Re: COLONIAL WEAPONS

>I think that would be the key question - can one shove
>the entire industrial process into a container.
>Obviously if you send your colonists out with only a
>metal lathe, they won't be able to build/support
>high-tech electronics.

Which IMHO would be very, very stupid (not to mention less than
economically 
viable considering the cost of getting them there in the first place).

>My suggestion does depend on the idea that colonists
>still have a link (however thin) back to the
>infrastructure of the homeworld.  But I think that if
>that link was completely lost then the colonists would
>find themselves armed with bows/spears before too
>long, regardless of the technology they started with
>(at least for a while).

Absolutely, I agree.  Also, f you are going to basically abandon your 
colonies...then YOUR colonies they will no longer be.

I find it hard to accept that in 2150 "empires" will go to the trouble
of 
FTL traveling to other solar systems, mapping, preparing, recruiting, 
outfitting, training and transporting colonists...just to abandon them
with 
steam engines and 200+ year old technology.  Sorry, I just don't see the

economics in it myself.  Now, if you want to say they are penal
colonies, 
thats another matter (actually there are cheaper ways of doing that
too).

Scott

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