Globular Empires.

[daniel l.]

According to this:

Quote

• 1,000 years: 2¹=2 star-systems colonized
• 2,000 years: 2²=4 star-systems
• 4,000 years: 2⁴=16
• 10,000 years: 2¹⁰=1024
• 20,000 years: 2²⁰=1 million+
• 30,000 years: 2³⁰=1 billion+
• 40,000 years: 2⁴⁰=1 trillion+ star-systems colonized!

 

Source: https://medium.com/the-space-perspective/can-there-be-a-galactic-empire-d909fd76e326

We could have a massive portion of the galaxy colonized within 40,000 years. However, the distance between stars would render a large-scale galactic government impossible -- unless we develop FTL of some sort, but let's not bother with that.

The result of this? I think the colonized galaxy will be filled with millions of tiny empires, each commanding up to five star systems at most. Though there may be loose alliances that are larger.

But the real power? Think about the Globular Clusters:

These clusters have such high density. Dozens of stars can occupy a single lightyear, and that's not even the core -- in the cluster's core, you will encounter dozens of stars at planetary distances, nearly touching.

Travel times could be shortened to mere months at sublight speeds (10% C or less!) And communications could be maintained with delays of only a few weeks.

There are downsides, however.

1. Radiation, there would be tons of it, more the closer you get to the core.
2. The lack of habitable planets, though terraforming is an easy option with millennia on your hands.
3. Proximity to dying giant stars, if one explodes you all die.

All in all, though, I think Globular Clusters would be quite adequate for an advanced society. Far better than the sparse Orion Arm, which we currently inhabit.

Opinions?

Edited November 12, 2017 by daniel l.

[kerbiloid]

How would look a trillion-planet feuds genealogical tree?

[daniel l.]

4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

How would look a trillion-planet feuds genealogical tree?

Can you rephrase that, pardner? 

Edited November 12, 2017 by daniel l.

[kerbiloid]

54 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

Can you rephrase that, pardner?

This for a trillion planet empire.

Spoiler

Alas, most part of the a galaxy is either a radiation hell or has nothing except cold hydrogen clouds.
So, 1000 ly radius is more or less realistic.

Edited November 12, 2017 by kerbiloid

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, daniel l. said:

We could have a massive portion of the galaxy colonized within 40,000 years.

I stopped here.

Do you have any idea of how long 40000 years is ? We were still living in caves 20000 years ago. Look at how humanity has changed in just the last 1000 years. Look at how close we have come to extinction in the last 100 years. Do you really think that Homo Sapiens will still be around as a species in 40000 years ?

[GoSlash27]

daniel l,
 The stars in globular clusters are mainly low metallicity. It's not just a matter of finding habitable planets, but finding planets at all.

 Best,
-Slashy

[YNM]

Globular clusters consists of closely-orbiting stars, whizzing through each other relatively  close and frequent. Every pass is a chance of planetary destabilization. Living in an unstable house is the worst way of having a life.

 

The only ones living well in a globular cluster are massive stars. Nothing else does.

[Scotius]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

I stopped here.

Do you have any idea of how long 40000 years is ? We were still living in caves 20000 years ago. Look at how humanity has changed in just the last 1000 years. Look at how close we have come to extinction in the last 100 years. Do you really think that Homo Sapiens will still be around as a species in 40000 years ?

We are close to extinction? Did you mean threat of nuclear war? Because a species with billions of memebers and global range is a thriving one, not threatened. And yes - i think we will prevail, and we will be around in 40 000 years. Current "climate warming" phase is nothing compared to last ice age - which we survived just fine with much less to our name.

[YNM]

57 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Current "climate warming" phase is nothing compared to last ice age - which we survived just fine with much less to our name.

... Including if the "current society as we know it" ends ?

How many more years would it take for us to "take off" again ?

[PakledHostage]

3 hours ago, YNM said:

How many more years would it take for us to "take off" again ?

I've read that we may never be able to restart if we fall off the rails for some reason, because all of the easy to get at resources like oil and ores have already been extracted. Future civilizations would be restricted to mining our garbage dumps.

[kerbiloid]

Ores are not a problem, all the metals ever mined are still here, just in different shapes.

But they should use biofuel instead of oil. Btw the industry started using oil not so long ago.

Edited November 12, 2017 by kerbiloid

[PakledHostage]

9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Ores are not a problem, all the metals ever mined are still here, just in different shapes.

Which is why they'd be mining our garbage dumps.

 

9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Btw the industry started using oil not so long ago.

But it isn't a coincidence that that epoch (if you want to call it that) corresponds with the period of technological and economic advancement that makes the modern world possible. The availability of cheap energy was fundamental to the advances of the last century. Biofuels don't have the same net energy density as oil because it costs more energy, land and time to produce them. We are only in a position today to start to transition to a post-oil economy because we are sitting an economic and technological foundation built via that oil economy.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

13 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

Which is why they'd be mining our garbage dumps.

