Lost Space Colonies 

So I was going to find all those lost space colonies--but then things got crazy busy at work.

One of my favorite manga is about a lost colony ship, it's called Knights of Sidonia. The premise is that Earth launches colony ships in every direction when a biotechnological alien species invades and destroys the earth. The story takes place 100 years after Sidonia's last communication with another colony ship. Continued pursuit by the aliens makes life very dangerous, and casualties get so high that Sidonia resorts to cloning and genetic engineering to maintain their numbers. The story follows the colony ship Sidonia as they gradually gain strength and begin to fight back. It has so many elements that were in this video.

Another thing about Anne McCaffery's writing: When the characters finally find the colony ship of their sophisticated starfaring technological ancestors and fire up the computer...it's running 16 bit MSDOS!

I remember from the Warhammer 40k series that it wasn’t unusual for colony worlds to be lost for decades, centuries or even millennia. Long enough for them to forget they are colonies and then be rediscovered (and reconquered) by the empire.

Starship AI: "We're moving to a new, habitable planet." Me: "Glad to hear it. I don't want to live entombed in a lava tube or under a dome." Starship AI: "We encountered a critical error: the objective planet can't be found. You'll be entombed in a virtual reality." Me: "What?? NO!" Starship AI: "The virtual reality is LoTR themed." Me: "Let's start the mind uploading process."

Previously civilized space colonies coming detached from the empire du jour and descending into anarchy has always been a fascinating topic to me. Also, have you considered a video on subglacial life, as could exist on Europa? Imagine a species of intelligent [redacted]s who live their entire existence under a kilometer of ice thinking that there's nothing beyond the ceiling.

"A minor war on the galactic fringe, that involved few million worlds and few quadrillion casualties" Holy shit, the scales on this channel

As someone that loves to write sci-fi. Run sci-fi RPG's. And has a background in actual science. This is one of my top channels to visit. I love what you do. Bringing speculative info and ideas to such a wider audience. Keep up the bloody amazing work.

John G. Hemry has a series called 'The Lost Fleet', in which the means of faster-than-light travel changed and worlds that were usually connected by the old system are now bypassed by the new system, many of them slowly dying out. Either the systems are abandoned quickly, slowly, or are literally dying out as life-support systems fail, consigning the colonists to death by starvation, dehydration, or asphyxiation.

Saw this on Nebula the other day and boy it was another great episode for a good Sunday. Loved your storytelling for your hypothetical lost colonies. You have a good mind for stories believe it or not.

Space is HUGE... unless you're Zaphod Beeblebrox!

One of the megastructures I find most interesting is the super mundane shell world and the idea of a k3 civilization growing inwards towards an ever growing black hole

You made my week referencing the Coldfire trilogy! One of my favorite "fantasy oh wait it's really sci-fi" series that I've NEVER seen discussed by booktubers.

