World ships have already proven to be a disaster, both for the planet they leave and the planet they arrive on.

Just read Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Adams, Douglas.

We're just a buncha Golgafrinchan hairdressers and telephone sanitisers.

Cool!

I like this thread, very far-out, yet, not freaky.

Do you think we would need a "sun" or Pseudo-sun?

I'm assuming our energy source would be Nuclear...in the form of Fusion.
So those bugs would have to be worked out.

If we decide to make it Moon sized, why not "supersize" it further?

Take Mars for it's terrestrialness, and Europa, for it's Wetness.
We'd have to break them loose from their current orbits first, then combine them, without smashing them into each other..( a little brainstorming from others would help me out with this idea, hint hint)


Make them Co-orbital, like Pluto and Charon..Swinging around each other, with a common center of graivty. (place Pseudo-Sun here)

ok, thats what I have so far..

This is a cool freakin' thread! Thanks to its author. I read through this and I gots sum ideas.....

It's a BIG ship, but it's still a ship. It was built and set adrift to wander the stars. There were some assumptions made that I feel are short-sighted. Why would you get on a ship that you can't leave? Or better yet, if you can't leave, how did you get on it? It's a ship, but a huge one. I'm sure that there would be smaller craft for exploring and searching for resources. You could scoop up hydrogen, comets, asteroids, etc. and mine them for what you need. I see this as a way of exploring without being necessarily tied to your homeworld. Maybe its a replacement for your homeworld. Either way I don't see this as a trap that some of you see it to be. You can move it. If it has the ability for FTL travel, than it can probably be any size. Theoretically the energy needed for FTL is obnoxiously huge, so if you have that kind of power at your reach- what does size matter? Smaller ships could scout for the things needed and the same ships could be used to get off the city/world ship for all the required needs of it's populace. No?

It seems like the city the city would just be on a "survive at all costs" mission. This wound not be as exciting as some of you think, its a pointless endless jouney.

Tell me what the point is, if you actually beleive ion this idea?

Think of a asteroid 2x2x5 miles, how much space do you have once it is mined and hollowed out? You could fit MILLIONS in it along with parks, lakes, etc. You would need at least fusion power and even better anti-matter but that should be a snap for a race 2-3 million years old. You could roam the Gallaxy dropping off colonists on habitable planets so no one would be forced to stay on the ship as a matter of fact after a while it would be hard to get anyone to leave. Who would want to leave the luxury of your "world" for the hazards of living on a planet?

I think this might be the way to go. You would have the "Ship" which would be the "mother" of thousands or millions of planets. Think of the science these people would have. A society with an unbroken line of 2-3 million years of scientific advancements. No war, disease, famine, etc.

Not just the "home" ship but thousands of smaller ships exploring ahead and mining behind the "mother ship"

Damn I am ready to go

I don't think it's on a survive at all costs mission. It could be a vast vehicle of exploration capable of genrating it's own crew. This is known as a "generation ship." A whole ship containg all the cultures of a world and its' ideas. the universe is a big place and this type of self-sustaining craft would free it of needing a place to land or any specific place to resupply. All of its' resources available all around it. Of course this all depends on how big it is and if ti has any real mission other than the life support of a particuliar civilization. Maybe it's that big because it is not capable of FTL travel, and the room would be needed to support a breeding population of explorers.

What is the point of living on earth? A planet with a finite amout of resources and under constant threat of a huge asteroid wiping it out or another Ice age or greenhouse effect, etc.

I think most are thinking to small I am talking HUGE. To those in the "city" it would not be something they longed to escape from and for those that do they could be droped off on any suitable planet. Terra-forming would be a snap for these people they could seed the human race throughout the gallaxy

I think you might be missing the point. As Amuk has pointed out, you would probably have access to just about everything that you do now, except maybe clouds, a good rainstorm or blue skies. Also as Amuk stated, the technology would probably make survival much, much easier. Life on such a generational ship would probably be far simpler than the lives that we know.

Keep in mind, that this conversation began on another thread. The idea was that maybe our "visitors" don't actually come from a planet. Maybe they abandoned such a primative lifestyle long ago in exchange for a far more sophisticated, controlable and reliable ecosystem.

I too would have my bags packed in under thirty minutes if invited to join such a community.

I always found the ideal of a ship like this interesting. I always thought of it something like Noah's ark a seed ship. Say we found a planet that was right for earth life but it was really far away. A huge ship could be constructed that could carry the DNA of all the lifeforms on earth to the new planet. Perhaps even lifeforms in suspended animation waiting for the right time to wake up. If you could do either of these things it would be alot easier to make the craft and supply it.

If the speed of light can never be bent in anyway this might be the only way humans can ever spread out in the galaxy.

Why bother with the DNA? This ship would bring the entire civiliation to every solar system in the gallaxy.

I was just thinking a ship that carried only DNA would have to be only a fraction of the size of a World ship but could have the same result in the end.

Not really the ENTIRE point of the ship is to free the species from any one planet. It would carry much more than our DNA it would carry our culture, our science, US.

This entire thread makes the concept that Earth is a giant ant farm sound more plausible. Hell, if ever we decide to leave this place for a generational ship and had no intention of returning to life on a planet... then we might seed life on other planets for experiments... respect for life... or maybe just for fun

I guess no one likes my Planet hijacking idea?

Thats ok....I'll just do it myself!

Sorry, I think the idea is to get off of these rocks

Then you didn't read it!
Thats precisely what the idea is!

Other than being extremely Grandiose, it's no different than building a ship...
Two co-orbiting bodies, with a central energy source...Moving through space..

A fake sun would waste to much energy, 99.999999% or the suns energy is wasted it would be better to shrink it down to large asteroid size with an internal energy source thereby cutting down the energy requirements drastically.

[edit on 8-11-2004 by Amuk]

Amuk, I agree..

I was thinking about this today..And would change the idea, to be a Directed energy Fusion reactor...Pointing at the 2 orbiting bodies....Narrow beams of sunlight, with no waste leaking in the other directions....Easy enough to say. but...hmmm..

That would be better, like two flashlights pointed at the planets, that would cut down on waste. I still like the "world ship" Idea better

God bless you sir. I was going to make this joke myself


At any rate, I think worldships could be used for extreme good or extreme... well, I don't want to say evil, but bad things could happen.

Read the Hitchhiker's trilogy, as Howlrunner mentioned, or check out the early adventures of Hope Hubris in Piers Anthony's series "Biography of a Space Tyrant".

And, what's more... does the rest of the universe really want humans floating around in it?