Nah.

The best we can do is argue about it.

Then I guess we're sunk, if the best thing we can do is argue over the Internet.  

Hmmm...you may be onto something here,Daniel. Come to think of it, this is the only way of governing a star system that makes sence.

No, everything will turn into GalCiv2. We will invent the hyperdrive and give it to all the other races and then the Drengin and the Dread Lords will come to kill us all but we won't be able to do anything about it because we will be too busy arguing over the internet about how to stop them.

For those of you who would like to have every single preconception about space you've ever held to be totally and completly shattered, read on:

Atomic Rockets

Of particular relevance to this conversation are the "Space War" and "Faster/Slower than Light" sections.

This has been a fun thread to read and I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

No-one could be happier to see interstellar space travel become a reality more than me But our world has far too many issues to deal with before that level of space travel becomes truly viable I think. Our population is enormous, far too large for this planet, we are still hugely dependent on fossil fuels despite our economic woes of late and the pressing need to address global warming. When the effects of global warming kick in and the climate truly changes, the economic and social effects cannot be overstated, not to mention the fact that we humans just won't stop breeding. The shutting down of the gulf stream will freeze Europe, while the rest of the world overheats. I wonder what will happen when resources on our little planet start to run out and areas become uninhabitable? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious - nevermind space wars...we will find ourselves in a pretty big mess down here.

Let's hope it doesn't come to that...

The population problem will take care of itself. Japan, Europe and other "first-world" or developed nations/regions have such declining birth rates compared to Africa/India/etc that it should balance out.

once we hit the intersteller lvl. We will have to add another layer of government.

Or we could just break it up. Do it the Snow Crash/Diamond Age way: all territory is held by corporations and their private armies or by like-minded groups of people who claim their own stake on a given piece of land and form a collective non-agression pact with other groups.

God only knows how well that would work, but its a possibility.

What will happen?

Nothing.

Mankind isn't going to be around that long. The technology is WAY, WAY beyond our scope right now. At the rate we're going, I don't see it ever happening either - we'll be extinct before it happens. It's just a science-fiction dream.

If you do that you end up with sins.

It will never happen. I think some idiots will blow earth up long before sci-fi style colonization can occur. It will not be in our life time at any rate even if they don't.

I'll tell you all what's going to happen. I'm going to buy a space yacht and camp out on Pluto while you dunces figure out what to do with your space alliances and mass extinctions.

-Bigglesworth

Man, there's a lot of pessimism in this thread. Mankind's not going anywhere just yet, folks. Those nukes are all just for show anyways. Besides, we likely won't ever experience interstellar war. Faster Than Light travel is impossible by our current understanding of physics. In fact, some would say that if an object that had mass managed to go faster than light, the entire universe, past, present, and future, would tear itself asunder. Then again, some theorists swear by intelligent design.

The point is, is that it takes time to get between stars. Light needs four-ish years to get from here to Alpha Centauri, the closest stable star system to Sol. We can't physicaly go that fast, so we have to use conventional means of getting around, like fusion reactors. Thus it would take us four and a half-ish years to get from here to there, AND THAT'S ASSUMING that we can get up 99.9% the speed of light. A more realistic estimate would be something close to 25-30%. So its going to take us tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of years to get from Sol to Alpha Centauri.

That means that your enemy (assuming Alpha Centaurians are hostile buggers) is going to have that much time to prepare for you and that much time to advance his technology. Your new, top-of-the-line battlefleet is going to find itself awfully outclassed by an order of generations once it gets to its destination. Additionally, the enemy doesn't even need a battlefleet of his own to kill you. Why, if he knew what vector you were coming in on, he could just toss twenty dollars worth of buckshot in your path and destroy your entire multi-gazillion dollar fleet. Why? Because if your ship runs into anything while its going 25-30% the speed of light, you're dead. EVEN THE SMALLEST PEBBLE could turn your big, burly flagship totally inside out. Just like a Triumph Spitfire doing 90 into a wall. You COULD hope that the debris from your ships (still going at relativistic speeds) would smash into the enemy planet, though.

So, basically, interstellar warfare is a nightmarish impossibility. Take comfort you fatalists! Mankind can't quite extinguish itself that easily. INTRAstellar warfare is still another thing entirely though.

Agreed. Take it from me, humans are like cockroaches. Even my best efforts to bring about doomsday have all failed miserably.

It's much more difficult than you think to kill the entire world. If you fools could do it yourself, I would be out of a job.

-Bigglesworth