 March 11, 2011 - 4:32pm | What species from Earth would you expect to see make the journey to the stars with us? To answer this I suppose that the scope of the colonization effort should be addressed: small science colony- probably a green house full of plants and a small managable animal for protien Small seeder colony- like in the old sid myer Civilization game where to win you built a space ship and sent it to Alpha Centarri with 10,000 colonist- probably a whole host of plants and a handful of animals. Rabbits and pidgeons are easy to raise and a source of protien but not a source of fat. "Rabbit Starvation" is a significant problem with a diet lacking fats. Chickens, dogs, cows? Horses? Pigs? I would think that goats might be a good choice for the milk, and cheese products as well as the meat. Horses could be problematic but might make sense for a colony expecting to be limited to muscle power. Alligators? they are regularly farmed in FA (the reason they've been down graded on the endangered species list), they're not finicky eaters, and the meat tastes like pork as well as being a source of leather. llamas and the like- beast of burden and the wool as well as meat. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 11, 2011 - 5:07pm | I think that animals that provide multiple functions would be the most likely. Of course because of space and life support considerations smaller animals would be chosen over larger ones, so I would think chickens would be the most common because they provide eggs and can be eaten. sheep would also be a good choice because they provide wool, and can be eaten. Goats, and Pigs are other good choices to take on a colony ship. Dogs would go because they are relativel small, and can be trained to serve in many useful capacities, and provide excellent comfort for a crew on a long interstellar voyage. I also think that algae would be useful to take along because it is very small but provides a fair amount of oxygen. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
March 11, 2011 - 5:10pm | With algae you can go the Car Wars route of algae burgers I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 11, 2011 - 8:23pm | CATS! You haven't mentioned cats. Even Ripley took a cat with her. I can't go for pigeons, they're rats with wings. Next thing you would know they would be camped in the hundreds on top of every fast food joint in the frontier. I go for the small animals and especially like the chickens. They can subsist on little and their eggs are a great food source. I also see fish as a great because we can set up nice self contained ecosystems that can be farmed for food. -iggy |
March 12, 2011 - 5:33am | CATS! You haven't mentioned cats. Even Ripley took a cat with her. I can't go for pigeons, they're rats with wings. Next thing you would know they would be camped in the hundreds on top of every fast food joint in the frontier. I go for the small animals and especially like the chickens. They can subsist on little and their eggs are a great food source. I also see fish as a great because we can set up nice self contained ecosystems that can be farmed for food. actually pidgeons raised in a coop like chickens are low maintenance and a source of protien, homing pidgeons are also a low tech long distance communication device (I seem to remember hearing that they sense the planet's magnetic field because of iron molecules deposited in their beak so a new planet would need a magnetic field or they'd be at a loss) I agree that cats would go to space with us but unless we bring rats and mice they'd have little purpose beyond being first on the list of "Who's being Voted off the Ship" in an emergency situation and there is nothing left to eat. Dogs are more practical in that they are trainable, and every environment that man colonized on earth he took dogs with him and certain places that man has chosen to live would have been impossible without dogs I'm rather found of David Brinn's Uplift saga where humanity if following the example of the other galactics and is uplifting dolphins and chimps to be client species and have full sentience. The ship with the human and dolphin crew was interesting. On a water world the dolphin crew were far more effective then the human crew. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 12, 2011 - 9:26am | I agree that Cats are useful only as pest control unless humans find some other way to keep rats and mice off their ships. we also might take an interest in taking insects (another form of protien) and usually quite hardy. Earthworms are useful because they aerate the soil and deposit nutrients which help plants grow. Bees produce honey (which does not spoil so its the perfect food besides twinkies for long space voyages) and help pollinate plants. Lady bugs are supposed to be helpful to keep pests off of plants as well. Looks like mankinds colonization efforts really would earn him the moniker "Humans and their travelling zoo" "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
March 13, 2011 - 7:33am | I agree that Cats are useful only as pest control unless humans find some other way to keep rats and mice off their ships. we also might take an interest in taking insects (another form of protien) and usually quite hardy. Earthworms are useful because they aerate the soil and deposit nutrients which help plants grow. Bees produce honey (which does not spoil so its the perfect food besides twinkies for long space voyages) and help pollinate plants. Lady bugs are supposed to be helpful to keep pests off of plants as well. Looks like mankinds colonization efforts really would earn him the moniker "Humans and their travelling zoo" The Novel "Farmers in the Sky" (Hienlen I think) used the colonization of one of Jupiter's moons as a backdrop and showed all the problems involved in terraforming a rock so that farms and by extension humans could exist there. All the homesteaders had to wait in turn for the rock crusher to make the fine dust that would become their soil but then it was serile and lifeless and needed nutriants and "bugs" introduced and hopefully in time they'd get to plant crops. One colonist very carefully imported an apple seedling in his alloted mass/space of luggage. and when he had guest over and they ate an apple he'd very carefully cut the core open and fish out the seeds for them telling them they were gold- fallicy there is that if you take an apple seed and grow it into a tree you dont know what you're going to get for an apple and it probably wont taste anything like the parent apple- every seed in one apple will produce different tasting apple trees some of which would be very edible and only suitable for cider. Its the reason commercial growers graft branches onto new root stock. and force a whole field to be one kind of apple. but I digress. