Generation Ships: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

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.

* [[Harry Harrison]]'s ''Captive Universe'': A Generation Ship with a seamless environment is launched: by design the highly repressive, extremely stable [[Mayincatec|Aztec]] cities onboard believe themselves to be in an inaccessible river valley. The ship tenders are if anything more rigid and religious: an extraordinary asceticism rules their lives and repairs are sacred rituals.

* The title species in [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''Quozl'' seek out new habitable worlds in these.

* Common FTL travel powerful enough to at least get around one's own galaxy makes these relatively uncommon in the ''[[Perry Rhodan]]'' universe, but they're not unknown. Ships (and space stations) intended for ''really'' extended missions, such as some undertaken by mortal helpers of the setting's [[Powers That Be]], may be designed to fit the trope, and suitable vessels have turned into this purely by accident, as happened to the SOL when its cosmic odyssey dragged out longer than expected and the shipborn generation started to have their own ideas about what uses their 'home' should be put to. Stretching the definition of "ship" to the limit, a ''major'' significant example would be the cosmic swarms, literally mobile star clusters whose multi-species 'crews' quite naturally were born, lived, and died on the worlds orbiting said stars while going about their assigned task of aiding the spread of intelligence throughout the universe.

* In Poul Anderson's ''[[Tau Zero (Literature)|Tau Zero]]'', the ''Leonora Christine'' is only supposed to take 5 years of time (relative to the passengers onboard) to reach Beta Virginis. It becomes a generation ship, though, when its deceleration unit breaks down.

* [[Andrey Livadny]]'s novel ''Ark'' is set aboard the title ship, a Moon-sized (literally, as it is the hollowed-out Moon with engines attached) ship built by humans to fly around the galaxy and collect samples of intelligent life to eventually bring back home. These "samples" were put into special habitats modified to the conditions on their homeworlds, even including artificial suns. There was also a human habitat for the families of the crew. Then an onboard cataclysm killed most of the senior officers and damaged many cybernetic systems, isolating the habitats from the command module and each other. Millennia later, the ship is falling apart with disrepair, as the human descendants have regressed into a near-Medieval state and forgot their origins. The only hope is a boy who has been a [[Human Popsicle]] since the cataclysm and is the only one who can regain access to the command module and direct the ship to a habitable planet. The ending reveals a possible {{spoiler|[[Stable Time Loop]], as the planet they find is eerily similar to Earth}}.

** Also, cats have [[Evolutionary Levels|evolved]] into intelligent humanoids.

* In François Bordes's novel ''Fleeing Earth'' (''Terre en fuite'', written under the pen name Francis Carsac), the [[Nested Story]] reveals that the people of the Second Civilization of humans (after most of us die out in another Ice Age) discover that the Sun is about to go nova. Since they can't build enough ships to fit everyone from Earth and Venus (terraformed and settled), they instead decide to move ''both planets'' by building giant "space magnets" at the poles. The original plan is to move them to the Outer Solar System, hide behind Jupiter, and return once the Sun settles down. However, they discover that the Sun will not return to its yellow dwarf state after the explosion and have to move to a new system. Thus both planets become giant generation ships, although the interstellar journeys only take several decades thanks to the "space magnets" accelerating the planets to 80% of the speed of light.

* [[Domingo Santos]]' story ''The First Day of Eternity'' (published in ''[[Analog (Magazine)|Analog]]'') concerns a ship, the ''Diaspora 32'' that has been traveling for 721 years.

** The Destiny from ''[[Stargate Universe (TV)|Stargate Universe]]'' could be seen as a generation ship, in that it not only took the resources of an entire generation to build, but wasn't even boarded until over a million years after it launched. While it is a ship on autopilot and flies through FTL, the scope of its mission is so large that the [[Precursors|Ancients]] who built it could not have hoped that they or their children would be alive to see that mission to its end.

** The Novus civilization, founded by the crew of the Destiny over 2000 years before the crew actually encounters Novus ([[Timey-Wimey Ball|long story]]), dedicated its resources to building a fleet of ships for its millions of citizens so that they could evacuate their dying world. They will reach their destination in a few hundred years (in stark contrast to the 10 days Destiny needs to cover the same distance with its FTL).

** And the Doctor claims it is just one of many, with each country building their own ship. The others are just not shown.

** Much earlier, First Doctor serial ''The Ark'', had the title spacecraft serving as both a generational ship for its crew (of both humans and subservient aliens), and as a [[Human Popsicle]]-stand for the remaining billions of humans and subservient aliens, since a ship that could carry both species in their entirety would've been far too massive to build (or move).

** Actually, virtually all Imperial ships (interstellar ones that is) are this - their bigger ships frequently have issues with the spontaneous development of small civilisations in less well-known parts of the hulls. Also, with mixed-gender crews in the thousands on a ship that serves for millennia, it is sort-of inevitable.

* The early science fiction game "Metamorphosis Alpha" from TSR was set on one of these. It was reworked later as the Amazing Engine setting book "Metamorphosis Alpha To Omega".

 

== Theater ==

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Generation Ships]]