14

Would a civilization that is trying to permanently colonize a landless world with no atmosphere (think Europa's sea) be able to do so?

Permanence matters - it means you can't simply build domes that contain atmosphere as they would not survive for millenia. You need a civilization for which aquatic life is naturally adapted.

It's easy to imagine how a civilization would be able to adapt to sea-only world as far as adjusting the lifeforms to be aquatic (after all, most of Earth life is).

But how could they preserve the technology over long term, if there's no possibility of fire? Without fire, you can not produce new metal (no smelting of ore).

Are there plausible solutions to this? (within somewhat realistic realms of technology - e.g. no "unobtainium", magic, energy-state beings and such. Most likely path seems bioengineering or unusual yet plausible chemistry.

user4239
  • 4,727
  • 1
  • 19
  • 42
  • I need a clarification - are you asking about both how a species could change itself and colonize the planet by inventing appropriate technology, or only about how they could adapt themselves to the environment so that it's as natural to them as land used to be? – mechalynx Oct 05 '14 at 21:56
  • 2
    "Permanence matters - it means you can't simply build domes that contain atmosphere as they would not survive for millenia." They might, if are properly cared for. Perhaps such a civilization would develop fanatical devotion for maintaining their dwelling. – dtldarek Oct 05 '14 at 21:56
  • @dtldarek - water tends to destroy even mountains in sufficient time. Any domes could not last forever even with maintenance. – user4239 Oct 05 '14 at 21:58
  • @ivy_lynx - change themselves and/or adapt their technology. Assume no future contact with said colony, however, e.g. they can't transfer resources/energy to the colony; and any technology will wear out and fail in time if replacement parts are able to be made. – user4239 Oct 05 '14 at 22:00
  • 6
    Why not? If you see some building is in a bad shape, you demolish it and rebuild anew. The only constraint is to keep enough buildings in a good condition for your population to live in. – dtldarek Oct 05 '14 at 22:32
  • 3
    Building domes to contain an atmosphere sounds way more plausible to me than keeping the atmospheric gases that the species needs dissolved throughout the entire planet-wide ocean. Could you elaborate on what the ocean is like, or is anything fair game? – Jay Vogler Oct 05 '14 at 22:33
  • By the way, is terraforming allowed? If so, I can add a lot to my answer. – HDE 226868 Oct 05 '14 at 22:34
  • @DVK I've got a good one brewing but I'm making the assumption the world is Europa-like, is that ok or should it be more generic? For example, Europa has about a tenth of Earth's gravity, not sure if that's the intention - it could make a difference as far as hydrostatic pressure is concerned. – mechalynx Oct 06 '14 at 00:55
  • 2
    Your assumption that there can be no fire under water is wrong. There are materials like magnesium which burn pretty well even when submerged in water. They are able to do so because they burn so hot that they split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. – Philipp Oct 06 '14 at 09:04
  • @ivy europa is fine. – user4239 Oct 06 '14 at 10:52
  • @HDE226868 - for the purposes of this specific world building, terraforming isn't an option for a variety of reasons not related to the question. – user4239 Oct 06 '14 at 14:39
  • @Philipp - Is Magnesium an abandant-enough element taht it can be used as fuel? (and easily obtainable by aquatic species living on Europa) – user4239 Oct 06 '14 at 14:40
  • @DVK Europa isn't explored enough to say for sure. The oceans themselves are only a hypothesis for now and we know nothing about the composition of its core. – Philipp Oct 06 '14 at 14:42
  • If with "permanent" you mean "do some stuff at the beginning, then you aren't allowed to mantain/repair/do-it-again", then I don't see any point in such a bizarre requirement. – o0'. Oct 07 '14 at 11:34
  • @Lohoris - if the premise of the question isn't interesting to you, there's this wonderful option of browsing on to other, more interesting ones. – user4239 Oct 07 '14 at 11:49
  • @DVK I'm sorry, but every time you introduce some odd variable, you would have to explain why it is so, otherwise it's just random. If you build something, it is obvious and natural that you will also repair and mantain it. If you are not allowed to repair it, it's not obvious why, so you have to explain why you can't: the answer can't ignore that. – o0'. May 01 '15 at 13:54
  • @Lohoris - because you simply don't know if your own civilization will be around 1M years from now, to fly back and repair things. So you need something which can sustain in absence of your parent civilization - which (civilization) is a fragile thing. – user4239 May 01 '15 at 14:01
  • @user4239 The Japanese temples are both several hundred years old and have been destroyed (by various means) several times. It's all about perspective. To the Japanese it is the same building, even though to western minds it is not. It's a Theseus Ship problem. – Draco18s no longer trusts SE Feb 10 '16 at 22:41

3 Answers3

11

Actually, some of the challenges you describe might not be too hard to overcome. Maybe you've thought of the same things I have.

