Man… I didn’t write a proposal for a sci-fi story. Building colonies is a real, near-future thing, whereas, your insertion of malevolent aliens is pure fantasy. I am categorically not dealing with “alien psychology” because it is in no way a prerequisite to debating whether building colonies is better than living on frozen little slushballs like Titan.
Second, even small colonies will be MASSIVE. Objects in orbit aren’t always in such a delicate position that the slightest breath could send them all crashing down. Note the ring systems of our four largest planets. Billions of chunks and particles all moving in unison, undoubtedly recovering from strikes to the side without catastrophic collapse. It will take an enormous amount of energy, applied all at once, to turn a colony into a semi-precision ballistic weapon.
I’m not going to speculate on “butterfly effects” initiated by “Vogons”, because they do not exist.
Bravo however, for knowing about the ITN, because these slow but efficient interplanetary pathways within our solar system will undoubtedly be occupied by ocean-liner-like MINIATURE COLONIES providing shelter and practice for passengers heading out to their permanent homes in freshly-built colonies throughout the solar system.
We’re on the same side; but I’m unwilling to postulate that hostile aliens are a complete impossibility, nor am I willing to commit to a MAD policy towards earthly nation-state orbital aggression (although I have to admit mutual assured destruction worked pretty well for a long time down here). So we’re just arguing about the best place to put space habitats, not whether to build them or not. We’ve ended up talking about military considerations because that’s where we’re most distinctly different in outlook.
I agree with Elon Musk; go forth with big goals. Spread the species far enough that we aren’t all a single asteroid away from extinction.
Building colonies on the Moon and Mars are important first steps, but I think ‘colonizing’ as a long term survival strategy should be focused on the eventual goal of establishing life in multiple star systems.
And by an unbelievable (bordering on comical) coincidence, the closest star to us is furnished with an earth-sized, tidally-locked planet in the habitable zone.
And that star won’t leave its main sequence for 4 trillion years.
Trillion.
That’s the long-term, off-site backup we should be looking at for our business model.
Really wish runaway greenhouse effect would side with global warming deniers and hence never get to be a possibility, sadly it’s impersonal phenomena hence cannot give any consent but only get to be governed by natural laws and the conditions laid out by the anthropocene.
