# Generation Ship Requirements: Too restrictive?



## caters (Nov 24, 2016)

I have started rewriting my generation ship story and the first scene after the background info(just a little to start it up, not a lot) is where an alien named Pistol Star decides who is to go on the generation ship. He uses very specific criteria to narrow things down. Here is the not allowed list:




Overweight and Obese
Underweight
Pregnant
Below 18
Orphaned
Above 50
Severe illness
Disease other than illness(diabetic, heart disease etc.)

After all the narrowing, 5 thousand people in an equal male to female ratio are chosen to maximize diversity while having an easy to control population.
The aliens do allow some ill people on board such as those sick with the cold or the flu or a stomach virus. Even some pneumonia is allowed on board but only the milder viral pneumonia.
*
Is the narrowing too restrictive?*

Note: The aliens view pregnancy before survival training for a given generation of humans is finished as a bad thing and will kill pregnant women that haven't finished survival training and don't allow pregnant women on board at the beginning when they are on earth and the narrowing down is going on.



What I mean by too restrictive is will it reduce the population by too much in terms of diversity? And there are plenty of people on earth that would love to adopt an orphan and care for it and will do it and orphans will probably regret more being in space than being an orphan.

I have been told that if I want to avoid induced lactation issues and a labor gap that will only equalize after generations that I would want to change the age requirements to 3 years+

But that makes things more complicated at the beginning because the young children will be like "Why are we nowhere near home?" and this is planned for the humans in the first few months:

Tour of every part of the ship that is not locked(You see, there are for the humans, rooms that the aliens will open as rewards for things like finishing the tour and finishing survival training).

Sleep schedule adaptation(Some nocturnal people will be needed when the humans reach the unknown planet to watch out for predators with all their senses. Because of this and the fact that if the parents are nocturnal, it is easier for the child to be the same way I figured sleep schedule adaptation should start early in the first generation. Children in the first generation would complicate this very much indeed.)

Survival training start up(Survival training lasts a year and is about everything from testing plants for poison by a very gradual process all the way up to dangerous animals and how to survive their attacks).

So should I change the age requirements and what about those other requirements(weight range, not severely ill, etc.)?


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## Ultraroel (Nov 25, 2016)

Have you started writing already? 

I thunk your requirements are fine. I think you should really drop all the theorycrafting beyond the basics and instead, go write.


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## bdcharles (Nov 25, 2016)

Ultraroel said:


> theorycrafting



What a great word!

To the OP: depends what you want - or more precisely, it depends on what your aliens want. Do they have a restrictive, exclusionary mindset? Then it is fine. Do they celebrate diversity in ways that would have the Trumps and Farages of this world in raging tatters? Then loosen it.


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## Makili (Nov 25, 2016)

Here, I am thinking like a biologist: 
Each time there is a population botleneck (and this would be one such - 5000 individuals is not that much in genetic and evolutionary terms, even less for the genes carried in the called mitochondrial DNK as they are only inherited from females), you loose much genetic diversity that is relevant for adaptation and evolution. If the idea is to be able to adapt to new and unknown conditions on a new planet, then you want to have as much genetic diversity as possible to start with. So the aliens' main selection criteria would be not only on the physical aspects and fitness levels, but on the genetic makeup of individuals, so that they exclude those with heritable diseases and also maximise the diversity of the gene pool of the colonists, which will enable them to adapt to whatever happens there. Then it doesn't matter if they are orphans, for instance. 

I think it is also good to keep those that are temporarily infected with bacteria and viruses with which we have coevolved, so that on the new planet, they keep human immune system "up to date"


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## caters (Nov 25, 2016)

But those 5000 are chosen so that diversity is maximized for the small population while keeping sex ratio 1:1. Genetic disease is not worried about until the second generation is born. Then when the second generation is born, all babies that have genetic disease or genetic defects are put on a permanent sterilization program. It is low at first to make sure they still develop as male and female but once puberty is over it is at a much higher dose to prevent ovulation and spermatogenesis. The only way these people can take care of a child then is adoption for those with genetic disease and defects. 

And they force people to not mate or induce lactation until survival training is finished. This is to get rid of the weak and promote the strong.

But here is my reasoning behind the restrictions:

Overweight, Obese, and Underweight - These are unhealthy people mostly and even though some healthy, muscular, people fall into these categories, they don't take that risk.

Pregnant - Violates not mating or inducing lactation until survival training is finished and will be killed by letting them out into the vacuum of space if they end up on the ship.

