Heck, sign me up. That's basically time travel to a future where presumably humanity has gotten its shit together if they're still around inventing better ships. I see no downsides.
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Exactly! If it were a generation ship however... That would've sucked.
Or you end up with the version of this from the Coriolis RPG setting where humanity collapsed into a second dark age in the time you were traveling, so now you're trying to bring it cultural enlightenment to the barbarians who have better tech but no idea how to properly build it maintain it.
It's a weird game.
Yeah that's literally getting to leave with a parade and arriving to being an instant celebrity.
This human being was around 3,000 years ago! They've traveled deep space through hypersleep! What mysteries do they have of the long forgotten and ancient past to reveal to us?
Also, here's all of your space credits from the $1.67 you left in your savings account. You're now a multi-trillionaire.
Also, here’s all of your space credits from the $1.67 you left in your savings account. You’re now a multi-trillionaire.
More likely the bank closed in the meantime
Narrator: Humanity did not get its shit together.
Horror movie idea, this concept but when the second humans arrive, they find the human civilization that got there first was wiped out before they got there and they don't know why.
Oh, wait, that's actually a great idea, write that shit bro and or broette
Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series is a lot along those lines.
Broette.
Follows the Toad & Toadette pattern. I dig it.
bro and or broette
Personally I quite like "bruh" as the gender-neutral version of "bro".
Nice. Being ~3040 years old will get me access to super ultra porn.
Oh fuck yeah. Super ultra porn? I'm so ready I already came.
After 3000 years, feeling the air will make you explode.
I really like how the web serial Sideways in Hyperspace handles this problem.
In short, the faster ships catch up with the slower generation ships, facilitating trade, arranging transport for those who want to leave, and allowing them to become extrasolar cities and stepping stones to the wider galaxy.
Damn this story looks cool as fuck. I wish there was an audiobook
Hell yeah! I don't have to do any work to teraform and colonize a planet!
People who sign up for missions like this are probably very excited to do the work.
Or very, very poor. ~~US military~~
Good news! You're heroes!
Bad news. Everyone's a hero, since it's a communist society where everyone is eager to add their own unique contribution to the common good. Everyone has a Hero! plaque on their wall.
Good news! You're in a communist society where everyone is eager to add their own unique contribution to the common good!
This problem is known as the wait calculation
The sensible way, of course, is to take this into account when planning your mission. Send ahead a big, slow, minimally crewed or autonomous spaceship, totally full to the brim with equipment, supplies, etc. Some years later, send your faster ship full of people and whatever newer technology you just can't do without, catch up and intercept the big slow boi, and then land to start your colony.
Isn't this the dream, though? You didn't have to experience any of that boring "building a society" bullshit, you get to jump straight to "living in the future".
I see what you mean, but I don't think you'll find consensus on this point. The whole of Robinson Crusoe literature and fiction is practically its own genre at this point. Heck, just check out how many views Primitive Technology has over on Youtube. I think the number of people that would eagerly bootstrap civilization on another planet is easily in the tens of millions, possibly more.
Not mine. I want to work 18 hours a day on difficult and high stress job that I literally cannot quit, getting paid in company scrip, only to spend my retirement (if I ever have such a thing) in an environment that's hopefully been made somewhat hospitable.
Children of Time is a 2015 science fiction novel by author Adrian Tchaikovsky. Similar idea; in the far future, an exhausted Earth sends out a fleet to try and terraform exoplanets. Problems arise...
Problems arise...
Bugs. It's bugs, lots of bugs. Super unique concept though.
In a dramatically less serious series with a similar theme, that's very aware of its cheesiness is The Galaxy's Edge series. Military sci-fi series where humanity has populated the galaxy using FTL tech developed 50 years after the richest and upper society tech billionaires/politicians abandon Earth on their own generation ships they used to dupe the rest of humanity to not bring them. Flash forward to current times and their generation ships are slowly catching up with the rest of humanity who leapfrogged them 6,000 years ago and they're the "Savages" now having done space Nazi experiments on their shipmates over the thousands of years in the void, while the rest of us built a galactic Republic.
But think of the adventure we'll go on.
There must be a Star Trek episode about that.
Edit: I guess "Space Seed" (where they find Khan) would count.
TNG: The Neutral Zone. 20th century humans are frozen, stored in space, and found by the Enterprise.
At least it wasn't a generation ship!
Egan's version.
Upload everybody on the ship.
Run time at whatever speed.
Rebuild bodies when you get there.
Advantages : tiny, simple ship. No flesh to squish under high acceleration.
And if you need a backup, just carve the data for your entire civilization into the bedrock of a planet.
This is kind of the plot of the Forever War. Because of time differential, the crew which reigned to earth between missions watches humanity evolve drastically from when they first left.
Welcome!
Also the stupidest subplot in Starfield. In a game full of stupid and lame, it takes the cake for dumb.
Tap for spoiler
This is how Interstellar ends
Kinda? In interstellar, the crew lives decades of earth-time while traveling space over what seems like a few years. The solution that is revealed when McConaughey returns is the result of decades of study spearheaded by his own daughter.
So it's a bit inverse in some ways.
Wasn't this a quest in Starfield?
This has been a trope in Sci Fi since basically forever.
Makes sense that it would show up in a thoroughly mediocre sci-fi game by a developer that never did sci-fi that wasn't based on an already existing franchise, then 😁