I love Dragonriders of Pern. :D Ever since I was 12 I've been obsessed with it. Then there's Deadspace. oooooh Deadspace. It's a great example of how hard it is to actually squelch information. Not just one, but TWO lost colonies exist over the course of the main three games (there's a mobile version too, which I haven't played yet). And according to the story there could even be at lest one more. Deadspace is a zombie franchise, in which a giant monolith called The Marker is discovered on Earth. It seems able to produce energy from nowhere, and is able to implant the blueprints for itself into the brains of people studying it. There were three waves of colonization from earth in that story. The first carried experimental Markers with them, one landing on the mining world of Aegis 7. The second was a group of secessionist colonies that sought the Markers out eventually in order to keep from collapsing from resource overuse. Colonizing in that world is very hard. And by the time of the main games, Isaac Clarke, the main character, is a technician with the ship Kellion sent out to do a welfare check on the "Planet cracker" ship Ishimura. Planet crackers are solely for extracting resources. This one was illegally mining, you guessed it, Aegis 7, where they found the experimental marker, unleashed eldritch space zombies on steroids, and everyone got killed. In Deadspace 2, we find out the Markers are also info hazards, and Isaac escaping alive allowed him to be kidnapped, held captive and drugged in order to extract the secrets of making one from his head. In order to escape you have to confront not only the necromorphs, but Cthulu style cultists (indeed, the primary icon in their cathedral is almost certainly a reference to the King in Yellow.) Basically Isaac has to live out the rest of his life in isolation with few friends. If he himself isn't closely monitored, someone could use him to repeat what happened in Deadspace 2. In Deadspace 3 we see the logical continuation of it. We find the debris field from a Sovreign Colony fleet sent to try and study the markers on a world called Tau Volantis. Tau Volantis is an ice world that was once entirely water, with the natives eventually sub coming to the insanity started by the markers they covered their planet with, with the true extent of the danger posed by them evident on their surface the SCAF nonetheless decided they were tough military men and could handle it. But as they begin to go mad, their general orders a cull protocol intended to contain outbreak. But they've started going mad, so mistakes are made, last wills and testaments are written, papers are accidentally missed. A few centuries later along comes Isaac and his girlfriend Ellie as well as the cultists from the last game and pandora's box opens again to let hope out. The end of the game's one DLC left us with the creators of the markers, eldritch beings called the Bretheren moons, arriving at earth to punish, torment and slaughter everyone in order to make another one of their number. It's assumed that maybe a handful of people left earth safely. But now everyone is exposed to the info hazard and we were supposed to get Deadspace 4 but never did. The fans didn't take kindly to Deadspace 3, which took the series from Lovecraftian psychological horror where one's own mind was a greater threat than the Necromorphs and turned it into dark Lovecraftian Sci fi. And then Microtransactions and marketing took their toll, along with knowledge of what was actually cut from the game. Both had survival horror elements, but the psychological horror was what the fans had come for. And there are obvious lovecraft references in Deadspace 3. Tau Volantis was strongly based on "At the Mountains of Madness" "Shadow over Innsmouth" and "Dagon" along with the inspiration for the entire trilogy, "The Call of Cthulu." And if you want to know what the authors of the game thought would be the downfall of the human race, well there's one part where the cult leader verbally confronts you and makes a series of statements, presenting them as fact when they're actually assumptions. If you took a shot for every instance of confirmation bias in that scene, you'd be too drunk to play, let alone get to your car to drive drunk. Regardless it's generally assumed that in that series fast or slow, the human race will go exintct, the bretheren moons will harvest humanity, and the universe will continue to be just more dead space.

Over 300 episodes, I think I've watched them all at this point. You are amazing man, hope you keep it up. As soon as my economy allows it I'm going to start contributing somehow, you are the only content creator in my life that I've ever wanted to just throw money at.

I'm glad you included The Dragonriders of Pern. It's one of my favourite book series. Another trilogy somewhat on colonisation is The Heliconia Trilogy by Brian Aldiss. Another book on colonisation is the book Ark by Stephen Baxter. Last but not least, The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C Clarke.

I've been listening for years... I just wanted to thank you for the consistent phenomenal content...

one of my favorite stories in this sub-genre is the classic The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke.

Issac sure knows how to make Sunday better with a RU-vid Premiere.

Ah yes, Reapers.

Amazing episode Isaac and team! I love when you guys build stories into these episodes as it makes them hugely more interesting.

Has anyone comment on this: Let's say that we launch a spaceship to colonize a planet. It's a 2500 years trip, but in that time we develop technology that lets us do it in just 200. What should we do with the first colony ship, how would they react?

Honestly, I think Isaac would be awesome as part of a awesome crack team of writers where he would awesomely create civilizations and world building and have character ideas grow from the world's he imagines based on some real science much akin to The Expanse.

I'm curious why the scale of human supporting planets has nothing to do with the variety and quantity of the chemical elements, that we need to thrive. We've quite possibly been born on the most well-seeded planet possible, having been coalesced from atoms of almost every stable element, but that just may be the luck of the draw.

I am so happy you brought up Anne McCaffrey. Her work deserves way more attention.

