Repost: Colonial History

[Brazedowl]

So as much as I would like to repost this it's WAY more then 10,000 charchters so here's the a link to the best account/thought on colonial history I've read to date.

Colonial History

[MHall]

Is this Colonial timeline consistent with what we know from the show, particularly Kobol's Last Gleaming?

[Ioraptor]

That time line seems a little off from what I've read about Kobols Last Gleaming (havnt seen the episode myself yet).

I've heard of a two thousand year span of history between Kobol and present day Colonials. That would fit nicely with a pace of development similar to Earths if one assumes an industrial collapse near the beginning of the Colonies inception.

The idea that the Colonies suffered a loss of technology comes from their dependence on religious scrolls as the sole records of their 'ancient history'. Sophisticated technological societies maintain accurate records.

What could be the source of this technological regression? Were the original colonists luddites who discarded their industrial technology? Were they a repressive religious society so bound up by edicts of faith that they forbid accurate historical record keeping and research into new technologies? Did they suffer some disaster (one that affected ALL twelve colonies at once? hmmmm). Maybe they original colonists were slaves or convicts, purposefully left without the basis of a technological society?

Recent comments from RDM on his blog and in interviews reveal that he is sticking with the idea that all twelve colonies are located in one star system.
I had been hoping that Caprica had been the first colony and that the others had been founded long after industrial space faring civilization had recovered.

There is no real likelihood that twelve inhabitable planets can exist in one star system. Those planets had to be terraformed and that artificial process had to be maintained. Its interesting to speculate that the early Colonists return to technology might have been spurred by the technology of the terra forming processes that remained. If those processes weren’t entirely biological they might have involved huge fusion facilities for maintaining atmosphere (think Aliens). The return of technology might have started in the least habitable colonies in the outer system and seeped back towards the more Earth like Caprica (which might not have required any terra forming at all).

The good thing about a 'Twelve Colonies in One System' hypothesis is that it explains the distinct racial differences of the Colonials. If they had all started out in one colony (say on Caprica) the population bottleneck effect would have resulted in a homogenous population; no Asians, Africans, Caucasians etc. Recent mitochondrial DNA evidence shows that Earth humans once suffered an extinction even that reduced our population to about 10,000 individuals (something like a hundred thousand years ago, but I might have that time period wrong, I'll go look it up again).
It took a long time for racial characteristics to develop.


Again an alternative hypothesis would be that the Colonists started on Caprica (arriving from Kobol). They suffered a disaster that reduced their technology or they voluntarily discarded it for some reason.
They spent a few hundred years growing the population and spreading out over the planet. Re-experiencing an iron age, a wind powered age and finally a simple industrial age.

Its been suggested by RDM that they have had space travel for 'hundreds of years'. But what kind? The developmental period might span technologies like what we have today to the artificial gravity, FTL and hyper efficient reaction drives we see the Colonials use in the mini.

The Capricans could have started the other Colonies in that period. Those colonies might not be like the sweet human friendly world of Caprica. They could be dome colonies or partly terraformed desert worlds. Imagine what Mars would be like if we had a couple hundred years to tinker with it....or Titan?


Well I've rambled enough, it will be fun to see where the writers decide to take this stuff.