl civiliz. poppin up nearby, reaching K1, and then traveling to the next set of systems on your route (claiming them, and denying you access to even Kuiper Bet resources)...in fraction of the time it takes your civil to reach those desto star systems (after departing the previous set you were in).
- Hostiles that you may have tangled w/ in a prev. set of systems could advance enough to communicate with their neighboring civilizations/colonies, build a mega fleet of vogon ships; arrive at ur desto systems, (and rather than denying you access to resources) they just vaporize your fleet using some sort of megaweapon (a la photoids in Death's End, where they alter fundamental physics of your target, a la turning 3D-->2D). So you may not even have chance to fight, as you'd be going your 0.1-0.5c and can't just 'hit the brakes'.
Wander long enough, and its not just the local stellar group or even quadrant of the galaxy but the entire local galactic cluster could be settled as a few K2 civilizations achieve K3 status and QUICKLY colonize majority of not just their local galaxy but dozens within the cluster. SUDDENLY you have nowhere to 'wander' recklessly, and even the 'frontier' of whole new galaxies (that are otherwise largely unsettled wilds with no/few K1 civilizations in them).
THIS IS AN ISSUE: back to those K2/K3s controlling the galaxy, getting tired of "those wandering space gypsies", and using megaweapons to wipe out ur traveling civilization from multiple directions (at once). EVEN IF they didn't wipe you out, the pace at which they may expand (lets say nearest unsettled galaxy is 10x galaxy 'hop's away). Those K2/K3s that have already settled (even partially) a couple of those galaxies in between the one you're in, and that desto one...well they'll be able to reach that galaxy, completely colonize it LONG BEFORE you ever get close to it.
You wouldn't even necessarily have option to be "exiled, wandering the intergalactic space" bcuz IF those K3s can settle even a few galaxies; they're going to settle EVERY extragalactic star system, rogue planet etc between those galaxies. You'd be well and truly FVCKed.
Its not to say the size of your nomadic civilization couldn't number in the 10s of millions of 100km long starships...It easily could. 1-2 star systems the size of ours, just grinding up a few Earths/SuperEarths and you'd have enough material for a fleet this size.
The Issue is that any 'sedentary' K2 civilization could well, and truly convert dozens of star systems (via automated self-replicating miner/MFGer drones) into a fleet of 100s of billions of of Imperial Star Destroyer/Star Dreadnaughts. Entirely staffed by droids, or supersoldier clones; having enough interplanetary nukes to turn a planet into molten slag, etc
...Being nomadic is just 'hazardous' at galactic/intergalactic scales; whether you're biologically immortal, post-biologic, purely digital. Doesn't matter. You'd always be the "big fish, from a small pond, drowning in an ocean full of sharks'
You just described how nomadism became unfeasible on Earth as agriculture expanded. But note that it took 10k years for agriculture to outpace nomadism. Analogously it might be millions or billions of years before stellar nomadism becomes unviable.
Not to mention, I see little logical reason why all/many post scarcity K2 civs or even a K3 might be against nomads except for personal or group animosity. They would be valuable for cultural exchange and trade between stars.
@@duckpotat9818 Very good point. I hadn't entirely made thought about the anology while writing OP, but you're right, it was something like 10k years between Ur/Mesopotamia (1st agrarian soceity) and 19-20th century closing of 'frontiers' and fully claiming all lands (and preventing nomadic lifestyle).
It can be hard to go into in a post, but I also agree. It wouldn't be a 100% for-sure that K2/3 civs would be anti-nomads; but considering the hurdle of 'trust' between 2 alien species (can they lie like us? do they have our emotions and value life at all? do they have any ethics? etc)...I would suspect such things in short term (1000s of years) would be a true hurdle in a galaxy that is rapidly being colonized by K2/K3s..
Ofc, if the galaxy is pretty lifeless and great filters really do limit ability to reach K2/K3, then nomadism could exist for 100s of millions of years. Long-term though, IF they understand universe (fighting heat death/entropy, galaxies becoming farther apart), surviving all this would entice a late-stage K2/3 to be somewhat sedentary and 'build their entropy bunker' somwhere.
Cultural exchange is an interesting notion between truly alien species (back to common ground, basic understanding/empathy/morals etc)...If humans had all this, but aliens didn't their 'childrens stories' could seem like ravings of a detached psychopathic serial killer/cannibal. We'd read the stories and be like "nope, we see little value in your 'cultural' library".
Trade is interesting as well: Yes K1/K2s would probably trade, but if you can settle not just 10 or 100, but 10mil star systems...do you really 'need' anything somebody else may have? Even your late-stage tech will be tailor-made to each system/planet/environment, to trade it would have to be in scientific information: to assess "what have they discovered/tried that we haven't"...
ALTHO HERE is where nomadic K2 could be superior to a galaxy full of sedentary (and mostly isolationist K2s)...IF they could travel between all the empires and trade in info, they'd become "the source of all information", a nomadic repository of knowledge...Whereas a regular K2 might border with 5-10 others, the nomads could regular visit all 100 K2s in the galaxy: neutrality/scientific advancement being their 'selling point' to entice empires to permit them to traverse their space.
@@djdrack4681 cultural exchange doesn’t have to be between two truly alien species but could also be amongst humans who settled other stars. Ofc they would be very alien but still relatable enough.
