I’m looking to get inspiration for my own writing. I need a hard sci fi series where earth (and earthlike worlds) are too rare, inaccessible, and/or previously spoiled beyond ability to sustain life. Bonus points if it is set on a multi-generational space station or starship without any other options and goes into detail about life support, living space, mineral mining and expansion of the station to accomodate a growing population, and daily life of it’s residents.
If anyone remembers Drifter Colonies from Titan A.E., that’s what’s in my head.
I’m looking for The Martian levels of realism, and I’m fine with a bit of “Unobtanium” clichés if they’re not core to the story.
Frank Herberts “WorShip” (aka Pandora Sequence) series should fit the bill. At the very least the first two books, ‘Destination: Void’ and ‘The Jesus Incident’.
The basic premise goes something like:
Humanity shot off into space to find another planet to live on. To survive the journey serious advanced AI needs to be created. AI shenanigans ensue. Humans are dumped on a super hostile planet, highly unfit for human life. As one of humanities last lifelines the AI demands to be worshipped as a god.
I’ve come to believe that once we seriously get into Space, there will come a point where “Planets” are not our primary residence at all.
I feel like O’Neal Cylinders have the advantage of a controlled environment and the lack of a gravity well hindering further exploration.
The Culture series novel, my favorite optimistic and hard sci fi that includes artificial intelligence (minds that have giant ships or habitats for bodies and humanoid avatars to interact with people).
They basically never live on planets because they are inefficient and “inelegant”. They live on gigantic ring orbitals that have a fraction of the mass of a planet but multiple times the surface area. No big take-off energy needed either. They also live on gigantic ships that endlessly cruise the milky way. Highly recommend!
Another thought about “colonizing planets” would be that it’s basically a form of genocide. Imagine someone had colonized earth half a billion years ago or just a few million years ago. Humanity would never have existed. Just stepping foot on a planet like they do on star trek is basically ecocide - with the introduction of completely foreign and possibly incredibly disruptive micro organisms. Besides the ethical aspect there would also be the loss of information - if you imagine a pristine planet to be a bio computer creating countless unique and new genetic variations and new forms of chemistry. Quite possible not something that can be covered with a computer. Or observing primitive planets as a source of entertainment. There are lots of reasons why outside of a few “home planets” advanced civilizations would never terraform existing biological systems, and would find artificial habitats far more efficient or practical.
ANOTHER series I just remembered and highly recommend is the Unincorporated Man series. I think there are 4-5 books in the series. Pretty good IMHO. Similar to The Expanse, it’s the Inners vs the Belters, and explores personal liberty and person hood from the perspective of owning “shares” of yourself like a company.
The conflict is awesome, and two military strategy geniuses duke it out in a Legends of the Galactic Heroes sort of way–one has all the resources and latest tech, the other is scrappy and has to deal with extreme resources shortages. Awesome story.
I’m going to go the other way and recommend The Fifth Season, which is technically a fantasy trilogy but which has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, because (as if that wasn’t a spoiler) it’s got a ton of sci Fi in it.
It’s basically about people on a planet that keeps dying. They’ve had to deal with so many apocalyptic events that prepping for the next one defines the entirety of their civilization. If you want a window into the psychology of a society constantly on the verge of destruction, I can’t think of a better series.