This hardly could be contested...

17 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

. The availability of cheap energy was fundamental to the advances of the last century. Biofuels don't have the same net energy density as oil because it costs more energy, land and time to produce them.

World production: coal ~8 bln t / year, oil ~4 bln t /year, so coal is still more common fuel.
Having the coal you can make synthetic oil.
Locally made biofuels are just a cheaper way in many particular cases. Their main advantage is their reproduction.
So, they should be more economical, but they have a chance.

 

(But I'm afraid, this goes into offtopic)

[Bill Phil]

Maybe the edges of a globular cluster, but even that's a stretch.

Maybe multiple star systems would be the real power houses. Something like Castor... six stars in one system.

Basically Firefly's solar system, but probably not in the 2500s.

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

With regards to your assertion regarding smaller empires, your model works perfectly, so long as you assume that each solar system has 1 inhabitable planet and all are approximately equal in resources. Outside of globular clusters, planets or star systems with more that one inhabitable planet (See Kerbol - Kerbin and Laythe) or significantly more resources than other nearby systems would be able to conquer or colonize nearby systems more easily.

Assuming ~1% of systems with a habitable planet fall into this category and ~10% of systems have a habitable planet, then these states would only have to explore about 1000 star systems to find another system like their own that they could exploit the resources of, and given that these resource-rich systems would have less trouble exploring new systems due to their easier access to the necessary resources, it is a reasonable assumption that they would be able to explore and colonize these systems first.

Once they had control of these systems, they would act as hubs for exploration and colonization of other nearby systems. These empires could control hundreds of star systems, rivaling the globular cluster empires.

In fact, they could be more powerful than the globular cluster empires. Because they are more spread out then the densely packed globular cluster states, they would be much more likely to have systems that fell along major trade routes. Assuming that any non-faster-than-light drive has a limited range, trading vessels would be required to stop in these systems. As a result, the non-GC empires could control trade between GCs.

Outside of these rich systems, I think it is likely that your assertion that no empire would be able to properly control more than five or so star systems is a reasonable one.

 

I just spent half an hour writing an essay on hypothetical interstellar politics. I REALLY need to find a better use of my time

 

@daniel l.

Edited November 12, 2017 by OrbitalBuzzsaw

[magnemoe]

11 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

I stopped here.

Do you have any idea of how long 40000 years is ? We were still living in caves 20000 years ago. Look at how humanity has changed in just the last 1000 years. Look at how close we have come to extinction in the last 100 years. Do you really think that Homo Sapiens will still be around as a species in 40000 years ?

Dying out is not an major problem unless we get black swan events. AI is one such, low risk but existing. Some other stuff we don't yet know about is more likely.
Known issues like nuclear war or global warming is more into the damaging event, not extinction ones. 

Changing past recognition culturally is very likely. Perhaps we find the matrix more fun

Now another issue is that birth numbers in first world and close to countries is below replacement. This is independent on culture and religion. 
Now its likely to stabilize at an lower level and far longer life will compensate. However an long lived and slow breeding species will use far more than 1000 year to fill up an planet. 
You would need something like an Kardashev 1 civilization to send off an colonization mission. 

Now because of cultural drift you are unlikely to keep an focus on outward expansion over time the first layer of colonies will seed of then they feel they want to. 
Things would go significantly slower. Still 100 times slower would still be an short term geological and is one of the issues with fermini paradox. 

[daniel l.]

12 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

daniel l,
 The stars in globular clusters are mainly low metallicity. It's not just a matter of finding habitable planets, but finding planets at all.

 Best,
-Slashy

Whoever said planets would be required?

There's bound to be quite a few asteroids, why not make habitat stations?

[Nuke]

first of all we need to get to where we can survive anywhere. i mean we dont need earthlike atmosphere and gravity. both can be manufactured with sufficient energy and industrial capability. its probibly better to set up shop on low gravity planets as that gives you access to the entire solar system. the technology to do this is not really that far ahead of us. we could use fission reactors, or fusion when that becomes available. we could use fusion engines, or even old boom boom, fission fragment, or maybe next gen plasma engines.  the hard part is probibly going to be the life support and keeping humans fertile durring the long voyage (a backup plan might be to store embryos in a very rad hard part of the ship). if earth and every colony manage to launch one or two colony ships to a destination < 10ly, then yea, galactic conquest is possible. we better get to it before another empire decides to do same.

 

globular clusters now thats iffy, unless we come up with some really good anti-radiation measures in the future, or use genetic engineering to rad-hard humans directly. 

[GoSlash27]

8 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

Whoever said planets would be required?

There's bound to be quite a few asteroids, why not make habitat stations?

