EdThomas wrote:evilauthor wrote:-Snip
If anything, this may be a more logical "second arrow" for the Federation if lyonheart is right about the covering fleet for Langhorne being the last one of its size. You don't need nearly as many resources to preserve 80 million electronically stored mind copies as you do 80 million flesh and blood human beings.
OAR 8 million As many as half a million on the biggest ship.
Whatever. Exact number doesn't make any difference to my point: It's easier and less energy intensive (read: lower emissions signature that might attract unwanted attention) to store X number of mind uploads than X number of flesh and blood human beings. That makes them MUCH easier to hide from the Gbaba as long as you can pull the same "make em think they got us" trick that Operation Ark managed.
The trade off of course that if all you store are mind copies of human beings, you can forget them ever having real flesh and blood bodies again. You'd have a civilization of electronic ghosts.
Which I have no doubt would scare the bejebus out of Langhorne if he ever saw it.