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 28, 2011 - 11:52pm | I'd imagine that would thought of when selecting for new orchards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_plant http://www.applesearch.org/ Pure strain stock would likely be possible for the colonists, but a few of the "random trees" would assist in the later diversity programs, necessary to protect the crops from single-Plant-failure. Some animals are more obviously useful, others might suprise you. There isn't an animal that can be said compleatly worthless, but it does matter what the colonisits believe they require. Catalyst: A Tale of the Barque Cats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship's_cat small science colony- Something this size would be at the mercy of the eccentric scientists ideas of necessity. If they like bugs, then there would be a buzzing field of flowers full of insects, and a nice be-farm somewhere, but not likely any cats, rodents, chickens or anything that might overhunt them left unattended in the same habitat, though perhaps allowed scheduled monthly visits. Small seeder colony w/10,000 colonists- This is a full drop-a-town scenario, and every typical farm animal would likely be presented, with plenty of frozen fertility/stasis embryo samples in the bank, to assist the diversity and gene-drift process, over the first 2-3 generations. Short answer, a full biome in proportion to the scale of the mission. The specific list looks like: Rabbits, pidgeons, chickens, dogs, wolves, cows, horses, pigs, parrots, goats, monkeys, trout, bass, tuna, dolphins, croc-a-gators, bats, squirrels, cats(domestic and wild like the lynx) to bees, moths, butterflys, mantis, yes ......even roaches... leave the planet and still can't get away from them. If there is space avaliable, and a known suitible location or specific interests in the group involved, then I expect to see even giraffe, ostriches, elephants, rinos, buffalo, large cats, coyotes, moose, caribou, seals, orca, whales, vultures, gorrilla, kangaroo, tarantula, and rudolph's whole team.... .......oh yeah, and eventually, someone will remeber where they parked the pegasus and store it in an empty locker...... or design a new one. Shortest answer, what WOULDN'T I expect to see, time and space permitting? Junk? Zoo? Socially Adjusted Civillians?!? Mr. Human and their travaling carnival.... including the unicorn. <extra credit answer> I think Yazirian, Vrusk, Dralasite, etc.. would be doing the same with thier own versions of flora/fauna, with the Yaz-eco-migration beating the Kari-eco-swarm only because they are closer to source, and the 'zoa possibly being less reliant on such home-ecology diversity (they could be arguably more biologically dependent, never autopsied one...... successfully... so... unsure.) Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 November 5, 2011 - 10:42pm | actually pidgeons raised in a coop like chickens are low maintenance and a source of protien, homing pidgeons are also a low tech long distance communication device (I seem to remember hearing that they sense the planet's magnetic field because of iron molecules deposited in their beak so a new planet would need a magnetic field or they'd be at a loss) You can't have a self-sustaining atmosphere without a magnetic field. A magnetic field is what protects the atmosphere from being stripped by cosmic forces, namely from the system's sun. That's the problem with maintaining an atmosphere on Mars, because it has very little magnetic field despite the presence of so much iron. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
November 5, 2011 - 10:41pm | I agree that cats would go to space with us but unless we bring rats and mice they'd have little purpose beyond being first on the list of "Who's being Voted off the Ship" in an emergency situation and there is nothing left to eat. Dogs are more practical in that they are trainable, and every environment that man colonized on earth he took dogs with him and certain places that man has chosen to live would have been impossible without dogs You really think rats and mice are all cats eat? You've never owned a cat, have you? Cats are both hunters and scavengers. It's something both cats and dogs have over most animals. In other words, cats will eat anything that smells good and isn't diseased, which is what they have over dogs. Dogs will it anything and get sick. Cats are finicky and know from smell what can make them sick. For all their sense of smell and the size of their heads, dogs don't have much in the way of brains. They don't distinguish the way cats do. Dogs are resource hogs. (It takes a lot of food to feed even the smallest dogs.) Cats are not. The only problem is that cats can go wild really quick. Dogs do only when they're trained to be vicious. If we go to other stars, we'll depend much upon the existing ecosystems of the worlds we populate and terraform. If the world already has its own ecosystem, we won't be inviting our own creatures to it to upset its balance. We'll be depending on the existing ecosystem there. But if we have to terraform, then we'll take the vegetation and creatures that are best suited to that environment based upon gravity, sun exposure and chemical composition. So it really depends upon where you're going. If you know that much, you'll be much better prepared, and it's likely that they do have surveys before ever attempting to colonize, and then have 50 scientists work out the best solution for the best chance of creating a sustainable ecosystem on that world based from the acquired data. Likely some animals will be specially genetically engineered to survive their new environments. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
November 5, 2011 - 10:43pm | Earthworms are useful because they aerate the soil and deposit nutrients which help plants grow. Bees produce honey (which does not spoil so its the perfect food besides twinkies for long space voyages) and help pollinate plants. Lady bugs are supposed to be helpful to keep pests off of plants as well. The only problem, as seen recently, is that bee colonies implode with the slightest change to their environments. It will be really hard to get bees to travel to other worlds without completely dying off before you get there, let alone survive on a new planet. If we subsist on the byproducts of an insect, it will be one better able to adapt to change. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