Below 18 - Children and teens complicate things a lot both by low knowledge and teens, by their moodiness.

Orphaned - Same as Below 18 + high rejection and sadness

Above 50 - Most people aren't of reproductive age in this group, sure some are(I have heard of a woman in her 70's becoming pregnant) but there is also weakness in people above 50 both physically and as far as their immune system

Severe illness - This is obvious. If someone is severely ill, there is a high chance of death and it will probably spread throughout the generation ship and destroy the first generation and all other generations.

Other diseases besides illness - This is also obvious. Without treatment these people will die despite their best efforts and everyone will be really sad.

Notice that for illness I don't restrict illness entirely, I just restrict it to mild viral illness(mild for most people anyway) allowed and this includes stomach viruses, colds, flu, viral pneumonia, chickenpox, etc.

The only mild bacterial illnesses I can think of are strep throat, ear infection(and this could be caused by a virus), UTI(again could be caused by a virus), and conjunctivitis. And these could become very dangerous thus me not allowing any bacterial illness(and in fact any illness caused by protozoa, worms(both of which are parasites), fungi, and prions no matter the severity).


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## TWErvin2 (Nov 25, 2016)

Just a few thoughts:

I am not sure things like overweight or underweight would be a priority. With a generational ship, survival on that may not be an issue (still, see genetic selection below).

Genetic diversity would be a primary concern. But those selected with positive attributes (which may select against a tendency toward obesity, etc.) Although, advanced aliens could take eggs and sperm from tens of thousands of humans to provide added diversity if needed down the line sometime. Would they test for genetic carriers of diseases such as cystic fibrosis or other genetic illnesses and eliminate those folks from the potential pool of travelers?

No reason not to take teens, for an overall spread in ages. How long/how many generations will be on the ship? Possibly testing for psychological aspects...folks spending the rest of their life on a space vessel might not react too well after a few years, so that would be something of a priority, especially among the incoming crowd.


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## MzSnowleopard (Nov 26, 2016)

Overweight /underweight I'm thinking this should not be an issue. These sorts of things can be changed with diet and exercise. If Einstein were fat, would you cross him off simply because of his weight? My thoughts are that intelligence should be prioritized over body issues.

I'm banking on the notion that a generational ship with or should have at least one seriously awesome health center / exercise facility.


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## The Fantastical (Nov 26, 2016)

I think that the Pregnant criteria might be the one big flaw, or at least the no-one under 18.  You don't want to much if a generational gap in your people because of the time it will take to get to the planet, train, then set up enough of a settlement to survive (they would not want people to be falling Pregnant while they are trying to get the settlement set up, less hands and all that; there is a risk that all that your first generation might be to old to raise the next generation fully before being to old to work anymore. You need children that will grow up during the training, settlement stage in order for there to be a healthy age staggering.


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## caters (Nov 26, 2016)

But during survival training babies and pregnant women have much more of a weakness than normal and even if pregnant women and women who are caring for babies were allowed in survival training they probably wouldn't get past the gradual plant poison test or if lucky, animal attacks. Since the aliens don't want weak people, it wouldn't make sense from this perspective to allow pregnant women on the generation ship or women with young children.

For the same reason and low knowledge, it wouldn't make sense to have any children below 10 at least. And teens are moody. Children and teens would complicate things a lot for these reasons.

And I am not so sure what work the humans would do other than teaching their children and normal family work. I mean the aliens do most of the work from establishing protocols to steering the ship to making sure there is no asteroid collision or that gravity is not too strong for a ship at half of the speed of light. Robots are also on this ship for things like making swimsuits.

And there is an awesome health center. The main part of this is the medical bay where Injured and Ill are taken care of and everybody, especially pregnant women get checkups. There is a branch off of this for defected babies. In this defect branch, some babies have all kinds of tubes(dialysis, heart-lung machine, nutrient IV, etc.) while internal defects are fixed. External defects take a long time to fix and they take the baby's growth into consideration when fixing it. The only exceptions to this long fix are cleft palate and cleft lip.


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## Terry D (Nov 26, 2016)

No reader is going to give a damn what the selection criteria is. Readers are going to care about the characters and what happens to them. All this fuss about minutiae is just procrastination. Something to focus on to keep from actually writing the book.


