Very Long Range Exploration In The Honorverse? ...

This may be one of the weaknesses of the Honorverse story line. I think there are too many good planets too close together. But, staying within the story line, then yep ... most likely there is already a good data base somewhere about many good potential or real new worlds able to support human colonies.

So if we stick to the story line, and for this discussion I believe we should, then if there are so many good new worlds out there ripe for the plucking, then why have not there been many new colony endeavors leaving old Earth and elsewhere to exploit same? Perhaps there are and we do not know of them. HB

HB of CJ wrote:This may be one of the weaknesses of the Honorverse story line. I think there are too many good planets too close together. But, staying within the story line, then yep ... most likely there is already a good data base somewhere about many good potential or real new worlds able to support human colonies.

So if we stick to the story line, and for this discussion I believe we should, then if there are so many good new worlds out there ripe for the plucking, then why have not there been many new colony endeavors leaving old Earth and elsewhere to exploit same? Perhaps there are and we do not know of them. HB

How would you know there aren't? The Honorverse books focus on war and power politics. Frontier exploration doesn't play to either unless said exploration runs smack into an alien polity of roughly the same technological and military capability as the humans in the Honorverse. If they weren't roughly comparable, then one side would completely roflstomp the other even worse than Manticore does the SLN now.

Which is never going to happen as long as the Honorverse focuses on human conflicts. For that type of story, go read Starfire where that kind of first contact happens all the time.

And when you get right down to it, meeting aliens of roughly comparable tech and power is highly unrealistic. The most realistic scenario is an "Angels and Apes" scenario, where the advanced side is so far advanced that they might as well be Angels, and the other side apes. In the Honorverse, humanity has had the luck to be on the Angel side of the relationship with every intelligent species they've met so far.

HB of CJ wrote:This may be one of the weaknesses of the Honorverse story line. I think there are too many good planets too close together. But, staying within the story line, then yep ... most likely there is already a good data base somewhere about many good potential or real new worlds able to support human colonies.

So if we stick to the story line, and for this discussion I believe we should, then if there are so many good new worlds out there ripe for the plucking, then why have not there been many new colony endeavors leaving old Earth and elsewhere to exploit same? Perhaps there are and we do not know of them. HB

There almost certainly are new colonization efforts. In fact, there is indirect evidence of them. But the books aren't going to bother mentioning them, just like they don't bother mentioning the hundreds of planets currently undergoing famines or epidemics, or minor brush wars, or the astronomical discoveries taking place all the time across explored space. The books didn't even mention half of the wormholes that Manticore had easy access to until they became important to the story.

There are trillions of events happening across the Honorverse that never get mentioned in the books because they aren't important to the story.

HB of CJ wrote:This may be one of the weaknesses of the Honorverse story line. I think there are too many good planets too close together. But, staying within the story line, then yep ... most likely there is already a good data base somewhere about many good potential or real new worlds able to support human colonies.

So if we stick to the story line, and for this discussion I believe we should, then if there are so many good new worlds out there ripe for the plucking, then why have not there been many new colony endeavors leaving old Earth and elsewhere to exploit same? Perhaps there are and we do not know of them. HB

I'd guess that most people who can afford to be part of a new coloney, from Old Earth or elsewhere, have it well enough that they aren't motivated to go terraform a virgin planet somewhere. They're either happy where they are, or they pick an already somewhat settled planet to move to.

But this happens over time as one off. So there's likely little pressure to form brand new colony worlds. I'm sure there are some but, unlike settlers moving west across the American continent, it takes a major expedition (lots of money) to pull together a viable colony. That makes it hard to reach the critical mass necessary to organize and fund such an expedition.

[size](And the more planets that are already settled the higher the chance that someone wanting a chance can find what they want on an existing colony)[/size]

SWM wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:This may be one of the weaknesses of the Honorverse story line. I think there are too many good planets too close together. But, staying within the story line, then yep ... most likely there is already a good data base somewhere about many good potential or real new worlds able to support human colonies.

