The Lottery

[Lightning Ducj]

Okay, first of all, you were arguing they wouldn't survive because of the climate

No, I was arguing that they wouldn't survive, period.

and that they weren't doing them a favor by sending them off; I was responding accordingly.

It's a favor to let them live a little longer and maybe have a better grasp on how they die. On the plant, if I find food I live and if I don't I die so every day my life is my own. Granted, I think eventually you lose that battle but at least it's better than dying on the Destiny in a few hours with no recourse.

However, I think in such a scenario, the chance of long term survival for even the majority of the party is so remote that thoughts of populating the planet from the given group is useless no matter who you send

Secondly. Had the planet been Earth-like, perhaps there would have been people already living there?

In which case, who you send especially doesn't matter.

[Arga]

No, you don't repopulate a planet with 15 people and it's very unlikely many of them, no matter what skill set, would survive whatever the planet's version of 'winter' would be. This was just a chance to live maybe another day and get a chance to go down fighting.

oh, when I wrote "repopulate the planet", it was more like establishing a camp, start families, farming, and let the course of nature do the rest, if the conditions are favorable.. And I think it would have been hard if there was a very disproportion of male & female, with tension arrising... Well even if it was equally distributed, I bet some male would remain single while one other male would get at least 3 wives

[garhkal]

Do you think Wray was right to suggest that Young individually choose people, based on their skills, to increase the chance of survival?
.

After having a lot more time to think about it i am thinking she was right..

[Eternal Density]

They didn't show everyone who was picked for the shuttle, so later they can have some extra who we've barely or never seen before say they were on the shuttle.

[Jeff-B]

I just don't understand why anybody would think their goal would be to repopulate the planet? Let's face it, it wasn't exactly the Mayflower( whose goal was to establish a whole new society), rather the goal was to have a little better chance of surviving a little longer. Why would they even consider having babies, stretching presumably thin resources even further?

[dunce_d]

I think Young knew that the planet was not likely able to support life. The mission of the Destiny is to follow the seeder ships that deposited stargates on worlds that the ancients would likely have visited. Since there was no stargate in that star system then all of the planets would have been deemed inhospitable to ancient/human life forms, at least at the time when they were surveyed by the seeder ships. The conditions of planets that have stargates have obviously changed since they were initially surveyed, as we have seen by the desert planet in air, but it is unlikely that they would have improved with time.

[The Ori]

I would easily be able to choose! All the women and me on BOARD!!!!

[Arga]

I just don't understand why anybody would think their goal would be to repopulate the planet? Let's face it, it wasn't exactly the Mayflower( whose goal was to establish a whole new society), rather the goal was to have a little better chance of surviving a little longer. Why would they even consider having babies, stretching presumably thin resources even further?

it's maybe not the goal (this word was badly chosen).
But if they find a way to survive and establish a safe camp, then I bet there won't be 1 year before a first baby arrives. That's just how humans are.

[renboy]

Definitely not a large enough gene pool to build up a society;
But I do see a couple of baby's springing up while they are there - maybe even having a baby of their own eventually - but that's about it.
Taking that issues into consideration sounds ridiculous though, with only 17 people - the only issue is survival for the longest period of time;
Best case scenario - those people would be able to live out the rest of their lives on the planet and die of old age.

[Wayston]

15 people is not a bad amount of genes to start a society. Given long enough there will be many genetic mutations ensuring a diverse enough gene pool. The "starting seeds" would need to abandon any notion of monogamy though to ensure maximum diversification.

I think the main reason Young didn't hand pick the shuttle crew is that this would lead to a small revolution by the people who weren't picked. Also there was no real strategic objective to be reached with maximum efficiency. It was not a question of chosing the best and brightest to achieve something, it was just about who out of a bunch of people that weren't supposed to be anywhere near the situation they were in would get a chance to live another day over the other people who weren't supposed to be there. Since nobody signed up for their situation, everybody should get that chance (except for the barest minimum to survive: a pilot and a medical expert) especially since it wasn't a real military situation.

[Arlan]

Also, the idea for this escape was to take refuge in a new planet. As human instincts dictate, the goal would eventually be to populate the planet, after they secure themselves. So wouldn't it be more logical to set a 50/50 proportion of male/female to go on the shuttle?

Actually the best chance for eventual population would be more women then men. You'd want to have as many babies as quick as possible, so the more women the better.