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## The Fantastical (Nov 26, 2016)

caters said:


> But during survival training babies and pregnant women have much more of a weakness than normal and even if pregnant women and women who are caring for babies were allowed in survival training they probably wouldn't get past the gradual plant poison test or if lucky, animal attacks. Since the aliens don't want weak people, it wouldn't make sense from this perspective to allow pregnant women on the generation ship or women with young children.
> 
> For the same reason and low knowledge, it wouldn't make sense to have any children below 10 at least. And teens are moody. Children and teens would complicate things a lot for these reasons.
> 
> ...



Fair enough about the survival training, but I was under the impression that they were going to be doing that training on the ship which is then going to drop them off on the new planet - 



> *Tour of every part of the ship that is not locked(You see, there are for the humans, rooms that the aliens will open as rewards for things like finishing the tour and finishing survival training).
> 
> "Sleep schedule adaptation(Some nocturnal people will be needed when the humans reach the unknown planet to watch out for predators with all their senses. Because of this and the fact that if the parents are nocturnal, it is easier for the child to be the same way I figured sleep schedule adaptation should start early in the first generation. Children in the first generation would complicate this very much indeed.)
> 
> ...



Which all lead me to think that they were training on the ship. Which if they are then...The thing is that starting a new settlement is hard, getting food sources going, getting buildings up, clearing the land all takes time and the young die during this time. In fact the only reason any place got settled was because of the continuous influx of new people as well as children being born. Truth be told withing the first 5+ years you are looking at at a mortality rate of about 60% for any children born. Plus the deaths of the original group of people from contact with the new planet. 

So you will have the original group only successfully raising children in about 10+ years, this will make a huge age gap between generation. So stop a rather big impossibility of survival over multiple generations once that have landed you need a wide range of ages. You need people that will reach maturity as the group lands on the planet in order for their to be a generational buffer between the older subjects and the time when they are having enough children to successfully populate the planet. 


Then the other factor would be, is the ship staying there, to act as the settlement, medical center and all that? If it is then that is something different and you would have no problem with the set up you have chosen.


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## K.S. Crooks (Nov 26, 2016)

I would go at it from the opposite direction. You have made your list considering the characteristics you DON'T want, I would have a list of what you DO want. If this is a generational ship you need teachers, doctors, leaders, maybe religious figures, engineers, artists (music, visual, drama), crew, legal experts (to settle disputes), agriculture experts, cooks, and probably things I haven't thought of yet. Also if it's a generational ship why no pregnant people? Don't you want to have the next generation getting underway?


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## The Fantastical (Nov 26, 2016)

K.S. Crooks said:


> I would go at it from the opposite direction. You have made your list considering the characteristics you DON'T want, I would have a list of what you DO want. If this is a generational ship you need teachers, doctors, leaders, maybe religious figures, engineers, artists (music, visual, drama), crew, legal experts (to settle disputes), agriculture experts, cooks, and probably things I haven't thought of yet. Also if it's a generational ship why no pregnant people? Don't you want to have the next generation getting underway?



Exactly!


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## MzSnowleopard (Nov 26, 2016)

I have to ask this- have you read the America 2040 series by Evan Innes? This story, I believe there are 6 books, entails a ship with a large crew going to settle another planet and the events that happen to them on the journey and the planet. It's one of the best sci-fi series I've read in my 40 years of reading. My parents told me I starting reading before I was 5. Anyway, America 2040 has been compared to the epic story Wagons West.

I do understand that you want your characters to be prepared for the hazards and pitfalls of a new world- but realistically, you can't prepare for the unknown or unexpected. I also agree with Crooks, focus more on the crew qualifiers instead of the disqualifiers.


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## Bard_Daniel (Nov 26, 2016)

Terry D said:


> No reader is going to give a damn what the selection criteria is. Readers are going to care about the characters and what happens to them. All this fuss about minutiae is just procrastination. Something to focus on to keep from actually writing the book.



Very well put. I agree with this as well.


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## TWErvin2 (Dec 9, 2016)

Terry D said:


> No reader is going to give a damn what the selection criteria is. Readers are going to care about the characters and what happens to them. All this fuss about minutiae is just procrastination. Something to focus on to keep from actually writing the book.



I'm not sure that the criteria to be accepted as a member of the generational ship crew is irrelevant. It would affect who the characters are, and who they interact with. It would say a lot about the organization that initiated the project/mission/migration and how the command/control/governmental entity on board functions. Maybe not central, unless one of the characters falls outside of the criteria but still relevant.

That said, I agree, moving forward and not allowing this concern stall the process makes sense.


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