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[Rolan7]

Hm, we're looking at the best-of-the-best to operate a generational colony ship, but what about the other end of the spectrum?

The consequences of a Generational Penal Colony Ship are far more interesting...

Which has brief disinterested contact with an inscrutable alien race which declines to communicate.  Humanity puts down roots, but one day there are these absurd rumors of mobile biomass cropping up on outlying colonies...

[King Zultan]

I think the main rule for interstellar travel should be that if you find a derelict ship filled with eggs, you shouldn't fuck with it instead you should just blow it up.

[MaxTheFox]

Biological/mechanical enhancement to make human brains (Or some sort of organic brain, grown or already born) larger/better.

See, we can't make artificial intelligence, but there's nothing saying we can't manipulate genes and use drugs and nutrition to make already-intelligent things even moreso. And I don't think humanity's gonna be unable to crack that code given enough time.

Yeah.

[Scoops Novel]

Biological/mechanical enhancement to make human brains (Or some sort of organic brain, grown or already born) larger/better.

See, we can't make artificial intelligence, but there's nothing saying we can't manipulate genes and use drugs and nutrition to make already-intelligent things even moreso. And I don't think humanity's gonna be unable to crack that code given enough time.

Yeah.

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Edit: Hence my sometimes-interest in an "abstract actor", such as an AI, to "lay down the law".

Yeah, if we don't have some outside oversight we are going to burn down this jungle.

AI's too risky; IMO a gene-edited genius is too limited; you kind of have to get lucky with aliens honestly.

Maybe I shouldn't have ruled out alternate dimensions. Or maybe you do need FTL, just with some kind of planetary shielding against it.

[MaxTheFox]

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Nah, go full transhumanist.

Maybe I shouldn't have ruled out alternate dimensions. Or maybe you do need FTL, just with some kind of planetary shielding against it.

FTL is, by all accounts, not possible at all. If you're talking about like, a sci-fi worldbuild then fair, but when making predictions about the future, bringing up FTL is kinda inane.

[Scoops Novel]

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Nah, go full transhumanist.

You can't have widespread gene-editing without war.

[dragdeler]

Pugs and tulips disagree.

[MaxTheFox]

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Nah, go full transhumanist.

You can't have widespread gene-editing without war.

Unrest, sure. War, no. There will be pushback from the right wing. The solution is to ignore their whining and "concerns".

[Great Order]

FTL is, by all accounts, not possible at all. If you're talking about like, a sci-fi worldbuild then fair, but when making predictions about the future, bringing up FTL is kinda inane.

Well, our current ideas involve going FTL by effectively warping the universe in some way to not go FTL within our frame of reference, but FTL in someone else's. Wormholes, for example, are just shortcuts through space-time, and the Alcubierre drive warps space-time so that the object inside the bubble is stationary, but to those outside it the ship's moving at FTL speeds.

Obviously both of these fall at the big hurdle of "We don't have anything that lets us do this" but still, we're well aware of the universe's limitations. Also the Alcubierre drive picks up any dust and radiation while it's moving and releases them once the bubble collapses, so anything in front of, behind, or in the general vicinity of the ship (including the ship) gets obliterated.

[MaxTheFox]

FTL is, by all accounts, not possible at all. If you're talking about like, a sci-fi worldbuild then fair, but when making predictions about the future, bringing up FTL is kinda inane.

Well, our current ideas involve going FTL by effectively warping the universe in some way to not go FTL within our frame of reference, but FTL in someone else's. Wormholes, for example, are just shortcuts through space-time, and the Alcubierre drive warps space-time so that the object inside the bubble is stationary, but to those outside it the ship's moving at FTL speeds.

Obviously both of these fall at the big hurdle of "We don't have anything that lets us do this" but still, we're well aware of the universe's limitations. Also the Alcubierre drive picks up any dust and radiation while it's moving and releases them once the bubble collapses, so anything in front of, behind, or in the general vicinity of the ship (including the ship) gets obliterated.

