Last chance to evacuate Earth...

[Trollheart]

I watched this really unsettling documentary about what would happen if Earth had to be evacuated. It really opened my eyes and also worried me a little. They spoke of this neutron star approaching Earth. It's unstoppable. It will destroy Earth. In this scenario it would get here in 75 years, so we build a spaceship, an ark that will take us to new worlds.

All well and good so far. BUT only so many people can fit on the ark, and they obviously want the best people to be able to propagate on the eighty-some years journey, and for their children to be able to colonise the new world.

So here are my questions: what is it, if anything, about you that you think would secure you a place on the Ark? I'd be screwed, I know: all I'm good at is writing and being able to take care of someone disabled, and neither are done in any sort of professional capacity. Anyway, my sis could not go, being disabled and I'd be damned if I'd leave her. I personally would buy some pills that we could take before the neutron star got here, because believe me, death will not come easy if you wait. This thing is literally going to tear our planet apart and vapourise it.

But what would YOU do? And if you couldn't get a seat, how would you face being left behind? What would you think? Should at least some humans make it off the planet, and how would you feel then that they are, quite literally, leaving you behind to die? What about a lottery? Would that be fair? And what about the rich scum who are no doubt going to bribe their way onboard?

Would you accept it and let the thing go ahead, or would you riot, try and destroy it, attack people who were chosen? How easy, or not, would it be for you to face death, knowing others are going to live, pretty much at your expense? And if you DID get a place on the ship, how do you think you'd feel, watching your planet explode into gaseous nothingness as you leave?

I'm interested as to how people think they'd react.


Oh yeah: the above, though it could happen, is just a fiction, a possible scenario for the future, but this bit is actually being considered: the serious plan to power the ship is to have nuclear devices detonated behind it, one every three seconds, in order to get up close to a fraction of the speed of light. How do you feel about that? Our first venture out into space and we're going to pollute it with radiation! Go Mankind!

[Stephen]

Load it with bankers and shoot them at light speed into the nearest black hole. It won't solve much but at least it makes for some doomsday entertainment. And let's face it, you know it's only the mega-wealthy who are getting on board that thing.

Frankly I don't know that the human race is that deserving of a second chance. It's just a shame for the rest of the planet that it doesn't get another chance at a human-free world before it's demise. As for the irradiation of space I imagine there's already a fair bit of it out there. Still, talk about burning your bridges.

Next question... how are they going to steer at that speed?

[14232949]

I wouldn't worry, we're all likely going to be dead.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

I watched this really unsettling documentary

Admit it, that was Treehouse of Horror!

[Trollheart]

Yeah, I wish. Really, it was quite scary. As you say, who says we should get a second chance? But the idea of leaving millions of us behind while the "chosen few" feck off into the stars? And they really don't think the shipyards/factories wouldn't be bombed, attacked, wrecked? Best of luck. I'll be happy to end my days with someone I love, knowing I did my best and that we both took a painless way out. Real pity about the planet, though if you watch the doc it says it may end up as a ring of material around the n/s, so maybe it'll survive in one way or another. Couldn't do any worse than it has under our so-called stewardship!

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

But what would YOU do?

Telephone sanitiser?

Originally Posted by Trollheart

And if you couldn't get a seat, how would you face being left behind? What would you think? Should at least some humans make it off the planet, and how would you feel then that they are, quite literally, leaving you behind to die? What about a lottery? Would that be fair? And what about the rich scum who are no doubt going to bribe their way onboard?

Would you accept it and let the thing go ahead, or would you riot, try and destroy it, attack people who were chosen? How easy, or not, would it be for you to face death, knowing others are going to live, pretty much at your expense? And if you DID get a place on the ship, how do you think you'd feel, watching your planet explode into gaseous nothingness as you leave?

I think I would be pretty fatalistic. I would certainly want to make the whole thing easier for my kids. (Of course in 75 years they will be in their eighties and I will be long gone but let's ignore that for now.) If they wanted to go I would do whatever I could to secure their place, if not I would try to help them cope with their impending doom. I imagine an approaching star would make life pretty difficult long before any impact. I do grieve on occasion at the thought of Earth's eventual destruction when our own star burns out. Not so much for me but for life in general. There's just so much amazing life here on Earth it hurts to think how fragile and inconsequential it all is on a cosmic scale.

