What do space empires fight over?

[Deset Gled]

Whatever you do, please, for the love of Roddenberry, do not put a population size under a billion on a planet and have them bitch about not having room to share. I swear, if I came to resettle a population whose planet exploded and got that answer from the existing colonists, I'd wipe every last one of those entitled whiners and make it the refugees new home world.

I've recently been re-reading the original Little House on the Prairie. The book starts when it's getting too crowded near their house (In The Big Woods). The author describes the family's amazement at seeing people pass near their house "almost every day". The idea of just seeing (not interacting with) 5 people a week is motivation for the father to move the family from Wisconsin to Kansas.

 

[MarkB]

Water is one of the most vital resources for maintaining a civilization, and doesn't necessarily appear in large enough quantities to be cheap everywhere one goes. Transportation of water can be a hassle, so space empires might fight over natural water reservoirs as prime strategic locations.

Star Trek Voyager's first season emphasized the need for water among spacefaring peoples, and how valuable it is in the absence of replicator technology.

Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is the most common element in the galaxy, and oxygen is necessarily plentiful on any habitable planet. There aren't going to be that many places you want to go which don't have a plentiful supply of either water or its ingredients.

 

[Janx]

I've recently been re-reading the original Little House on the Prairie. The book starts when it's getting too crowded near their house (In The Big Woods). The author describes the family's amazement at seeing people pass near their house "almost every day". The idea of just seeing (not interacting with) 5 people a week is motivation for the father to move the family from Wisconsin to Kansas.

and technically they squatted and stole treaty land. So again, no sympathy. Plus, if Ingalls didn't want to see people passing by, he should have built a longer driveway.

 

[Ryujin]

Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is the most common element in the galaxy, and oxygen is necessarily plentiful on any habitable planet. There aren't going to be that many places you want to go which don't have a plentiful supply of either water or its ingredients.

I always thought that the Voyager water scarcity premise was a bit silly. Even if certain planets were stripped of much of their liquid water, do those systems not have cometary belts? Methane. Water ice. The Kazon had space travel. OK, if their equivalent of the Oort Cloud had also been wiped out of existence, there's another point. The Kazon were largely nomadic and were present in systems that didn't have water shortages.

 

[aco175]

Talking about water made me think of the movie Ice Pirates, but I found this instead.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Maybe, there are just a few strategically important places where you can travel safely. Think Jump-gates (maybe built millions of years ago by a now dead species, or you need to send out a generation-ship to the place you want it, and then build it there). Having control over those, or having technology so you your ship can jump without the need of such jump-gates would make for reasoins to go to war.

 

[MarkB]

Talking about water made me think of the movie Ice Pirates, but I found this instead.

View attachment 131863

It makes me think of the 80s TV series V, where it turns out that the mean old alien lizards are here to steal Earth's water, despite there being plentiful lumps of the stuff just floating around the solar system for them to pick up for free.

 

[Morrus]

Water is one of the most vital resources for maintaining a civilization, and doesn't necessarily appear in large enough quantities to be cheap everywhere one goes. Transportation of water can be a hassle, so space empires might fight over natural water reservoirs as prime strategic locations.

Star Trek Voyager's first season emphasized the need for water among spacefaring peoples, and how valuable it is in the absence of replicator technology.

Water is like the most common thing in the universe.

 

[Janx]

Water is like the most common thing in the universe.

certainly for anybody with spaceships capable of reasonable travel times to other stars.

Then it's a quick trip to a gas giant's rings to nip off with a block of ice.

Which kinda brings up the whole stupidity of moisture farmers on Tatooine. Why live on a desert planet farming water? Tree farmers don't go to the plains and wait for trees to happen. A smart moisture farmer sets up where the water is. Like a watery planet.

 

[Ryujin]

certainly for anybody with spaceships capable of reasonable travel times to other stars.

Then it's a quick trip to a gas giant's rings to nip off with a block of ice.

Which kinda brings up the whole stupidity of moisture farmers on Tatooine. Why live on a desert planet farming water? Tree farmers don't go to the plains and wait for trees to happen. A smart moisture farmer sets up where the water is. Like a watery planet.

The poor aren't terribly mobile and Luke's family were dirt poor.