Generation Ships: Difference between revisions

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If the laws of physics don't allow [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]], it's going to take a long time to colonize the stars. If you can't get close enough to lightspeed to take advantage of [[Time Dilation]], don't have the medical technology for functional [[Immortality]], and you don't want to resort to [[Human Popsicle|suspended animation/hibernation]] (or, in more recent SF, [[Brain Uploading]]), you're not going to see the destination ~~yourself -- it~~ may be your grandchildren, or ''their'' grandchildren, or '''their...''' You get the idea.

If the laws of physics don't allow [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]], it's going to take a long time to colonize the stars. If you can't get close enough to lightspeed to take advantage of [[Time Dilation]], don't have the medical technology for functional [[Immortality]], and you don't want to resort to [[Human Popsicle|suspended animation/hibernation]] (or, in more recent SF, [[Brain Uploading]]), you're not going to see the destination yourself—it may be your grandchildren, or ''their'' grandchildren, or '''their...''' You get the idea.

This doesn't ''have'' to wind up as a [[City in a Bottle]], but frequently does (and did in what is perhaps the first story to <s>use</s> popularize this trope, [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s "Universe"). Several examples of [[Generation Ships]] are listed on that page.

This doesn't ''have'' to wind up as a [[City in a Bottle]], but frequently does (and did in what is perhaps the first story to <s>use</s> popularize this trope, [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s "Universe"). Several examples of '''Generation Ships''' are listed on that page.

[[Generation Ships]] are great settings for sociological comment: the author has [[Closed Circle|a nice sealed pressure vessel]] to play out their theories or critique existing cultures.

'''Generation Ships''' are great settings for sociological comment: the author has [[Closed Circle|a nice sealed pressure vessel]] to play out their theories or critique existing cultures.

A Generation Ship is almost always a [[Starship Luxurious]] ~~-- it~~'s got to sustain the equivalent of an entire ecosystem, whether it does so with rivets-and-bolts machinery or with an actual terrarium-style recreation of a full-fledged habitat.

A Generation Ship is almost always a [[Starship Luxurious]]—it's got to sustain the equivalent of an entire ecosystem, whether it does so with rivets-and-bolts machinery or with an actual terrarium-style recreation of a full-fledged habitat.

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a ~~destination -- it~~'s an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[Portal Network|Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation, in which case the populace are usually [[Space People]]. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[Lightspeed Leapfrog|someone developed an FTL drive while they were en route]] and the world they were going to colonize already has a few million people on it.

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a destination—it's an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[Portal Network|Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation, in which case the populace are usually [[Space People]]. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[Lightspeed Leapfrog|someone developed an FTL drive while they were en route]] and the world they were going to colonize already has a few million people on it.

[[I Thought It Meant|Has nothing to do with]] fandom Shipping older and younger characters.

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* ''[[Megazone 23]]'' (the first two installments).

* The official backstory for ''[[Turn A Gundam (Anime)|Turn a Gundam]]'' says that {{spoiler|there are no space colonies because they were all converted into [[Generation Ships]] and left the Earth Sphere.}}

* The official backstory for ''[[Turn A Gundam (Anime)|Turn a Gundam]]'' says that {{spoiler|there are no space colonies because they were all converted into Generation Ships and left the Earth Sphere.}}

** We get to see the beginnings of this process in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED|Gundam SEED]]''. The [[Wave Motion Gun|Genesis System]] used at the end of the series was originally created as a laser propulsion/nuclear pulse hybrid engine meant to be attached to colonies to facilitate their exodus from the solar system & thus escape the conflict between Naturals & Coordinators, before Patrick Zara decided to repurpose it as a doomsday weapon & tried to use it to end the war in [[Nuke'Em|a more direct manner]]. In the ''[[Gundam SEED Astray]]'' manga the heroes actually help a neutral colony afix one to use for its intended purpose.

* City 7 of ''[[Macross 7]]'' was a rare example of a faster than light generational ship.

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* ''[[Orphans Of The Sky]]'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]] has a massive generation ship whose inhabitants have forgotten their origins and fallen into barbarism, yet [[Ragnarok Proofing|the ship still functions after centuries of neglect]] (albeit with an assist from [[Cargo Cult]] maintenance procedures). Guess they don't make them like they will have used to.

