Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with colonization

Future of immigration?

sarahkeebs — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:56:49 -0800

Looking for sci-fi/speculative fiction that deals with the issue of colonization, immigration, and refugees. The more details the better! Specifically looking for stories that deal (at least partly) with the stories of the immigrants themselves, and not just the abstract idea. Similar books I have enjoyed:
Sassinak by Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Moon
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Ender's Game series
and the Children of Men movie (haven't read the book)

Is there a term to describe fiction about the space race and planetary colonization?

Ziggy Zaga — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:29:43 -0800

Is there a single term to describe fiction stories that are focused on the space race and planetary colonization? I'm thinking mostly along the lines of movies/books like "Gattaca" and "Starship Troopers," where the planet Earth (or a very, very similar planet in terms of appearance and human culture) is still a major setting but interplanetary travel is a routine thing, main characters have an obsession with rockets and leaving Earth, etc. Even "Alien" and the "System Shock" games could fall under this category by the first criteria, I suppose.

Suggestions for other media are cool but mainly I'm looking for a catchy term to describe it all, like "cyberpunk" or "steampunk" or "dystopian" or something.

"Spacepunk" perhaps?

Thanks

Making Colonization work in Vista

saladin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:33:49 -0800

Can't play Colonization in Vista... A have a (ahem) copy of Colonization that I'd been happily playing on my 3 year old XP computer for several years, problem free. I recently bought a new PC with Vista; after copying over all the relevant files, my new machine steadfastly refuses to open Colonization. Instead, I'm given the error message "C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe; This system does not support fullscreen mode." I'm then directed to close the program. I get the same error message when attempting to reinstall.

I'm beginning to worry that I'll never again know the pleasure of paying the Tupi to burn British villages. Help me, AskMetafilter!

In the 1500s and 1600s, why did Americans die from European diseases rather than the other way around?

Hubajube — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 21:37:25 -0800

Huge numbers of people living in the Americas died from diseases when Europeans started coming over. It is always stated that this is because the immune systems of the Americans had not contacted the European diseases before. Why did the same thing not happen in reverse? Why weren't 90% of some European settlements wiped out from an unfamiliar American disease?

Book about Finnish space colonists?

rlef98 — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 12:15:29 -0800

ScienceFictionBookFilter: What is the title of a science-fiction book about a cold, snowfilled planet being colonized by residents from Finland? Artificial suns and mystical powers involved... I remember reading this in the early 90s. The book was about a frozen planet that was colonized by people from Finland because of their hardiness with dealing with frigid temperatures. In the book a large mirror in space had been setup to reflect light from an existing sun down to the planet's surface. This caused a band of warmth to encircle the planet's equator and in this most residents were able to live a normally-warm existence. However, there were a group new-age types who travelled to the snowy outer reaches of the planet and somehow gained mystical powers. If I recall correctly there was a lot of discussion about skiing, mysticism, a guy named "Anders" and some sort of "secret lair". Any ideas?

Leaving the Earth behind us

vizsla — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 02:11:12 -0800

Assume space travel is currently safe, as fast as possible and comparatively (compared to now) inexpensive. How feasible would it be to start colonizing a planet in a new solar system in a self-sustaining way knowing what we know now? Is this being thought about? Some possible considerations are as follows. Is there a known candidate planet? Is there a readily available energy source to sustain life? Where would water come from? What food sources could be used? How many different people do you need to start populating a new area?

Reading about the East India Company

small_ruminant — Fri, 28 May 2004 13:35:16 -0800

My hazy memory of high school history is leading me to see parallels between the era of the British East India company and our current situation in Iraq. I'd like to read more to find out if this makes sense. Does anyone know of a particularly good book on the East India Company? I don't usually read history books so I don't know how to figure out which are credible and which aren't.