Metals

I'll tackle smelting first. The key issue you described is that fire would be impossible to create. Well, there is a workaround. Smelting doesn't necessarily need fire; it simply needs heat. How can you produce heat? Well, there's the obvious idea of a portable heating device. All you need is a way to power it - solar might be good, although in a world with nothing but liquids, hydropower could work. Lets go with hydropower for now.

To get the materials to find/produce metals, you have to dig. Given that there isn't any land, you have to go to the bottom of the ocean. I would recommend a permanent undersea base, at the bottom of the ocean. Hydropower could be possible if any currents can be harnessed, similar to tidal power. Miners can attempt to dig into the crust and extract ores, which can then be refined into metals and smelted, using heat, which is provided by a device powered by the currents of the ocean.

Atmosphere

This really isn't a big issue, especially as you've said that it doesn't really matter. First off, are the colonists suited for aquatic life - i.e. can they breathe underwater? If so, you can skip the rest of this section. If not, though, they need some sort of air. Now, it isn't feasible to simply keep on resupplying the colony with air - that would be cost-prohibitive. But what you can do is utilize an idea that has already been proposed for missions to Mars: bring plants, or plant-like equivalents.

Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Plants do the opposite. In theory, if enough nutrients are continuously injected into a system, plants and humans could survive together indefinitely, each taking in the other's waste gases. By "plant-like equivalent," I mean an organism that performs that function for the colonizing species. Or, if you're lazy, perhaps advanced carbon dioxide scrubbers would do. By the way, you can supply the plants with light by electric lamps.

Power

See "Metals". Hydropower and solar power would work well, although hydropower is preferable if you're at the bottom of the ocean smelting metals. Geothermal is also an option, as is nuclear. The issue with the latter is getting fuel and subsequently disposing of it, so I'd stick to hydropower.

Fossil fuels are also an obvious choice, but I'd stay away from them. Even if they formed on a planet like this, there of course would not be a never-ending supply of them. A few centuries in and the civilization would be stuck. Also, they would completely pollute the once-pristine planet.

In response to a comment from DVK: I'll defend the possibility of solar power because there is still a home star. There's nothing preventing the colonists from building a power-collection station on the ice. In fact, having ice means that buildings on the ice are possible, and many habitats would not have to be on the ocean floor.

Food

If you want a self-sustaining system here, you're going to need to bring in other organisms to eat. You'll need to create a food web here - perhaps an entire ecosystem. If the colonizers are vegans, you're set - just bring in plants. If they're more of the red meat variety, though, you're in trouble. Having cow-like creatures would be a waste of space. Try aquatic creatures - fish are, of course, the first thing that comes to mind.

Special Case - Europa

Let's say that the planet in question is Europa (albeit a scaled-up version). This means there is a layer of thick ice surrounding the planet, which covers a thick ocean, possibly of water. This is, actually, pretty good. Why? Well, the ice can act as land. For all intents and purposes, what good does land do? It serves as a support structure. This means that buildings, towns - perhaps even cities, if the ice is thick enough - can be built on it. And, yes, stations for solar power. Having Europa as a planet to colonize actually gives us a little loophole, which could help the intrepid colonists. There are practical issues to consider, such as actually getting through the ice, but those can be solved.

In Science Fiction

The problem of how to survive on a planet with no land has been considered in The Lost City of Faar, the second book in the Pendragon series, by DJ MacHale. The people of Faar have survived by building floating cities on the ocean. If there wasn't ice, this would be easy - just build a floating city and cover it with a dome. If there was ice, you would have to try and make the city a submarine. By the way, the Pendragon series itself could inspire a whole series of questions on Worldbuilding simply because of its premise, traveling through wormholes to different parallel universes in different times. But I digress. . .

HDE 226868
  • 101,188
  • 25
  • 303
  • 542
  • Isn't Europa's surface basically vacuum? (no useful atmosphere above ice) How can you build stations there?
  • – user4239 Oct 06 '14 at 14:44
  • Also, unless my Astronomy is way off, there probably isn't enough sunlight for decent solar power that far off (Jupiter orbit, remember? And likely in Jupiter's shadow a significant amount of time)
  • – user4239 Oct 06 '14 at 14:45