Douglas Adams is right about Space when he said "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space"

Travel is linear and speed limited, but growth is exponential. Even with a high speed (0.4c) and a low growth (0.1%), inhabited space will be effectively saturated, every star a dyson, by the time the frontier is 10k lyr. At that point so many colony ships are arriving at the next frontier star it will immediately be a dyson.

CS Friedman! So glad to know others have read this wonderfully spooky series.

I have often imagined that humans are just a lost colony of a destabilizing interstellar empire. What if we where just a distant mining colony to a fallen/conquered galactic power?

Thanks for the video Isaac, you apologised in your earlier vids for your speech impediment; but it is a gift - there is a timbre and rhythm that makes it very relaxing.

I had always thought of writing a story based on one part of the galaxy where each star is at most a few light years apart as an exercise in cultural divergence. Also I was reminded of dragon riders of pern due to this episode and remembered I never read all of it.

it's SFIA time! :3

Your intro reminded me of something. "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

Will definitely be using this idea in a book I’m writing!

I don't know if I ever said this but thanks for putting these out on podcast. This is one of my favorite things to listen to while I'm working or commuting

I'm writing a sci fi and have this question in my head: even with fast FTL, I anticipate humans taking a long time to expand simply because of the availability of real estate and limits of population growth. In short, even with Star Trek TOS Warp Drives, I imagine official human space extending to about a radius 50 ly from earth after 200 years. Sure, there are colonies outside the bubble, but these are groups who want out of Human Government jurisdiction. For most, the local systems are more than enough habitable worlds and resources, and even though humans can travel 500,000c, there just isn't much reason to go beyond 50ly from earth.

When he talked about a colony deliberately getting lost I thought about the movie mutiny on the bounty

Isaac you are always able to uplift my mind and get me thinking of the many possible new shores. Keep up the good work and bless you mate. 🖖

The idea of a race of smart dinosaurs that simply didn't wind up in the fossil record is very cool. I might try a story about that.

All ways funny to me how often these ideas get brought up in 40k, that franchise has really introduced me to some amazing sci-fi ideas.

Thanks for the shoutout to Roger Zelazny, Issac! _Nine Princes in Amber_ is in my top five all-time fantasy novels.

Eve Online also has a lost colony scenario. Humanity used 'star gates' travel to distant stars. Eventually spreading out across the galaxy and likely to neighboring ones. The discovery of a wormhole, one that could be made stable with a massive gate allowed humanity to spread into a new star cluster far from the galaxies they colonized. They called it New Eden and started setting up on life baring worlds and terraforming operations on planets that needed it. Then suddenly the wormhole collapsed and to make a long story short much of the technology failed. Few colonies would be able to rebuild into their own little empires. Some colonies survived better then others but then later failed. Other colonies managed to survive and rebuild with one such colony actually invading the worlds of another because god told them to. Two colonies actually survived in the same star system and after figuring out each other's languages could start to explore the stars together... and then one decided to explore on their own for a bit pissing off the other, then a terrorist attack leading to a planetary bombardment, and that other colony evacuating to their new star systems. Then some all powerful hipster humans show up and make them all be nice to each other.

One thing that wasn't talked about much is that standards for how fast follow-up or unknowing parallel missions to the same star are not likely to be traveling at the same speed. Rather, it is likely that later missions will take advantage of higher tech levels and faster drives to arrive *before* the original mission. This is why early colonists will want to make where they are going very clear to the authorities, to minimize the chance of being claim-jumped by another such group that left later.

When you turn on RU-vid and Isaac uploaded 18 seconds ago 😁

Ahhhh yes, now I have something to watch tonight.

Ahh, perfect timing. *reaches for popcorn*

I write a book series that takes place in the 55th century. Part of the premise is that faster than light travel took a really long time to develop and is basically brand new. As such the solar system alliance which actually includes Alpha and Proxima Centauri and Barnard's star, begin sending ships out to track down human colony worlds in deep space because many generational ships were sent out basically thousands of years ago and not much has been heard from them since. So part of the idea is that the humans in the solar system (which have been genetically altered so thoroughly they are not even homo sapiens anymore) are effectively making first contact with new cultures of humans that have been isolated for millenia.