With 17 people you'd probably want 13 women vs 4 men, or something like that. Basically any woman on the destiny capable of bearing children should be on the shuttle, since there probably aren't even 13 of them total among the crew.

[Quadhelix]

Actually the best chance for eventual population would be more women then men. You'd want to have as many babies as quick as possible, so the more women the better.

With 17 people you'd probably want 13 women vs 4 men, or something like that. Basically any woman on the destiny capable of bearing children should be on the shuttle, since there probably aren't even 13 of them total among the crew.

Unfortunately, that doesn't quite work: if you have only 4 men, that means that you can have 4 "families" - the generation after that, it condenses down to two families (unless people are "marrying" their half-siblings"). It wouldn't be long before inbreeding became a serious problem.

Unfortunately, even with a 50/50 mix, all you're doing is staving off the inevitable for a few generations: 17 people is not a large enough gene pool to support a long-term colony. Indeed, it's quite possible that the entire crew of the Destiny (all ~80) represents too small a gene pool to establish a long-term colony.

[jcoy]

Why does everyone think having lots of children quickly would improve their chances of survival? That's just more mouths to feed with the same limited resources.

If the planet required military survival training to survive, they probably wouldn't be concerned about starting families.

If the planet was a tropical paradise, it would probably have a stargate. A seeder ship must have come through this system, or how would Destiny know about it in enough detail to plan a no power aerobraking maneuver. In fact if Destiny was trying to put them in orbit around one of the planets, it would probably have been one with a stargate.

[Arga]

Unfortunately, that doesn't quite work: if you have only 4 men, that means that you can have 4 "families" - the generation after that, it condenses down to two families (unless people are "marrying" their half-siblings"). It wouldn't be long before inbreeding became a serious problem.

Unfortunately, even with a 50/50 mix, all you're doing is staving off the inevitable for a few generations: 17 people is not a large enough gene pool to support a long-term colony. Indeed, it's quite possible that the entire crew of the Destiny (all ~80) represents too small a gene pool to establish a long-term colony.

no, it doesn't mean "4 families".. That's assuming a male would only mate with 1 female.

To work, theoretically, it should be like that (imagine there are 4 men and 12 women, the 13th women could "rest" for a year without being pregnant) (and don't take my post too seriously, don't be offended, it's just for the fun of the demonstration) :

each of the 4 men impregnate 4 different women, that would be a total of 12 future mothers. At least 12 babies 9 months later, if there are twins : more.

Then, after those births, the 4 men impregnate again 4 women each, but 4 others than last time.. And 9 months later, same thing, sex duty again with 4 other women.

So in about 3 years, each men would have given children to every women of the group. 36 babies of very mixed gene pools..

i know it doesn't sound very normal in our kind of civilization, where monogamy is pretty much the norm, but if their intent was to create a population, that's indeed the best solution.
If they wanted to keep their standards about relationships & "family values", they should stick to the 50/50 proportion, and every couple would act like a family.
The lottery would become : "who gets to bound with whom?"...

[Quadhelix]

Why does everyone think having lots of children quickly would improve their chances of survival? That's just more mouths to feed with the same limited resources.

That's not the point of talking about children: the point is colony that would last longer than one generation. The basic idea is that, if the planet is to be anything other than a place for the survivors to die, there is going to have to be a "next generation."

no, it doesn't mean "4 families".. That's assuming a male would only mate with 1 female.

No, it isn't: children who share a single parent (in this case, the father) are part of the same family. Unless, of course, you want to have people having children with their half-siblings.

Basically, if there are only 4 men, then there are going to be 4 families: one for each man. It doesn't matter how many women those men have sex with (although the women have to remain monogamous, for reasons that will be clear in a second). This means that the first generation "planet-born" will have a choice between marrying one of their father's children or the children of one of the 3 other "spacer" men. It would, of course, be critically import that they know which man fathered each child, otherwise people would be unknowingly sleeping with their half-siblings.

Okay, so you have 4 families of first-generation planet-born. Let us call them A, B, C, D. Now, barring siblings matting, the possible match-ups to produce the second generation are AB, AC, BC, BD, CD. Notice that each one of those shares a grandparent with several of the others (ex., AB shares A with AC and B with BC and BC - leaving only CD as a possible match).


As I said before, inbreeding becomes a problem after only a handful of generations: there simply isn't enough genetic material. Also, although a 4 male 13 female split certainly exacerbates the problem, having a roughly 50/50 ratio doesn't solve the problem: 17 people is too small a gene pool for any long-term colony.