I need to get my characters off their dying planet and into spaceships to carry them far across the galaxy looking for a new home.
One thought I have involves the destruction of their moon, as raised in this thread.
I like the idea of my people being kind of overconfident and swaggery, and thus getting themselves into some trouble with another race, who decided to teach them a lesson but not outright or directly kill them.
So, what could these aliens do that would make my people need to leave their planet, but give them enough time to do so?
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0 / 50,000
oct. 30, 2009 - 21 23
Interesting concept.
I feel that if a dominant species were to leave their planet it would be because they have used all available resources on their own, or they feel another planet/star-system would provide them with better living.
You mention that you think another race would cause them to leave their planet. Well, what if the aliens tell the race of one planet to leave theirs for another (perhaps they won a permanent vacation in an intergalactic sweepstakes) which is actually worse off than the one they are abandoning. And then these hooligan aliens take over the planet the initial race left and leave them out to dry.
Curious to see where you're going with this.
0 / 50,000
oct. 30, 2009 - 21 28
Wall-E comes to mind! :D
52,201 / 50,000
oct. 30, 2009 - 21 58
Well how about a massive comet that is on course to hit the planet, but the comet is made up of a very poisonous substance that would permanently contaminate the planet.
They would not be able to alter the course of the comet or destroy it outright, but have enough time to "jump ship" before it comes into contact with the atmosphere and destroys all life.
But that would break the "not outright kill them" part. but would force them into leaving the planet or die.
Another situation, thought not necessarily an act of vengeance from an alien force, is two solar systems on a collision course, meaning the suns will hit each other, but allow the occupants time to get their act together and leave the system before doomsday hits. So until the two suns meet each other, the planet is completely habitable, So its a scramble to get the ships "arks" ready and bring as much of their old world with them as possible before the solar systems get destroyed. This would allow the inhabitants probably decades of time to prep and get moving, but blaring enough that it couldn't be ignored by anyone as it would be looming and driving the population to get off planet.
In this situation perhaps there is alien life in the oncoming solar system, so the two different races may work together to survive the event, bringing them together in a common need for survival. kind of a culture clash/shock, but they have to work around it because they both die if they don't work together, kind of thing.
the only thing that I can think of as to why they would abandon their planet outright is if the planet could not survive and/or recover, otherwise they could simply make bases on local moons and such until the planet recovers, say from a massive meteor strike, be it 3 to 50 years.
----------So to travel that would take generations to move on to a new world, would have to be pretty significant or they would just hang out until it was safe to go home.
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If your not legendary or hate your job, then you need only ask one thing, Why aren't you doing what you wa
42,639 / 50,000
oct. 30, 2009 - 22 10
Wow. Um. Oh yeah. Mass Hypnosis. That's how you move a ton of people.
----------hans R Reimers
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11,681 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 00 18
A massive meteor strike is a pretty guaranteed way of making the population of the entire planet jump ship. (Just look at the dinosaurs...)
(Well, still being proven, but that's not the point.)
A more "anthropogenic" reason could be some sort of mass war that makes the planet uninhabitable for a long time. Nuclear fallout (complete with radiation hazards) is a staple in sci-fi works, especially military sci-fi. The radiation won't kill you immediately, but you will die a slow and painful death due to radiation poisoning.
How you get everyone off the planet? Well, that's your call. Most conventional methods could only manage to save about 1-5% of the projected human race.
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3,371 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 06 48
If the planet's going to be destroyed, I don't think people would complain about the pollution from Orion.
Why would they go far accross the galaxy? They'd have to be pretty dumb to do so, when there's perfectly acceptable planets and asteroids in the home system. If the entire system is going to be destroyed, use planet's in nearby systems. Or better yet, rogue planets.
Rogue planets... that would be enough to destroy the homeworld, certainly...
----------2009 - Have Starship, Will Hitchike (Working Title)
1,339 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 09 06
I like the idea of my people being kind of overconfident and swaggery, and thus getting themselves into some trouble with another race, who decided to teach them a lesson but not outright or directly kill them.
I was thinking they could start a collapse of the biosphere, but I am not sure that that would get people to _leave_ rather than try to find human made efforts to create a stable breathable atmosphere.
