Earth 3000

[Gaming Glen]

What will Earth be like in the year AD 3000?

Remember, we're only 100-150 years from the beginning of radio, electricity, automobiles, telephone, powered/heavier-than-air flight. We're 40-60 years into broadcast sight (TV) and computers (although the computer idea has been around longer). Phone viewers are in its infancy, with cable modems and the PC as the medium.

Add 1000 years.

For Traveller related campaigns (of course): add in FTL, anti-gravity, fusion power.

Might as well include a little about the Sol system (non-researchers/miners on Luna or Mars?).

Would such a description be a way of introducing new players, especially fantasy (ya know, those D&D types), into a science fiction universe? I think there would be much more interest in reading about our own planet than some fictional one, unless it was named something silly, like Tatooine.

FYI:
My campaign will be about human space, near Earth, with Earth being much less populated and relegated to an agricultural planet (best place to grow Earth-based crops), and home to all the Earth-evolved life forms we haven't exterminated yet. Sort of a large preserve, but still about 50 million people (give or take 10-20 million), mostly living in cities. Could we ever get that many people off the planet, barring a MAJOR catastrophe(s) that killed billions? Or am I being too optimistic and we'll overrun our own planet? I know, it is my fantasy, I can do what I want, but it would be nice to have a chance at realism. I will probably include a race of "elves" (home planet is smaller, low G) and "dwarves" (large planet, high G). Hey, that's a few less alien races I have to write up.

Glen

 

[Shadowdancer]

If you plan on running T20, and want to use elves and dwarves, check out Dragonstar. It's a d20 game that's basically D&D in outer space -- has fantasy and sci-fi elements. They've already done a lot of the work (in regards to elves and dwarves) for you.

 

[Rodina]

The problem with depopulating the Earth (short of a viral or cosmic disaster) is short of not only FTL drive but -extremely cheap- FTL drive, you could never move out more than a few thousand a year -out- of the solar system, and, say a million or so off planet and off to Mars, the Belt, L-5 colonies and such.

I think it took 13 years to get from 5 billion to 6 billion people. Even to stay even, you'd have to ship out 80 million people a year, or about 300,000 people PER DAY. It's not -inconceivable- but it's a big engineer project.

I think the cool places to look for how our solar system will chance is mostly on materials technology. I think a space elevator will be a reality by 2100 (the news about carbon nanotubes has -huge- ramifications) and then, from there, space colonization in a big way. My sense is that by 2400 or so, Mars will be well on its way to being terraformed, there will be colonies throughout the solar system, and humans will be enroute to the nearest stars (sublight, unfortunately ). By late this millenia, the first extrasolar colonies will be building out space programs of their own...

Now, I think it's safe to assume that computers in a thousand years could do pretty much anything a human mind can do (such that it can pass even the most sophisticated Turing test).

 

[Gaming Glen]

Okay, unless I have aliens come eat at the Earth buffet

, I guess I'll have to set the population digit to 9 or A (I'll set it to 9). I may place the government home (i.e., "palace", bureaucracy, military HQs) on Luna.

Another problem I have is the habitability (this a word?) of other worlds. Could we survive on different worlds without terraforming them in some way? I tend to think not, watching all these nature/pre-history shows (I know, just the tip of the iceberg of knowledge, or lack of) tends for me to think that we're really tied to our environment: Earth. There's the right mixture of atmosphere, bacteria, digestion of the native flora/fauna (or they digesting us all too easily ). We could survive in domed communities, but is that viable?
I probably should just wave my hand, call it future tech ("magic"), and play. But the pseudo-scientist inside me keeps screaming about realism.

 

[Solo]

Check out Transhuman Space at www.sjgames.com.

They've thought about a lot of this...and only 100 years into the future.

Hmm...porting that into d20 using Traveller....

3000? Too far to even guess....

-S.

 

[Uncle Bob]

There are two broad possibilities.

1) Population A or even B, with the bulk of the population in orbital habs... echos of Transhuman space.

2) Population 7-8, TL 2-3. We don't get out to space before resources ran out and we get trapped. It doesn't matter if starvation, disease, war, climate change or meteor impact causes the population collapse, it will happen. This population and TL are sustainable with planetary resources.

 

[Tom Schoene]

There are other alternatives.