The Alcubierrie drive requires negative mass. We do not know how to produce negative mass. Much less in the Jupiter-sized amounts one would require. Wormholes have similar issues.

[Quarque]

We can still colonize the galaxy without FTL or even AI.  It's much slower without FTL and much harder without AI, but it can be done.  I guess that counts as winning, since there is no victory condition defined by the universe.

Imagine if there was. Some jerk in a faraway galaxy would win and then the rest of us could no longer do anything except for viewing the highscore list.

[Telgin]

It's worth mentioning that we also have no evidence that wormholes exist.  Actually, I keep meaning to look this up, but I suspect that wormholes could lead to causality violations anyway, so in all likelihood they aren't possible despite the math theoretically working out for them.

Maybe I shouldn't have ruled out alternate dimensions. Or maybe you do need FTL, just with some kind of planetary shielding against it.

I'm not sure why you mention planetary shielding here, since... the planets aren't the things going faster than light.  Unless you mean to defend against things like relativistic kill weapons launched at planets from deep space?  But the thing there is that we have no idea what the energy levels of an FTL object would be since they're impossible under known physics, so for all we know an FTL impact may not even be that bad.

Worse, you don't need FTL to make civilization ending relativistic energy impactors.  You just need to speed a big object up to 99% of the speed of light somehow and your target effectively can't defend against it.  How to do that is left as an exercise to the reader, but it's at least possible under known physics.

[Scoops Novel]

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Nah, go full transhumanist.

You can't have widespread gene-editing without war.

Unrest, sure. War, no. There will be pushback from the right wing. The solution is to ignore their whining and "concerns".

Locked in class systems? The question if you and your descendants will even be considered human if it's pushed far enough? War.

[EuchreJack]

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Nah, go full transhumanist.

You can't have widespread gene-editing without war.

Unrest, sure. War, no. There will be pushback from the right wing. The solution is to ignore their whining and "concerns".

You mean the left wing.
The right wing LOVES to get their chosen elite gene-edited, while lording their increased intelligence, lifespan, and health over the rest of us.
Ironically, it would be the Left Wing that would mobilize the masses to oppose that.  Then use it mostly for their elite.  Elites suck.

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Nah, go full transhumanist.

You can't have widespread gene-editing without war.

Unrest, sure. War, no. There will be pushback from the right wing. The solution is to ignore their whining and "concerns".

Locked in class systems? The question if you and your descendants will even be considered human if it's pushed far enough? War.

I've always preferred Bashir to Khan, myself.
The rogue-like Gearhead 1 has fairly interesting ideas about genetic engineering.
Synopsis: It doesn't end well.

[MaxTheFox]

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Nah, go full transhumanist.

You can't have widespread gene-editing without war.

Unrest, sure. War, no. There will be pushback from the right wing. The solution is to ignore their whining and "concerns".

Locked in class systems? The question if you and your descendants will even be considered human if it's pushed far enough? War.

This will not happen if gene-editing is accessible to everyone.

Has to be done very secretly and rarely lest we all be fucked in the ass.

Nah, go full transhumanist.

You can't have widespread gene-editing without war.

Unrest, sure. War, no. There will be pushback from the right wing. The solution is to ignore their whining and "concerns".

You mean the left wing.
The right wing LOVES to get their chosen elite gene-edited, while lording their increased intelligence, lifespan, and health over the rest of us.
Ironically, it would be the Left Wing that would mobilize the masses to oppose that.  Then use it mostly for their elite.  Elites suck.

"Elites suck", says the capitalism-supporter.

The solution to that is to simply make the technology accessible to literally everyone. The human body is an outdated and fragile piece of machinery. Only by abandoning it can humanity survive. The rich who try to make themselves superhuman must be countered by making everyone superhuman. If they try to stop that, then indeed it is war time. And I am fine with that. Long overdue anyways...