Isaac Arthur, If Earth really was a lost alien colony and humans were aliens, wouldn’t we have to explain away all of the prehistoric hominids? I mean the fossil record really contradicts that idea

Come on, I was 10 seconds away from putting down my phone! You can't do this to me!

One of the best channel on RU-vid!

Whoot! A mention and full on recommendation of one of my all time favorite novels, Roger Zelazny’s “Lord of Light”. For me personally, this book is second only to Dune.

I immediately thought of how more than a few worlds of the Imperium in Warhammer 40k are simply forgotten because some scribe somewhere didn’t write the facts of it’s existence down on the ledger, which itself is then forgotten in some dusty vault somewhere.

I always find it difficult to imagine a “lost” colony forgetting they were from Earth, except in the possible scenario that they go through a truly disastrous collapse to the point a scant few inexperienced survivors have to relearn whatever technology is keeping their colony habitable just in time to stop it breaking down and rebuild from there. Humans have such a fascination with the deep time history of our world and our origins that it’s hard to imagine them losing that information unless they were actively and rigorously suppressing it (which is not entirely implausible either, especially given some of the rogue colony scenarios you present here I suppose). I feel like most colonies, especially ones built through collective efforts rather than a tiny niche of society that wanted somewhere to do shady business like Kamino, would at least remember Earth as the “origin” planet, much like most people can at least name a few dinosaurs and many understand life started in microbial form. But perhaps that’s relying too much on my current sentimental assumptions about humans today, and not whatever new beings evolve from us over such massive spans of time :p

I remember when I first started listening to you and I could barely make out what you were saying. Now I understand everything clearly, and your voice has brought a level of comfort to me as well. It was odd because over time I just assumed that it was you growing more comfortable speaking on youtube. Until I went back and watched one of your first videos and a popup for captions reminding people unable to understand you confused me for a good few seconds. I used to have to actively try and listen to every word. Im not smart enough to understand a lot of what youre talking about, but these videos that you put out have brought me into a world worth looking forward to. So thank you for continuing on and putting out all these videos for us to enjoy and dream about.

I've pondered this often and I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities. Thanks for taking a serious look at this... very much enjoyed!

I so enjoyed the initial descriptions of "Ship Camino/Coldfire/McCaffrey". I was just like "you didn't!" each time. 🤣

Oh I love McCaffrey! Thanks for mentioning her!

interesting idea

These Story-book episodes are some of your best!

Looking forward to the Silurian hypothesis episode!

omg @5:10 I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY MAN ALIVE THAT HAD READ THAT SERIES!! I would put the Coldfire series right up next to Hyperion, no joke. I had been into very 'hardcore' sci-fi when I picked up this one and it introduced some really great concepts about advanced technology. Ya know what I'm talking about.

Lost colonies are the bread and butter of my stories. Love this trope to death. The general philosophical premise I work from is that a civilization doesn't need a ton of infrastructure to survive and thrive, especially on a world with half-decent conditions; a farm or a school or a town requires little more than plants, which themselves require little more than oxygen and a few generations of diligence. However, it DOES requires an enormous amount of resource and equipment to establish a fully industrialized colony capable of building and re-launching ships. For this reason, the grand majority of colonies end up grounding themselves, turning into metaphorical dead ends in the path of man's expansion, and being forced into simpler lifestyles by the lack of industry. This not by mistake; most people who decide to move a few hundred lightyears away from Earth's niceties have their minds set on freedom, or peace, or a simpler life, rather than grand goals of colonizing the galaxy. Earth is one of the few locations that colony ships reliably spread from. And then, (for the sake of the story and the feel of the world,) after only a few centuries of the colonial age, Earth runs into some kind of overpopulation-based great filter and falls into a dark age. And from that point on for many millenia, there were no more colonial ships. And just a thought, perhaps at some point in man's technological and psychological advancement, he will learn that eternal expansion isn't always necessary or desirable, and will reach some kind of steady state short of filling the universe.