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2009-Brother Monkey, Brother Lion, Sister Crow2009 -Bunnystar Galactica Psychic Bunnies IN SPACE
26,719 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 11 21
Heat the planet out of the comfort zone of the race living there. Depending on the technology level of your people they are probably experiencing global warming anyhow, and probably not doing enough to address it. Make your aliens do something to accelerate the process, like burn off a significant portion of the ozone layer or triggering an ecological disaster that depletes the planet's rain forests and/or wetlands (the two biomes that convert the most CO2 to O2 per acre). Push the global weather patterns into a state of collapse, causing super-massive hurricanes, drought and flooding, etc. They'll want to leave, because its only getting worse, but they will have some time to do so.
----------“Luke: What's in there?
Yoda: Only what you take with you.”
20,006 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 12 03
How about changing the orbit of their moon (either through meteor strike or, if you want to make it deliberate, a laser/missile impact) so that it becomes unstable and will eventually collide with the planet. That could take a sufficiently long time to allow them to build and launch enough ships, while also being inevitable.
20,006 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 12 04
How about changing the orbit of their moon (either through meteor strike or, if you want to make it deliberate, a laser/missile impact) so that it becomes unstable and will eventually collide with the planet. That could take a sufficiently long time to allow them to build and launch enough ships, while also being inevitable.
Sorry for the double post, I blame the gremlins.
4,392 / 50,000
oct. 31, 2009 - 14 37
I like the previously mentioned idea where the aliens alter the orbit of the moon so it will inevitably collide with the planet.
Remember that it is you who decides what these people do. If you don't want them to create a breathable atmosphere, then you just write that it's impossible. If you don't want them to alter the orbit of the moon back with a bunch of nuclear bombs then you just write that it's impossible. And so forth.
----------People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with the bad. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
31,017 / 50,000
nov. 3, 2009 - 07 30
A rogue black hole buzzes your world's star system, throwing the planets into elliptical orbits. You know have super-brief summers in the hundreds of degrees Celsius and long winters deep in the negatives. That'll get a population to hurry up and ditch the rock
Yes, this is a doomsday scenario we've considered here on Earth. There's nothing for it but to colonize space.
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30,018 / 50,000
nov. 3, 2009 - 11 53
Have someone (a main character for preference):
- Create a black hole in laboratory conditions (a tiny one, only a few kilograms, not even visible to the naked eye)
- Drop it.
It will be dense enough to punch a super-tiny hole through the floor, and fall towards the centre of the planet, from where it will begin to eat the planet from the inside out. Before too long, there won't be much of a planet left; but until the crust starts collapsing, anyone can get into a spaceship and hop out.
They might not have long.
47,619 / 50,000
nov. 3, 2009 - 15 11
I've been re-reading the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons lately, so the runaway black hole popped to my mind as well.
Was it Cowboy Bebop where the surface of the earth was uninhabitable because it was continually showered with space debris?
The biosphere collapse would probably drive folks underground or into domes before sending them off planet, but the available technology would factor in there. I'd say that it comes down to economics.
A weapon that destabilizes the planet its self would be my best bet for an alien-initiated way to force everyone out, not just the rich. Something with a bit of hand waving and phrases like exponential growth, self propagating, and gravity field.
You could also put out the sun, and leave them to freeze.
----------...sleep in a pool of vigilance so bright...
35,351 / 50,000
nov. 3, 2009 - 22 07
How about a prophecy that includes the planet being consumed by a giant mutant star goat., my personal favorite, or perhaps threat of extinction, that really doesn't exist, just a trick plotted up by the man who will take over the planet after it was deserted.
----------41,584 / 50,000
nov. 3, 2009 - 22 26
Have the aliens build a giant space umbrella to shield the sun and make the planet freeze. Or a giant lens to focus the rays of the sun...with all the appropriate comparisons to kids frying ants with a magnifying glass. Introduce a virus tailored to the human genome that results in terrible disfigurement and/or permanent genetic damage. Release a plague of flying monkeys? Dunno...that's all I got.
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"Writing is like taking a bath: if you don't do it every day, you stink!"
38,842 / 50,000
nov. 4, 2009 - 00 55
Hahahaha, these are great, you guys!
32,565 / 50,000
nov. 4, 2009 - 06 12
A few ideas from other novels strike me:
'Grey Goo': Old favourite, but I remember Greg Bear using it in one of his novels. Imagine an unstoppable tide of nano-tech slowly consuming the planet. Definitely an encouragement to leave. Bonus points: in the Bear book, they do end up jumping ship to the Moon.
Supernova/ Red Giant: If their sun or a nearby one is acting up, it won't be too good for the neighborhood. Don't forget, our sun is expected to turn red giant in a few million years, which will put the earth's orbit inside the newly grown sun.