Trade wouldn’t be for raw materials and basic goods but could definitely be for luxury items.
Maybe objects from Earth hold a lot of symbolic value. Maybe Europa is known for its sea food. Some people might pay a premium for such things.
@@duckpotat9818 you make a good point. When a K2 civilization gets big enough, humans would be 'evolving' or post-biologic or augmented and quickly become Human Type X (Tau Ceti variant). etc.
I was just pointing out that aside from cultural exchange in different branches of your original species, it could be (and ideally so) not possible or practical to do so.
Sentimental/'authenticate' trade would be interesting. a la star trek "This is real highland scotch, not that replicated stuff".
I could see that if our civilization reached a point where transport/mass isn't an issue: The 'stores' that would stuck such stuff would have a nightmare of a logistics/supply chain issue ("Order 123: ETA 10,456yrs).
I will never understand those who need a reason to exist, and I will never need to, as they won't be around long enough for me to care about it - Eldritch entity probably.
I would love to be a worldbuilding nomad. Kinda like a game developer, but building interesting worlds with maybe puzzles and stories and then just… leave them. Move on to the next system, so that someone else might find the world and enjoy it :)
I loved an idea explored in the three body problem book, nomads travelling closer and closer to the speed of light, with the aim to reach the end of the universe, not in distance but in time
I’m not sure why, but I haven’t seen one of your videos in months. They just slowly stopped showing up on my recommended untill I just forgot about them, weird. But on the other hand I have an even bigger backlog of videos to binge now so all well that ends well
I love your videos, always an experience. Great ideas, explored in a great way. Thank you.
As always, good stuff for the mind.. keep us thinking
In the year 2424, there was a question asked. LoL
Awesome episode Isaac and team!
8:58 Send something to build that thing to hold a copy of your mind? An entity within one won't like your mind crowding in, taking over, and enslaving or killing them as a parasite insect have.
Hey Isaac. Your productions have always been very interesting and entertaining. I finally decided to comment and let you know. You obviously put in a significant amount of time and effort into them. Keep up the great work! Ps. Where in the heck do you get all the videos you use?
I'd love to see an episode devoted to Aldrin cyclers and Martin Lo's Interplanetary Superhighway concept.
I wrote one on aldrin cycles but it's sitting in the reserve queue to finish, probably next year sometime
I was just starting to feel very uncomfortable, almost dizzy with existential dread, at the idea of sending a thousand digital copies of a person on million year journey’s only to be merged into one. Then you said “This doesn’t sound like a great way to preserve your sanity.” I almost laughed out loud, relieved that I wasn’t alone in my reaction to the concept
You bless every Sunday with your prescence Isaac :)
Ultimately Stars are Nomads to.
Everything is in motion
Mind blown.
@@lgjm5562 watch a video on the great attractor
I'm going to say something like this to you and I hope you like this one. I love the way you talk, and please don't worry. I don't want you to stop talking with me as I have gotten used to it and I thank God for you.
Oneill cylinders are so often mentioned but I think a ringworld is always a better option. No we can't build a ringworld yet but neither can we build an Oneill Cylinder.
Actually
One is possible now the other requires us to invent stronger materials.
Stanford toruses would be better.
The Eldar....
Incogni neeeeeeeeeeeeeeds a mascot.
And that would be Incogni Joe of course!
In the future , nomads may transport people from dangerous star systems , to other safer systems - like this one.
Yes i travel from system to system, converting raw metals and minerals into early 21st century retro gaming machines, offloading millions of computers and peripherals at each system.
In this way, the ewaste of every planet near sol looks the same
The Nomads will never escape the Missiles of the IA Algorithm.
If FTL never becomes possible, I think for the sake of humanity there needs to be an intentional effort to preserve a language. Simply for the shear time tables inter stellar travel would require, over countless generations. Otherwise you'd arrive somewhere find some other humans, and have trouble figuring out what each other is saying.
If you are patient enough, you can travel around the galaxy without getting up from your couch.
That was a really cool thumbnail
It's scary,imagine we need to somehow extract resources from space before 🌎 resources run out
The first space nomads will ride the cycler between Earth orbit and Mars orbit. The hyper gravity vehicle castle ship would be used to move people and goods. Three transfer ships to have one waiting at Earth and Mars to exchange with the ship from the castle yearly to carry the needed goods and people who sell the not so needed goods. The Nomads would be the people who work and live on the hypergravity vehicle habitat AKA castle ship.
The first castle ship would not be too big, but with the shielding around the cars riding the rail in a circle to create the 50% 1G of hypergravity. The castle ship stretches over 200 meters (about two football fields past the goal posts.) The average adult would survive living in 50% Erath Gravity, but after a year it would be difficult to return to Earth.
A Month stay in the 1G habitat on Mars, for the growing children, wouldn’t help because the cycler used between Earth and Mars takes a year. Space Nomads need annual calcium shot and daily steroids with a run twice a day around the castle ship...
‘So why isn’t the Hypergravity ship spinning at 1G?’
It probably would???
They're watching us.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be born early enough to experience life on Earth prior to human colonization of space. In saying that though, I am very upset that I likely won’t live long enough to be a space nomad.
Harvesting and selling my data is still better than doing the same with my organs.
Stellar Nomads? The last species I know of that were described as that were...
The Qu
Truly glorious