There's *not* bound to be a few asteroids, though. The lower the metallicity in the stars, the less likely it is that you're going to find rocks. Basically, all you can count on finding in a globular cluster is a lot of old stars. It's just empty desert out there.
 And yeah... I suppose you *could* bring your biospheres out there to the boonies with you, but in that case, why would you leave in the first place?

[Bill Phil]

34 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

There's *not* bound to be a few asteroids, though. The lower the metallicity in the stars, the less likely it is that you're going to find rocks. Basically, all you can count on finding in a globular cluster is a lot of old stars. It's just empty desert out there.
 And yeah... I suppose you *could* bring your biospheres out there to the boonies with you, but in that case, why would you leave in the first place?

Well, assuming god-tech, stars are good sources of matter and energy. But starlifting would probably be something so far in the future, if it ever happens, that it may not be needed due to some other god tech.

And of course, there are plenty of stars that are elsewhere.

[Zeiss Ikon]

As noted, most globular clusters are so old the stars don't have enough heavier elements to form planets, never mind livable planets.  They predate the seeding of the galaxy with supernova remnants that contain even significant amounts of elements like carbon  and oxygen, never mind silicon, magnesium, and iron (and without iron, you won't get a livable planet -- period).  If your stars contain hydrogen, a little helium, and even less lithium, but effectively no boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., you won't be able to live in the cluster -- and this is what "low metallicity" means.  To astronomers, a "metal" is anything other than hydrogen.

Beyond that, stars don't stay in the outer part of a cluster -- every star orbits the cluster's center of mass, and is perturbed by other stars, especially when it passes near them (which happens all the time in a dense globular cluster).  No star in such a chaos could ever develop a planetary "system" -- anything that forms that's too small to ignite as a star will be in an orbit like one of the stars -- brown dwarfs, super-Jupiters, rocky bodies -- oh, wait, there won't be any rocky bodies.  Not even ice moons around the substellar objects, because those depend on rocky cores to hold the ice during formation.

And while there's little or no evidence of actual stellar collisions in globular clusters (because the stars are far enough apart relative to their size to make that rare even in the densest clusters), it's very possible that most of the substellar objects have been "eaten" , or even more likely ejected, by larger stars over the eons since the cluster formed.

Beyond that, there's some evidence that the stars within a globular cluster are of similar mass -- not identical, but within a fairly narrow range -- which argues against the formation of substellar objects at all.  If there was a mechanism in operation during the gas cloud collapse that formed one of these clusters which evened out the masses of the stars that eventually formed from the cloud, there's no reason to believe it would make an exception for really tiny masses.  In fact, the population density of many globular clusters is so high it's hard to see how anything smaller than the average cluster resident could avoid being torn apart by larger mass concentrations nearby (which is a good candidate for the mechanism that seems to even out the stellar masses in any given cluster).

There are clusters that would make good places to colonize -- but they'll be what astronomers call "open clusters", a half dozen to a couple dozen stars of similar age in relatively close proximity (Pleiades is a bad example for this, as the stars are young and too large/hot to be good candidates for habitable planets, but it's the right kind of cluster), as opposed to globular clusters, which are usually older than the Milky Way, hence their low metallicity. 

[GoSlash27]

^What Zeiss Ikon said.
 It's cool if you want to apply some artistic license in order to move a story along, but if scientific accuracy is important to you, then I recommend forgetting about the concept of globular clusters as a basis of empire. There's no planets out there, no rocks, and no resources to sustain life.

Best,
-Slashy

[mikegarrison]

20 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

I stopped here.

Do you have any idea of how long 40000 years is ? We were still living in caves 20000 years ago. Look at how humanity has changed in just the last 1000 years. Look at how close we have come to extinction in the last 100 years. Do you really think that Homo Sapiens will still be around as a species in 40000 years ?

FWIW, there is not a lot of evidence people ever "lived in caves". Visited caves, yes. But no hunter-gatherers in recorded history have ever been found living in caves. The closest to that are the cliff-dwellers of the Southwest.

We have found a lot of graffiti in caves, but it doesn't mean people lived there.

Anyway, if you want science fiction about a civilization in a cluster of stars, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Schmitz already wrote it for you. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/FederationOfTheHub

[YNM]

12 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Ores are not a problem, all the metals ever mined are still here, just in different shapes.

But they should use biofuel instead of oil. Btw the industry started using oil not so long ago.

Even if there are ores, without a hot furnace they're practically useless rocks.

[DerekL1963]

40 minutes ago, YNM said:

Even if there are ores, without a hot furnace they're practically useless rocks.

Yep.  And there's a reason why industry took off like gangbusters when we switched from charcoal to practically unlimited coal.   As somebody said above, our civilization is built on the abundant availability of cheap energy.   Biofuels are a complete non starter, as they require considerable technology, infrastructure, and energy to produce.