** The ''New Frontiers'' in ''[[Methuselah's Children]]'' was a Generation Ship which was later upgraded with a FTL Drive.

* ''The Galactic Whirlpool'' is set in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' [[Expanded Universe]], where the Enterprise discovers a generation ship launched just before the Last World War, whose inhabitants ~~have--~~ ~~surprise surprise --forgotten~~ their origins and descended into barbarism.

* ''The Galactic Whirlpool'' is set in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' [[Expanded Universe]], where the Enterprise discovers a generation ship launched just before the Last World War, whose inhabitants have—surprise surprise—forgotten their origins and descended into barbarism.

* The most extreme ~~example -- in~~ [[Larry Niven]]'s ''[[Ringworld]]'', the Fleet of Worlds is the Puppeteers' ''entire planetary system'' converted into a generation ship to flee the galaxy.

* The most extreme example—in [[Larry Niven]]'s ''[[Ringworld]]'', the Fleet of Worlds is the Puppeteers' ''entire planetary system'' converted into a generation ship to flee the galaxy.

** The Pak also did this with when they colonized Earth and the Ringworld itself.

*** In addition to that ultra-long journey (half a million years), the Pak have ships that ''would'' be generation ships for a species with less incredible lifespans - Phssthpok flies a ship for 1200 years ([[Time Dilation|ship's time]]), ''alone''.

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* The backstory of Kevin J. Anderson's ''[[The Saga of Seven Suns]]'' involves 11 generational ships sent out into space. None of them reach their destinations, however. Nine are found by an alien race who use their FTL technology to take them to habitable planets. Another ends up colonizing whatever asteroids and other non-terrestrial environments they can find becoming Space Gypsies. The other one is assumed to be lost until it is discovered that {{spoiler|the supposedly friendly Ildirians that rescued the others kept the last one to do breeding experiments with and have been raping generations of human women to experiment on their hybrids}}

* In "Thirteen for Centaurus" by J. G. Ballard, the action takes place on a generation ship {{spoiler|but not really. The main character figures out it's all a scam when he sees supplies being trucked in.}}

* ''The Clockwork Rocket'' by [[Greg Egan]] takes place in a universe where physics is different and [[Time Dilation]] works in ~~reverse -- the~~ faster you travel, the ''more'' time passes from your perspective. The protagonists, seeing an oncoming disaster that they don't have the technology to prevent, build a generation ship so their descendants will have enough time to develop it while only a few years pass on their world.

* ''The Clockwork Rocket'' by [[Greg Egan]] takes place in a universe where physics is different and [[Time Dilation]] works in reverse—the faster you travel, the ''more'' time passes from your perspective. The protagonists, seeing an oncoming disaster that they don't have the technology to prevent, build a generation ship so their descendants will have enough time to develop it while only a few years pass on their world.

* Molly Glass' "The Dazzle of Day" a generation ship populated by Quakers nears a system where they could possibly settle. Much of the action of the novel deals with the decision of whether to stop here or go on. Since all decisions are made by the Quaker practice of Consensus, this is a complex task.

* In [[Empire From the Ashes]], the planetoid-class ships have perfectly good FTL that can get them around to most places in less than a year, but they're still set up as generation ships because they oftentimes go on ''long'' tours of duty and it's considered necessary for the health of the community to have children born and growing up as they would be on a planet. Of course, being what they are, these ships have crews in the hundreds of thousands and provision for natural increase up to doubling.

* ''[[Across the Universe (novel)|Across the Universe]]'' is set on a generation ship called the ''Godspeed'', which is on a journey to a habitable planet that will take hundreds of years to complete. While a lot of the colonists elected to be turned into [[Human Popsicle~~|Human Popsicles~~]] for the duration of the trip, there was a need for an active crew to perform maintenance. Thus, many generations have lived and died on the ''Godspeed'' as it slowly makes its way towards its destination.

* ''[[Across the Universe (novel)|Across the Universe]]'' is set on a generation ship called the ''Godspeed'', which is on a journey to a habitable planet that will take hundreds of years to complete. While a lot of the colonists elected to be turned into [[Human Popsicle]]s for the duration of the trip, there was a need for an active crew to perform maintenance. Thus, many generations have lived and died on the ''Godspeed'' as it slowly makes its way towards its destination.

