Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

BarGamer t1_j2n2ivt wrote

Sounds about right, but you need another source of conflict to jazz up the inevitable boring bits. Maybe something goes wrong with the caretaker robot, maybe something's wrong with the planet, maybe something wrong with the babies, maybe all of the above. Think The Martian, then go from there.

59

matthewgdick OP t1_j2n9vg6 wrote

It’s already published and you’re spot on!

14

StantonExit t1_j2o1280 wrote

This idea sounds like Raised by Wolves on HBO.

22

matthewgdick OP t1_j2o1gsd wrote

Yep, but my book came out before Raised by Wolves. Great show. Sucks it got cancelled.

4

Muesky6969 t1_j2nx3ti wrote

So I am probably going to be down voted to Hades but all the time, money and research spent on interstellar travel is ridiculous. How about we take those resources and fix the mess we have made of the one planet we know for sure is inhabitable for humans and cure the diseases that plague humanity, first?

Then once that is done we focus on space travel. With a healthy world population and thriving planet, who knows what advances in science, medicine and technology we could make. This all seems, as my grandmother used to say, “Putting the cart before the horse.”

Understand I am just tired of seeing wonderful human beings living in poverty, homelessness and with diseases, while we kill our beautiful planet for greed.

8

Mr_BamDeano t1_j2o0hdl wrote

This is a washed argument. There are enough resources and brain power on this planet to work both in parallel.

The sad part is, colonizing other planets (interstellar is a toss up) is very likely a simpler feat than fixing the entire human condition on this planet.

6

UniversalMomentum t1_j2p3rz1 wrote

We will have unlimited robotic labor by the time we are doing stuff like this so there is no need to worry about those issues. You will have so much cheap production that everything will be dirt cheap and people will be bored enough to try crazy space exploration ideas.

Humans might tear themselves apart, but you won't really have production and resource problems AND a lot of these ideas don't compete against domestic improvement anyway so you will be doing both constantly like now.. just at a much faster rate.

Plus there are few single inventions that would benefit humans more than the ability to transfer a human mind into a machine because that opens up all kinds of new doors so you would want to do that even if you didn't care about space travel and you want the robots to automate your production as much as possible.. so you're already building everything you need for space travel for domestic uses anyway.. there is no real loss there just more reasons to do the same thing.

3

Wargasm69 t1_j2p8wu1 wrote

A healthy world would imply culling 99% of the human population. From 8 billion to 80 million. Then we can start over. Why cure diseases when we should let nature run its course? Diseases are nature’s way of cleansing genetic defects, so why are we going against it? Why do we even need so many people on the planet?

2

Yesterday_Is_Now t1_j2r2amw wrote

>With a healthy world population and thriving planet, who knows what advances in science, medicine and technology we could make.

Er, but R&D for space exploration leads to advances in science, medicine and technology that would help to heal the Earth and its residents as you aspire. So it would be best for both efforts to proceed in tandem.

1

BarGamer t1_j2nbn3i wrote

ISTG, I had no idea. Wow, maybe I should buy a lotto ticket?

3

CTDKZOO t1_j2nkwb2 wrote

Just read your reviews and this comment from a three-star had me rolling:

>The problem is that anyone half-way competent would never have made these mistakes in the first place, so there wouldn't have been a plot.

Oh when this person hits the workplace and finds out that average is excellence...

11

Teripid t1_j2nlgbd wrote

Most killer/zombie movies would last about 20 minutes if people had common sense.

Also don't get me started on Jaws.

8

Icerios t1_j2nvqsr wrote

> Oh when this person hits the workplace and finds out that average is excellence...

Spot on, hahaha.

Unfortunately, though, plot demands conflict, so of course something must go awry. Otherwise your tale is just a bland documentary following a fictitious series of events.

In terms of realism, whenever humans have any involvement in anything, there will be some mistakes that’ll look utterly ridiculous in hindsight. Just look at the glitch the ~$10B James Webb telescope suffered. If it happened in fiction, it’d be criticized for being a cheap plot device. Hard realism is an “unrealistic” mix of diabolus ex machina, diabolus ex nihilo, and deus ex machina.

4

zoinkability t1_j3nvt5v wrote

What was the glitch in the JWST? Having only paid attention to it for a bit over a year everything seems to have gone smoothly. Are you referring to a glitch that delayed the project completion? I know it was tremendously over budget and schedule.

1

jubular t1_j2nk4sx wrote

I'm actually writing something similar where the caretakers we're functionally immortal humans that set themselves up as Gods once they colonize a new world.

3

Alphatron1 t1_j2o2rwe wrote

Maybe humanity sucks as a whole and the robot decides to stop the ship in space. The end

3

melvinma t1_j2nm6oq wrote

You mean injecting Elon Musk in the story?

−3