Re: real world colonization

>From: GBailey@aol.com
>Reply-To: gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
>To: gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
>Subject: real world colonization
>Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 10:40:51 EDT
>

>Snip<
>Space travel is hard and dangerous,
>it's not like making a boat or wagon out of wood and
>going somewhere.

>More Snippage<
>Glen

Gee, you make it sound like it was a walk in the park.	But nothing
could be 
more untrue.  Let's start out with making a wagon out of wood:	I'll use

American Pioneers as my example.

First of all, these people did not have the luxuries of power tools and
Home 
Depot.	Most of the travel west on the Oregon Trail was done before the 
Industrial Revolution was in full swing in America. The Conestoga wagon
was 
hand-built by craftsmen, not cranked off an assembly line or thrown
together 
in people's back yards, and was an expensive vehicle for a prospective 
settler to purchase.  Most ended up selling their homes, and sinking
almost 
all their money into the purchase of the wagon and oxen, their share of 
hiring a trailmaster, and stocking up on provisions. (Once they left the

region around Independence, Missouri, the settlers wouldn't encounter 
another significant white settlement until they reached Fort Laramie,
1,200 
miles away.  The prices of supplies at Laramie and at Fort Hall, in
Idaho, 
were exorbitant, so the settlers had to make sure they carried almost 
everything they needed for the 6 month with them out of Independence.)

Once they hit the trail, it was not as simple as jumping on the
Interstate 
(or Motorway or Autobahn or whatever they call it wherever all our 
illustrious gamers live). It was a dirt rut all the way west.  The 
countryside on the eastern end of the trail was grassy prairie, but as
they 
went west it got harsher.  Along the way, they had to cross several
rivers, 
the most significant of which were the Blue, the Platte, and the Snake
(one 
of the wildest rivers in the country).	The Blue and the Platte were not
as 
rough, but they were deep, fast, and prone to flash flooding. Then they
had 
to cross the desert of southern Idaho and eastern Oregon, where grazing
was 
scarce for their draft animals and water was scarcer.  In addition, they

faced several of the most forbidding mountain ranges on the continent, 
including the Rockies and the Cascades.  Hostile Indian encounters,
though 
not as common as the movies seem to think, did occur.  In addition there

were prairie fires, bison stampedes, tornadoes, flash floods, and early 
blizzards to face, as well as hunger, thirst, diseases like cholera, 
influenza, scarlet fever, whooping cough, etc. Thousands died on the
trail.	
Almost no immigrant family made it to Oregon without at least one death.
 
They reached Oregon at the onset of winter, and many were forced to eat 
their seed supply of grain. (A historical note of human interest: many
of 
the settlers would not have survived if not for the efforts of one
British 
citizen.  Just north of Oregon, across the Columbia River was Fort
Vancouver 
in what is now the state of Washington.  It was a British military base
and 
outpost for the Hudson's Bay Company.  It's commander was instructed to 
discourage the American settlers to the south, to not help them at all,
and 
to encourage them to flee back east.  His humantiy got the better of
him, 
and he rescued many from starvation, giving them loans or even donations
of 
crop supplies and food.  That is why, in tribute to him, the Union Jack
to 
this day flies over Fort Vancouver, a U.S. National Historic Site)

That's just the Expoerience of the Oregon Pioneers, not to mention the 
original colonists coming over on ships from England.  In addition, I'n
sure 
the Aussies, Kiwis, and descendants of the Boers could tell equally
vivid 
tales of hardship.

OK,  I've gone all this time without mentioning FTL, thrusters, 
yeleportation, weapons systems, or anything else, so how does this
relate to 
the thread?  The challenges for those settlers were as relatively
difficult 
as those for our future star colonists. To be sure, they didn't have the

vacuum of space to contend with, but they were not equipped with
anywhere 
near the same levels of technology, either.

My point is, we are a plucky, gritty, stubborn little species who get
all 
pissed anytime we're told we can't do something.  Given enough
technological 
support and a compelling reason to colonize the stars, we WILL colonize.
 To 
be sure, it will be dangerous, difficult,  and expensive at the start. 
But 
that's never stopped us before, why should it do so now?

Brian Bilderback
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com