Ohh... shit! Isaac Arthur! -packs a bowl and grabs a cold drink- :)

3:46 LOL That is one obscure Fallout4 reference! Great as always! I LOVE SF Sundays!

Dude! I love this channel and now my favorite story got a mention, great episode sir.

All these videos about space travel and colonies, really makes me wished I was born in the future but then again I don’t know what future lies ahead.

Hello issac, after I have watched your outward bound series, which I love a lot. I noticed that you missed a critical point, manufacturing things in space like fiber optic cable or human organs, the military aspects of this and what technologies can be utilized for build massive mega ton space factories

Exelent episode, enjoyed it a great deal thanks,. Great Chanel and keep up the good work

Wow! I didn't expect to hear Coldfire mentioned! Love that series.

Great episode.

Battlestar Galactica,Stargate-SG1,Warhammer 40K,certain stories in Star Trek lore,even Star Wars too

Great stuff as usual

So hypothetically there could be a solar system in the galactic boonies that is home to a civilization with a near perfect textbook view of the milky way? Man I hope that exists.

I love when Isaac goes full story telling your best episodes👌 btw it could be awesome to have a video list with all your story telling episodes. My favourite setting of lost colonies are from traveller I remember one that was isolated by their own will and they were living in a planet barely livable so very dependent on paraterraforming. The thing is after a few centuries technology stagnate and began to go backwards, colonist forget how to maintain their own habitats putting their civilization in danger, so they hire pirates to kidnap specialist from the interstellar community and engage into slavery to sustain their population of specialist and regain the skills to maintain their way of living.

The game EveOnline is based on a huge number of a colonies get cut off from Earth, and each other because of a disaster

So much content. Never enough time to watch half of it.

very thought provoking!

i absolutely love your content, I have fallen to sleep listening to your videos more times then I can count. keep up the great work!!!

Nice storytelling, you got yourself a another subscriber 👍

If you wouldn't mind, could you disclose where you found the spaceship at 3:00? It's got Macross/event horizon/ISV Venture Star feel to it that might just make it my current favorite spaceship.

Narrated by Will Wheeton of Star Trek - That is no longer a recommendation, as there are a lot of us who hate the little ****. And not because of his role of Wesley Crusher. I can forgive a bad role.

Thank you Isaac. Hope we get to see a future were we make and actual expanse into space.

Finally good episode :)

28:40 - those dinos really needed some bow ties, top hats and monocles!

Ty for your service to society and keep up the good work

I love your content man. Never stop

Nice episode! And I got excited about the credit announcements, but man those events are expensive :/

A lot can happen in a few thousand years. Lost in Space might become a norm.

I have had multiple dreams where I am going through space and start waking up here and there to see I am going to another solar system and then see myself in a different solar system. I have to wonder if this will always just be a dream or will we expand out some day.

love every video always gets my imagination going

Another thing to consider is that if the "colonists" are a group of which Earth or another planet wants to be rid, perhaps criminals or a dissident group, the home-world may want to lose that colony and may not care if it maintains the modern technology of its day. The new colonial world may be viewed simply as a dumping ground for those who are not wanted at home.

I forgot it was Sunday and was like is Isaac high or something lol such an amazing channel to open your mind. Keep it up.

Very interesting episode. Love the Lord of Light recommendation - it's been one of my favs for decades!

Do Interspecies warfare.

Damn. Good timing. Bouta hit the road and needed something interesting to listen to!

Cool video thanks.

Pern is one of my favorite series :)

You like to cast doubt on FTL being a possibility, let me remind you that in 40K, it took humanity around 20K years to discover the Warp drive. We've been at it for less than a century.

Colonies assume there is both a benefit to having them, and that they are required for survival. But if your stellar empire is entirely mobile and based on ships, the need for habitable worlds goes away.

I have never heard anyone reference the ColdFire trilogy in RU-vid before. it was one of the first sci-fi/ fantasy series I read outside of LoTR.