The Limitations of Intergalactic Travel

[Ryan_m_b]

The obvious problem with a small ship is how you plan to actually do anything with it without megatonnes of factory tools, even if we did wave a magic wand and grant you practical artificial intelligence that doesn't have any ethical issues.

Also note that a genome is not enough, you're also going to need the epigenetics of a fertilised ovum as well as the complement of metabolites, proteins, sugars, etc as well as a way of actually gestating the organism. Lastly you're going to need a sophisticated way of raising organisms with healthy psychology and social interaction and a way of doing that billions of times as a part of or after creating a habitable environment.

 

[Constantin]

The obvious problem with a small ship is how you plan to actually do anything with it without megatonnes of factory tools, even if we did wave a magic wand and grant you practical artificial intelligence that doesn't have any ethical issues.

Also note that a genome is not enough, you're also going to need the epigenetics of a fertilised ovum as well as the complement of metabolites, proteins, sugars, etc as well as a way of actually gestating the organism. Lastly you're going to need a sophisticated way of raising organisms with healthy psychology and social interaction and a way of doing that billions of times as a part of or after creating a habitable environment.

Any tools, factories or life forms don't need to be transported physically. It is far easier to transport them as information on how to build them. The entire knowledge of a civilization, or just the necessary parts of it, can easily be transported.
There's absolutely no way an advanced civilization would transport bulky factories, and spend almost infinite amounts of energy in doing so, while building those at the destination is so much cheaper in every way.

The questions arises of course how can a small ship build big things.
If that small ship however has sufficient artificial intelligence to overcome any obstacles, it is doable.

I'll give a very simple way of imagining this. Imagine a simple ant, or a bee, a small insect, working tirelessly building something. That small insect will build structures far larger than itself.
And if that small insect has the ability to replicate, or if more of them are available in the first place, you can imagine your problem solved.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Any tools, factories or life forms don't need to be transported physically. It is far easier to transport them as information on how to build them. The entire knowledge of a civilization, or just the necessary parts of it, can easily be transported.
There's absolutely no way an advanced civilization would transport bulky factories, and spend almost infinite amounts of energy in doing so, while building those at the destination is so much cheaper in every way.

The questions arises of course how can a small ship build big things.
If that small ship however has sufficient artificial intelligence to overcome any obstacles, it is doable.

I'll give a very simple way of imagining this. Imagine a simple ant, or a bee, a small insect, working tirelessly building something. That small insect will build structures far larger than itself.
And if that small insect has the ability to replicate, or if more of them are available in the first place, you can imagine your problem solved.

And how is that one ant going to use the bigger tools it is building, or apply the necessary force on objects when necessary, or build things like forges, smelters, chemical factories etc. If it takes a million man hours to get a job done that doesn't mean that one man will do it in a million hours, for many jobs the productivity of a group scales more than linearly when you add more workers.

This topic is going far too speculative. Let's try to bring it back or the thread will be locked.

 

[Constantin]

And how is that one ant going to use the bigger tools it is building, or apply the necessary force on objects when necessary, or build things like forges, smelters, chemical factories etc. If it takes a million man hours to get a job done that doesn't mean that one man will do it in a million hours, for many jobs the productivity of a group scales more than linearly when you add more workers.

This topic is going far too speculative. Let's try to bring it back or the thread will be locked.

As I posted previously:
"And if that small insect has the ability to replicate, or if more of them are available in the first place, you can imagine your problem solved."

If we get into details, it can only get speculative.

Back on track: there's absolutely no reason the ship needs to be large. Being small is much more practical, being cheaper and having redundancy by being able to send large numbers of ships.

But there's the added and not necessarily related fact that the ship can be fully automated and doesn't need humans inside.
And this by itself partially solves the fuel problem, as the trip can take far longer and thus be cheaper.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

As I posted previously:
"And if that small insect has the ability to replicate, or if more of them are available in the first place, you can imagine your problem solved."

If we get into details, it can only get speculative.

Yes if we had a fully autonomous and self replicating, intelligent workforce that can grow from a small seed and give rise to a society we could use a smaller ship. And yes, that is overly-speculative.