So if we stick to the story line, and for this discussion I believe we should, then if there are so many good new worlds out there ripe for the plucking, then why have not there been many new colony endeavors leaving old Earth and elsewhere to exploit same? Perhaps there are and we do not know of them. HB

There almost certainly are new colonization efforts. In fact, there is indirect evidence of them. But the books aren't going to bother mentioning them, just like they don't bother mentioning the hundreds of planets currently undergoing famines or epidemics, or minor brush wars, or the astronomical discoveries taking place all the time across explored space. The books didn't even mention half of the wormholes that Manticore had easy access to until they became important to the story.

There are trillions of events happening across the Honorverse that never get mentioned in the books because they aren't important to the story.

David did mention once that for every dot on his map representing a known settled colony, there are 50-100 other manmade items not mentioned. These include failed colonies, lost colonies, Small colonies, small or hidden mining operations, pirate stations, slaver transfer points, small habitat, etc, etc. So space is much more densely populated than we know. Just because known settled planets are 20 light years apart, does not necessarily mean that there were (or are) no colonies or habitats at the stars between them

Theemile wrote:

SWM wrote:There are trillions of events happening across the Honorverse that never get mentioned in the books because they aren't important to the story.

David did mention once that for every dot on his map representing a known settled colony, there are 50-100 other manmade items not mentioned. These include failed colonies, lost colonies, Small colonies, small or hidden mining operations, pirate stations, slaver transfer points, small habitat, etc, etc. So space is much more densely populated than we know. Just because known settled planets are 20 light years apart, does not necessarily mean that there were (or are) no colonies or habitats at the stars between them

It'd be really neat to find that one of the dots in Silesia (probably too late for Talbott) isn't a habitable-world colony at all but one of those systems chock full of habitats and belter settlements, like Yildun. The variety seems sometimes more informed than it has to be.

First you have to find a place where you can 1) live or set up conditons where you can live, 2) build an agricultural (even if it hydroponic or Grayson type orbital farms) base to support you present & future population and 3) set up suffient technilogical base to maintain your "civilization", probably create things/stuff for export to import other things you need.

Someone has to go looking for these places, someone has to want to go there, there needs to be at least a basic ability to get your colony (or mineing/manufacturing) set up, and some way (that makes economic sense) to be able to make eventual commuication and trade with others possible.

You don't actually need planets, just star systems that provide you with the materials from which you can create what you need (after you ship in your "basic" equipment) and feed yourselves. A stable government would really help. But first you have to locate them, determine- to the best of you ability- that they meet your needs, and then get there.


You want alternatives, take a look at a number of series done by C. J. Cherryh, amoung them the Foreigner universe Downbelow Station in the Alliance-Union universe and the Chanaur series.

There are a habitable planets but -depending on which series- there are a relative few or just enough for up to a couple for any given species- and a lot of what is going on is centered on space stations or other habitats constructed in space. The Alliance-Union story has a number of places that have been settled by humans, some of which already have sentiet races though not "advanced". The polictics is between conflicting and different human points of view and spheres of influence/control. While there are stations near human inhabited worlds, many of them are now just minor way-station from earlier explorations and the trade (and politics) you see concentrats on ships and stations for trade and logistics

Chanar has a number of species who have intersteller flight and trade but while the humans have just brushing into contact with it, human's have no idea what they have come across. You have to read it but while species internal and own planitary politics have a major place, it it the inter-species trade and politics and "other problems" that are the focus and most of what is happening is with trading ships and trading stations, a number of which are not located near stars with habitable planets for any of the species involved.

RFC has stayed will out of the whole Alien-in-the-mix thing and has said the books are NOT going there. Of course he already has enough series with human-alien war and destruction so the Honorverse is going to be content with humans doing things with and to other humans -the Alignment's plans included.