Many science fiction novels and movies depict humans going to other worlds and settling down on those worlds. While there they use the land to their own personal needs. This colonization and terraforming is seen in Dune, Imperial Earth, and the sequels to Ender’s Game: Xenocide, Speaker for the Dead, and Children of the Mind.
In Dune, Paul Atreides and his family assume control of the planet called Arrakis. This planet’s original inhabitants, the Fremen, first knew, used, and controlled the geriatric spice, also known as mélange. Melange is a drug that is created by the excretions of the desert sand worms. The spice is collected and sold at a high price. Because of this spice, the planet attracted many people from other worlds to try and take over and sell the spice to gain money and power. Human-like people from around the universe attempted to colonize the desert planet and sell the spice, but only a few managed to survive the harsh environment of the planet. Due to the planet being one giant desert, water is scarce. Many fights have occurred over who should control the spice, and further the control of the planet.
I must say, and my mother would agree, read the books, but do not watch the movie. The movie is a sad rendition of the novel.
I must say, and my mother would agree, read the books, but do not watch the movie. The movie is a sad rendition of the novel.
Another novel that deals with the colonization of another planet is Imperial Earth. In the not too distant future, there is a decline in the amount of hydrogen on earth. The main character’s grandfather set out to Titan, the moon of Saturn, which is thought to have an abundance of hydrogen. When arriving on the planet, he sets up a colony where people mine for hydrogen and sell it back to people of earth.
Yet another set of books that shows the colonization of humans on another planet are the sequels to Ender’s Game. Set 3000 years after when Ender’s Game takes place, Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggin, or known then as Speaker for the Dead goes around marking the death of a person, or for him, the death of a race. He arrives on Lusitania, a planet that has been colonized by humans who are there to study the indigenous race called the Pequeninos. But because of being on the planet they are subjected to the virus known as the descolada, a self-mutating virus that can infect any lifeform.
All three of these novels have many similar aspects with colonization. They all deal with humans taking over a distant planet or world in order to better themselves.
One thing that jumps out at me is that many of the planets in many science fiction novels and movies have species native to the planet. The Fremen in Dune and the Pequeninos in Speaker for the Dead. But these native species are usually regarded as inferior species. Is it really true that they are inferior, or is it a superiority complex of the humans that are taking over the land? This is much like back when the British and French were colonizing the New World and pushing the Native Americans out of their homes in order to take over the land. This continued to happen even once the United States was formed, the Native Americans were pushed off of their land and onto reserves much smaller than their land. None of this is good, pushing people out of their land and making a profit from them.
Another problem with terraforming another planet is what happens when you use up all of the resources from that planet that you are mining for? Do you just pack up and move out? Leave the planet for dead? This is major issue with the earth today. People are using up resources faster than they can be replenished, if they can be replenished at all. We need to start respecting the planet and taking care of it, as of now it is the only world we have and there isn’t any other planet that we can just zoom to and make our new home.
Not yet at least. Recently, the company Mars One was founded and is taking applications to settle a permanent human settlement on Mars. In the year 2023, the plan is to have humans land on Mars and create a permanent settlement. This just might be the beginning of humans colonizing other planets. As of now, it is not foreseeable that humans who are chosen to go to Mars will ever be able to return to earth. But that is the risk that is involved with colonizing another world, just like the humans who colonized Lusitania in Speaker for the Dead.
All three of these novels have many similar aspects with colonization. They all deal with humans taking over a distant planet or world in order to better themselves.
One thing that jumps out at me is that many of the planets in many science fiction novels and movies have species native to the planet. The Fremen in Dune and the Pequeninos in Speaker for the Dead. But these native species are usually regarded as inferior species. Is it really true that they are inferior, or is it a superiority complex of the humans that are taking over the land? This is much like back when the British and French were colonizing the New World and pushing the Native Americans out of their homes in order to take over the land. This continued to happen even once the United States was formed, the Native Americans were pushed off of their land and onto reserves much smaller than their land. None of this is good, pushing people out of their land and making a profit from them.
Another problem with terraforming another planet is what happens when you use up all of the resources from that planet that you are mining for? Do you just pack up and move out? Leave the planet for dead? This is major issue with the earth today. People are using up resources faster than they can be replenished, if they can be replenished at all. We need to start respecting the planet and taking care of it, as of now it is the only world we have and there isn’t any other planet that we can just zoom to and make our new home.
Not yet at least. Recently, the company Mars One was founded and is taking applications to settle a permanent human settlement on Mars. In the year 2023, the plan is to have humans land on Mars and create a permanent settlement. This just might be the beginning of humans colonizing other planets. As of now, it is not foreseeable that humans who are chosen to go to Mars will ever be able to return to earth. But that is the risk that is involved with colonizing another world, just like the humans who colonized Lusitania in Speaker for the Dead.
It doesn’t seem possible yet, but who knows what the future will hold for colonizing other planets, some day in the future mankind could spread out across the stars and make their home on planets lightyears from our current home. The only thing that we will have to be wary about is to not destroy the planets and make a mess out of the universe.
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