* One is briefly visited in ''[[Bill the Galactic Hero|Bill the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Ten Thousand Bars]]''.

* In ''[[Liaden Universe|The Tomorrow Log]]'' by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, {{spoiler|a [[Generation Ship]] has actually forgotten that it was supposed to colonize a planet and has become a flying [[Cult Colony]]}}.

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* The ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'' episode "The Disease" has a generation ship which is over four hundred years old.

** In ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', this was the original concept of the ''Galaxy''-class ships like the Enterprise-D. In practice, they [[Travel At The Speed Of Plot]] and between that and the amount of combat scenarios encountered, the idea of ''Enterprise''-as-a-family-poting was dropped from future iterations of the franchise.

** In an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]'', the enterprise {{spoiler|gets sent 100 years back in time with [[Trapped in the Past|no way to return]]}}. The Enterprise then becomes a ~~[[Generation Ships|~~Generational Vessel]] {{spoiler|in one of the few successful attempts at not screwing up the time line, though they wanted to change one thing while staying out of the way until it happened.}} {{spoiler|They succeed so well that by traveling on [[The Slow Path]], they meet their parents/grandparents, completely the same as the ones that went back.}}

** In an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]'', the enterprise {{spoiler|gets sent 100 years back in time with [[Trapped in the Past|no way to return]]}}. The Enterprise then becomes a Generational Vessel {{spoiler|in one of the few successful attempts at not screwing up the time line, though they wanted to change one thing while staying out of the way until it happened.}} {{spoiler|They succeed so well that by traveling on [[The Slow Path]], they meet their parents/grandparents, completely the same as the ones that went back.}}

** Janeway often wonders whether "Voyager" will become such a ship itself: the original return estimate is 70 years, after all. {{spoiler|they make it in seven}}

* The Magog Worldship on ''[[Andromeda]]''.

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* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'' the entire quarian species dwells in a massive flotilla consisting of thousands of this trope due to being driven off their original planet. The fleet isn't going anywhere in particular, but the trope still fits.

** In fact, the Migrant Fleet is actually the largest fleet in known space. They just don't have any planets where they could off-load their civilians.

* ''[[Homeworld]]'' has this in the backstory: when the Hiigarans were exiled, the entire civilization was packed into a fleet of identical FTL-incapable generation ships that crossed half the galaxy on sublight until the last four or so reached Kharak. Some of them broken off and became the Kadeshi, a society who camped out in a nebula and gave everyone they met a choice: join or die (the ship is plundered and destroyed in both cases). By the time their distant siblings who made it to Kharak found them, the Kadeshi were religious fanatics who worshipped the nebula and talked in a [[Creepy Monotone]]. Oh, and according to the [[Expanded Universe]], they were also [[Evil Albino~~|Evil Albinos~~]]. One of the generation ships is still floating in the center of the nebula, unmanned and slowly spinning in place.

* ''[[Homeworld]]'' has this in the backstory: when the Hiigarans were exiled, the entire civilization was packed into a fleet of identical FTL-incapable generation ships that crossed half the galaxy on sublight until the last four or so reached Kharak. Some of them broken off and became the Kadeshi, a society who camped out in a nebula and gave everyone they met a choice: join or die (the ship is plundered and destroyed in both cases). By the time their distant siblings who made it to Kharak found them, the Kadeshi were religious fanatics who worshipped the nebula and talked in a [[Creepy Monotone]]. Oh, and according to the [[Expanded Universe]], they were also [[Evil Albino]]s. One of the generation ships is still floating in the center of the nebula, unmanned and slowly spinning in place.

* Arguably, the planet in ''[[Might and Magic]]'' 7 has turned into one of these: They {{spoiler|lost contact with the [[Progenitor Race|Ancients]] (in an event known as the Silence) and }}have regressed to roughly medieval levels of technology, {{spoiler|although some ancient tech still exists. And is really dangerous}}.

* Building one of these and sending it to Alpha Centauri is one of the ways to win in ''[[Civilization]]''.