Over on JTAS, some of the discussion of the IW setting has discussed how fast the Terran Confderation's population can realistically grow. One thing that emerges is that Earth is rather consistently trending toward lower birth rates worldwide (not just in the developed world). There are current projections suggesting a peak around 10 billion before birth rates drop below replacement levels (i.e. declining population). That's within the next century, I believe.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by Gaming Glen:

Another problem I have is the habitability (this a word?) of other worlds. Could we survive on different worlds without terraforming them in some way? I tend to think not, watching all these nature/pre-history shows (I know, just the tip of the iceberg of knowledge, or lack of) tends for me to think that we're really tied to our environment: Earth. There's the right mixture of atmosphere, bacteria, digestion of the native flora/fauna (or they digesting us all too easily ). We could survive in domed communities, but is that viable?
I probably should just wave my hand, call it future tech ("magic"), and play. But the pseudo-scientist inside me keeps screaming about realism.

Technological humans can do all sorts of things -- short of terraforming or domed colonies -- to survive in adverse conditions. Just look at the degree of technological and biologial adaptation for a species originating in near-equatorial areas needed to live in the Arctic. And that was very low-tech by contemporary standards.

 

[alanb]

Habitability of other worlds is a problem. Either their atmospheres, temperatures and so on are wrong, or they are infected with non-terrestrial life.

Even if it's OK to wipe out non-terrestrial life, rather than studying it, this is likely to be easier said than done.

The obvious answer, then, is terraforming. But terraforming involves chemical reactions on a planetary scale: you don't want to be around while it's happening, or for a long time afterwards.

Alan Bradley

 

[vegascat]

I can easily see the Earth heavily depopulated by 3000.
If we don't get off our duffs and get out there, we can easily end up in another stone age within 1000 years.
As a species, humans are ill tempered and have in many areas reached maximum population densities to exist in comfort.
It takes little imagination to forsee areas of the globe made uninhabital due to human actions.
To avoid this and stay in Darwins competion, we need to look at other places to live. To me that means getting off this rock ball, and doing some travelling for real. The zone of opportunity we have to work with is shrinking. As nonreusable rescources are wasted and the total population grows, the ease of a mass exodus declines. There are already places on this globe where the peoples main means of survival is fighting over the scraps of others, ie. Somalia. Places where people can not live in peace with their neghbors, is. Middle east, Balkans.

By 3000 the earth population will be in the 100,000 range at a caveman level, or with luck and work, in the 1 billion range.

Please pardon the preaching.

 

[kafka47]

I kinda like the idea of Terra being one giant ecological park. It is a world that has seen too many scars lately. A while ago. JTAS-SJG did a special on Mars. I once ran a thread to see if Marc would actively contribute to a SJG worldbook, by updating his article on Luna...But, one never heard anything more.

But, from what little of cannon we have, Terra is a world like any other. Not overly high tech just at the Imperial top end but that could just be the fact that the Imperial Occupation has big wallets and like to spend...

Hunter, I know you are going to be concentrating on the trailing edge. Any chance of having sourcebooks that are more Rimward or at least Traveller's Aide ought resurrect the idea of a guide to a Traveller's Guide Terran system.

 

[kafka47]

Originally posted by Tom Schoene:
There are other alternatives.

Over on JTAS, some of the discussion of the IW setting has discussed how fast the Terran Confderation's population can realistically grow. One thing that emerges is that Earth is rather consistently trending toward lower birth rates worldwide (not just in the developed world). There are current projections suggesting a peak around 10 billion before birth rates drop below replacement levels (i.e. declining population). That's within the next century, I believe.

Did these discussion include the Rimward clones and the Uplift programs which seem to be suggested in cannon?

 

[Spinward Scout]

<<<If you plan on running T20, and want to use elves and dwarves, check out Dragonstar.>>>

Or you could just play Star Trek. Vulcans are elves, Romulans are dark elves, Klingons are orcs, Tellarites are dwarves, etc...

Scout

 

[Nurd_boy]

In a thousand year we COULD blow ourselves back to the stone age...that is IF there are remnents left....
or...
genetic engineering could create a replacement human stock (remember the psi from B5? and finding out they where vorlon engineered, in time humans became like them...)
or...
3000 years of pumping everything from AM to Microwave emissions into space COULD attract attention to our little corner of the orion arm....UNWANTED attention that is
or...
well, you get the idea...