Co-option/ expulsion: The aliens could of had their planet stolen from under them by something more powerful or been thrown off for doing something forbidden.
religion/ wanderlust: the aliens could have left voluntarily, either because they believe that they should or that they have some kind of genetic desire for new sights.
I hope some of these ideas help
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29,500 / 50,000
nov. 4, 2009 - 08 22
Ohh noessssss.
@ Original Poster
Your story sounds as if it the exact same premise as mine D:
Ohh well.
In my story they leave because the resources are gone, there is no food, and no space to expand their cities (rising population + lack of space = bad)
I'm kind of interested on your approach of the story. I find it interesting that the principal idea is the same, but the story can be extremely different.
----------N00bie
2009: The Wanderers of Sahrin
38,842 / 50,000
nov. 5, 2009 - 02 06
The destruction and exodus is really just the backstory, my plot (heh, "plot") concerns the very very few survivors of the exodus, who eventually make it to their paradisaical new home world but the ship is destroyed so they have no resources and must build their new life and civilization from the ground up, with bare hands. And one of them is already pregnant.
I just didn't want to simply handwave the destruction since it was a huge factor in the characters' lives and they all would have been hearing stories about it ever since it happened, is why I asked for something specific.
40,754 / 50,000
nov. 5, 2009 - 02 28
I did this twice in one novel. Basically both of them come down to "Something's gone horribly wrong with the terraforming."
41,584 / 50,000
nov. 5, 2009 - 20 58
@astropolis
----------Like the Blight?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_2
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38,842 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 13 37
That games looks interesting! I'm surprised my brother never played it; it seems like exactly his kind of thing.
41,584 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 14 25
Yeah, that game was great. I think it died because StarCraft was released the next year, and because there were only two playable factions (and even then, they were really similar). But I always enjoyed the Outpost storyline better anyway.
The Blight is openly classified as Gray Goo in the Wikipedia article, but being a bio-agent I consider it a special case. It's interesting that in the story, the partially-biological computers would be corrupted by the Blight instead of outright destroyed, and then turn on you. This was especially notable in one mission where you had to send a remote-controlled mission back to the original Eden base to get some stuff; the base was pretty much fully functional except that it was being "controlled" by the Blight.
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"Writing is like taking a bath: if you don't do it every day, you stink!"
10,561 / 50,000
nov. 6, 2009 - 16 53
I vote nothing could.
#1: Not enough vehicles for moving that many people. The rich would make it out but the poorest would have to ship out in cardboard refrigerator boxes reinforced with duct tape, which are fine until reentry on the next planet...
#2: the Rogues. you know them, those folks who purposefully do the exact opposite of "authority" or "sense".
#3: the Steadfasts. "This is my land and ain't nobody budging me from it" kind? People stay in Florida through deadly hurricanes, they'll stay on the planet regardless.
#4: the Non-believers. "It won't happen to me." or the "Honey, hold my beer a sec" crowd who think they're indestructible.
#5: the Believers who will genuflect, pray, wave burning juniper bushes, or chant with pretty beads to shoo away any and all danger. [not noticing their gods were evacuating too]
#6: the Avoiders, the ones who stick their heads in the sand, literally, the ones who knew this was coming, and dug underground bunkers for them and their friends.
But leaving them behind can add dimension to your story. Of those that leave, the pain, the angst, the worry, the memories, the "remember when's". Of those left behind, write them off as a moral lesson to always listen to authority and eat your vegetables or you'll be killed on a dying planet....
Okay, kidding about that last bit. :)
50,295 / 50,000
nov. 7, 2009 - 08 12
When I listen to what passes for political debate these days here in the US (heck,right here in little old Sacramento), I hear people squawking about how evil and destructives those with opposing opinions are. Given we rarely hear about "a better way",seems the mass media regurgitation (both left and right) of political punditry could supply you with lots of reasons a mob of smaller minds could decide leaving is better than taking a shot at renewing and healing the world.
----------38,842 / 50,000
nov. 7, 2009 - 18 11
@WLMelotte, ha, that last bit is great! As the culture evolves on the new planet, I am going to be creating some new "fairy tales" and that sounds like a great one.
I think now I've decided that some of the people don't leave, preferring instead to take the fight back to the aliens who attacked them, and take over their world in retribution or something. I don't know; the story follows the "pacifists" who elected to leave and they figure those who stayed are crazy and likely get themselves killed off within a few years, and they want to be nowhere around when that fight ends and the aliens come looking for anyone who's left. ;)