[P A N]

i think i would probably just watch. i'd save up money for like 3 decades just to buy a sick telescope and just watch it coming. the OP states that it would be a rather torturous death, but i think it would actually be relatively quick... certainly quicker than dying from cancer or something of the sort, anyway. there is no way that i could secure a spot on that thing. a neutron star (correct me if i'm wrong) is a star that has collapsed in on itself and has a density and gravity many thousands of times greater than that of a normal star or planet. as soon as it gets close enough to have any effect at all, it's probably going to be over relatively quickly. i would try to have a spot on top of a small mountain and make sure i had a good assortment of drugs and the best wine known to man, and raise my riedel to oblivion. nature is beautiful. what an honour it would be to even bear witness to a single moment of such monumental celestial change. pitch me into space or swallow me down into the core of the earth. either way, one hell of a way to go out.

as far as what i would think about being left behind, i'd rather be left behind. given, i would probably get on the ark if they invited me, but the unprecedented nature of the experiment is pretty much doomed and it would result in a wretched death, probably wrought with scenes of disease and cannibalism. if this was part of a 500- or 1000- year program with a background, i might feel more inclined to have more hope for it, but 75 years is not enough time to plan an 80 year trip at this point in our technological timeline. an 80 year space flight is pretty much synonymous with the ability to sustain life in space indefinitely and we are just way too far from that for me to entertain the idea that it's possible to pull this off. it's still going to be several years before we land on mars. LAND there. perhaps 100-500 years after we've done experiments in terraforming there i would consider this possible.

and even if it were possible, and even if by some miracle i did get a ticket, watching my planet explode from afar might be too much to bear. continuity of life is probably important, but i think i'd take one for the team on this one and just go down in the realm of familiarity and awe.

interesting thread trollheart. got my imagination going something fierce.

[Trollheart]

Some great replies there guys. You should probably watch the docu to get a sense of what would happen, and how unsettlingly real some of it is. I mean, a neutron star (you're right PAN, that's what it is basically) is NOT, so far as we know, approaching us yet (Come out of your shelter Batlord with all those metal albums and rocker chicks!) but it COULD, and they're laying plans for such an eventuality. I mean, they intend, at some point, to DO this if it needs to be done. Project New Horizon I think they're calling it. What bugs me most about it is that there was not even a smidgeon of discussion about the ethics of polluting space with nuclear radiation in order to provide ourselves a power source. All they were worried about was where would it come from and would we have enough, and could we protect ourselves from the blasts? I mean, three nuclear bombs PER SECOND? Do you have any idea what that is going to do to space? And we're just assuming there's no other life out there: there could be, and we could be endangering or even destroying it. Again, yay Mankind!

Though this would be a totally amazing premise for a TV series wouldn't it? If I had the contacts to pitch it I would; if I had the discipline to write the book I would. I'd see season one the building of the ship, the worry about who gets to go, the thing seen maybe through the eyes of those left behind versus the lucky few, maybe a family could be split up on that basis. Civil war across the Earth as the left-behinders try to wreck the plans to leave. New religions rise, one is called Fatalism and believes it is a sin to desert our planet and that God wants us all to die yada yada.

Then end of season one the ship is launched, Earth dies and for the next few seasons we're in space, facing all the challenges of a city/world in space, with people splitting into factions aboard the ship, law and order trying to be maintained (maybe one of the characters is a cop) and perhaps little wars breaking out across the ship and so on. Eventually the ship arrives and the next seasons take place on the new planet as Man tries to establish his new home.

Man, it could be huge! Where's Spielberg when you need him? Or JJ Abrams?

[Guybrush]

If we are to send a limited number of us out into space, then there's the potential of a bottle neck effect which means you can clean out a lot of our genes that way. That can lead to a very low genetic diversity in the colonists. If I designed such a project, one of the first things I would think of would probably be that we should try to include as rich a variety of good genes as possible and try not to bring along bad genes, like those leading to genetic diseases like sickle cell disease. In a small population, those can really start to crop up.

It is also important that the people going are social, empathic and wont to cooperate rather than cause conflict. This is because the shuttle environment itself might promote conflict and so it's important to send people who are less likely to react to it in such a way. And, of course, cooperation is necessary for successful completion of their mission with resulting establishment of a human colony somewhere else in space.

So I think the perfect participants should be varied in genetic heritage, very healthy (genetically, physically, mentally, socially) and have great social skills. Whether I would be a good candidate, I'm not quite sure, but at least I might be suitable as someone who likes to cooperate, gets along nicely with others and who is not likely to start conflicts. Imo

edit :

Of course, with a diverse heritage, the people going would also represent more of earth's global human population on their journey for survival. I'd root for them, even if I wasn't on board. My genes would have a lot of close family on that ship anyways.

[Janszoon]

One page in and we're already talking about eugenics.