Galaxy as a Generation ship?

posted on September 14th, 2009, 12:12 am

Hmmm...

I agree Voyager proves nothing. Their general attitude wasn't that of a "generation ship", just a grim determination to get back home ASAP.

But the smoothness or roughness of Voyager's epic trek, or if they defeated an Armada of borg cubes with a pea shooter, has nothing to do with it. It's the crew's attitude. So your "points" are also off the mark.

posted on September 20th, 2009, 5:04 pm

One more thing to consider is the fact that a "generation" for humans is not the same as a "generation" for other species. For example, vulcans tend to get much older than humans. On Voyager, i´d say all of the vulcans would still be alive after 70 years. And even the humans would possibly be alive. I mean, how old is Janeway in the show, maybe around 40 ? That means she would be 110 years old when reaching federation space. Since Bones was 137 years old in mission farpoint (and cranky as ever), there´s no reason to assume someone more than 20 years younger would be senile or too weak to work in some capacity. Also i read somewhere here that Uhuru is head of starfleet intelligence even "now".

Far too often "established facts" of Star Trek contradict each other, sometimes it´s very funny to think about that.

posted on September 20th, 2009, 5:26 pm

I'm pretty sure that you can't extend the reproductive age of humans past your genetic frontier (i.e. even though fertility for men lasts into the 90's... damage is extensive, and best to have kids still way earlier. 40's is usually the maximum limit for such things).

posted on September 21st, 2009, 9:23 am

@Ashur

"Generation ship" is a concept, not a literal name. Besides that, a ship may be set on a travel to a galaxy distant 3000 years at warp speed. That would force even the Vulcans to have children (Pon' Farr in a ship? Yikes!).

@DN

You are right, of course. The reproductive age (at least for humans) has usually a very narrow window, regardless of life expectancy. And with good reason. Can you imagine a 90 year old Janeway running after a wayward son/daughter? Being a parent requires huge amounts of energy, and usually old age negates that. Another proof that Mother Nature may be a b*tch, but she knows what she's doing...

posted on September 22nd, 2009, 7:57 pm

Darth Thantos, I must disagree with you on one point. Mother nature knows nothing, because mother nature does not exist. Evolution is fine, but when you start turning it into a religion of its own, think about it, talking about every natural thing like someone called mother nature designed it. "Mother nature knows what she's doing!" "Mother nature has a ingenious design here!" Those types even have there worships sessions, recycling, buying "green" products, participating in earth day, this is demonstrated in shows like whale wars, where they try to make it seem as if there is a holy war against whaling! Its not that I don't like religion, its that I don't like dishonesty, because most environmentalists will say they are atheists, which isn't too honest. They are either worshipping the earth, or they are worshipping there own "cleverness".

No hostility intended.

EDIT: Oh and sorry this post was so off topic.... Just needed to point that out.

posted on September 22nd, 2009, 8:36 pm

even the Enterprise NX-01 had become a generation ship.

posted on September 22nd, 2009, 8:37 pm

Well, I still don't get this...

posted on September 22nd, 2009, 9:41 pm

Darth Thantos, I must disagree with you on one point. Mother nature knows nothing, because mother nature does not exist. Evolution is fine, but when you start turning it into a religion of its own, think about it, talking about every natural thing like someone called mother nature designed it.....[content removed for brevity]

No hostility intended.

EDIT: Oh and sorry this post was so off topic.... Just needed to point that out.

Aye, and remember of course that Evolution doesn't do any thinking either. All of this is minus any intelligence, and there is no end result or purpose. Higher or lower organisms don't exist, speaking from a strictly evolutionary perspective

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 12:48 pm

Aye, and remember of course that Evolution doesn't do any thinking either. All of this is minus any intelligence, and there is no end result or purpose. Higher or lower organisms don't exist, speaking from a strictly evolutionary perspective

How do you know that ? In what sense is denying a greater plan any more valid than claiming there is one ?

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 12:52 pm

How do you know that ? In what sense is denying a greater plan any more valid than claiming there is one ?

  How do you know anyhting, a greater plan makes sense, evolution doesn't. 

*Ends disscussion before mod attacks*

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 9:10 pm

Probably a better thread would work... although if Doca/Optec see this, I am sure they will split the thread.

Denying a greater plan has nothing to do with it. There is no denial, just no need for a "greater plan". Occam's razor if you will.

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 10:03 pm

Religious Zealots...

I honestly despise them. Whether they think their God told them personally that their [bigoted] way of seeing how things should be is the way to be, OR that there is no God and whoever disagrees is either evil or an ignoreant retard, the result is the same.

They get ignored by me. Why? Because my personal alternative is to kill them. I'm intolerant to intolerance. And you can point at me and laugh for that obviously contradictory statement.

It's incredible how a passing remark that fits perfectly into our greco-roman heritage gets put upside down in order to get a cheap shot at religious people in general. And yes, those "green people", pseudo-echologists are for me a twisted kind of religious sect.

And nothing in the last posts, including unfortunately this one, adds anything to the matter at hand, which is if a Galaxy class could become a generation ship.

posted on October 7th, 2009, 7:51 am

The minimum population needed to have a stable gene pool without degradation is around 5000. A Galaxy class is to small of a ship with to small a population. A generational ship needs a biosphere to recycle raw material and room for expansion. Even with converting the cargo bays it would be to cramped. Over thousands of years there would be to many chaotic changes from diverging ideologies through the generations to properly run a ship with a command structure. Due to the small size of a Galaxy class ship a rigid command structure would still be needed over thousands of years to run the ship properly.

posted on October 7th, 2009, 11:54 am

If, you freeze 4000 people in the cargobays and randomly awake them for propagation you could fix the first problem.

posted on October 7th, 2009, 12:01 pm

A Galaxy can easily hold over 5,000 people.