Let's talk about the 1.0 lore rewrite

I think codexes do make it clear it's hardly "nobody" - there are settlements with several families living a quiet life on distant planets. Off-Earch Human Census puts the number of people living out there in space at 15 million, and an entirely unknown number of humans leading nomadic lifestyle. Humans spread out greatly during these thousands of years.

There just hasn't been any large scale colonization, since humanity had all they needed on Earth. While many would explore the universe in their travels, they'd return eventually home once their travels were over.

I don't understand why everyone seems to insist that there's a huge problem with this kind of situation? It sounds perfectly understandable to me.

How come? While they might not be the focus of the story, there's plenty factions that don't belong in either. Floran tribes, Glitch kingdoms and knight orders, Stargazers, grounded Avians, Hylotl underwater cities, Novakid villages... All of these, and more, function completely independent from either side.

Stop acting like the main story is all there is to the universe.

 

Yet you also have this codex. Make up your minds, Chucklefish! How can you have 15 million people offworld yet not have even a decent-sized town, especially when everybody else has colonies spread through the galaxy? Even the Miniknog who should by all rights want everybody concentrated somewhere it's easy to keep track of them.

And it's generally a stupid idea not to colonize other worlds when you have the ability. Being stuck on on one planet means your eggs are all in one basket--if something happens to that planet (like, say, a tentacle monster), you're in trouble. We know this now in the 21st century. Folks like Hawking are always nagging us about it.

And do you really expect me to believe that given the hyper-diverse nature of human society, nobody has ever established an off-planet colony? Nobody felt adventurous enough, or decided they'd had enough of the complexities of modern life, or felt like they weren't welcome in Earth society? I mean, if they're so reckless and optimistic, wouldn't some of them start a colony just because they thought they could? You know, "Dude, wouldn't it be cool if we could do RimWorld in real life?!"

I mean, how difficult or dangerous could it be to start a new colony when a full tank of fuel will apparently get you anywhere in the galaxy and a simple teleporter will take you to the outpost for free. If the muffalo rancher life is getting you down, take a break and go play Starbound at the outpost!

 

Many people did feel adventurous, they just each went on their own personal adventures. In fact, a report of that census does in fact reference humanity's adventurous nature. Those who did have enough modern life complexities or wanted to do RimWorld in real life simply picked planets that no one settled on before. They have their own planet now, how cool is that?

Well, for what it's worth, there was several colonies and several thousand of people on Mars, if the Mars Model's descriptions are to be believed. They evacuated though, likely threatened by the debris from Earth's destruction.

 

So with all these comings and goings, you there were never enough people who decided to stick around in one place to form even a town? It's just too big of stretch. We've been colonizing new lands since before we've been human, it's just implausible that nobody would set up colonies in space, especially given how cheap and easy space travel is.

 

Its also cheap and easy for said colonies to be destroyed by the well armed maurauder(not that I have experience in this, mind you). So, you are kinda asking a bit of a stretch as well. I have no doubt that colonization was and is a very lucrative venture, but selling the average schelp to leave home to do it? Less easy.

Like I mentioned before, it is likely that colonization got a bad rap, and space became more known for sending the criminals and undesirables of Terran society away.

 

But if it's so easy to be destroyed by marauders, why do we stumble across so many minor colonies from other races? Just about every planet with an atmosphere has some form of settlement. Again, everybody but humans is doing it, and they seem to be doing fine.

And a bad rap isn't enough to completely stop people from wanting to make colonies, it just means fewer people *would* do it.

 

I don't fully agree with Lintton here, but it is true that there's plenty bandits out there in space.

Except even census itself clearly states that humans do make colonies? That it does occur, despite being somewhat atypical?

Now you're acting like there's no colonies at all, which contradicts what we know from both census codexes to begin with. I have no doubt that some of these humans campsites existed even before Earth was destroyed. For that matter, don't you actually encounter a human explorer on every single lush planet?

There's plenty humans out there, plenty cottages, plenty outposts. They're just far more spread out, because they lived their adventurous, or isolated lives under the impression that they'd always have Earth to return to.

I mean, with how cheap and easy space travel is, you might also just go to the nearest outpost to resupply and then return to your settlement.

 

One or two families does not a colony make. The largest settlement according to census is 19 people. Maybe you consider that to be a colony, but I don't.

Let me be clearer, then: why are there no major settlements? No towns or cities that sprung up around important waypoints, important resources, strategic locations, etc? No company towns? No religious sects seeking a place to do as they please? Humans have been spacefaring for thousands of years, has not a single one of these capsites proven attractive enough that it eventually turned into a town or a city?

And again, we know it's dangerous to have all our eggs in one basket by having only a single developed planet. How could the people in power be so stupid as to not diversify? It requires not just a single administration of short-sighted politicians, or even generation, but thousands of years?

Or have they been spacefaring for thousands of years? This codex says it was centuries ago, not millenia. Either way, it's far too long for nobody to be interested in colonization, not even a military-sponsored "backup colony" that exists entirely to ensure social continuity in the case of Earth's destruction.

 

We've discussed this earlier actually, and one idea that came to my mind is that the Census was performed within a limited range from Earth. It would take a rather long time to examine the entire universe.

It could be that density of settlements around Earth is low, much like a rural village won't turn into a city when there's already a city just 10 minutes away by car. But further away, humans wouldn't be able to reach Earth as easily, and so human population would be more concentrated. Then, it'd be possible for more distant star system to host larger human colonies that simply weren't found during the census.

Keep in mind that it's just an idea, though.

It's likely that humanity thought of no such danger in Starbound universe. As I said, humans in Starbound have this reckless "nothing can go wrong!" disposition. It wouldn't be surprising if this line of thought was simply absent from humanity's minds. They couldn't have predicted that a being capable of destroying the planet within moments would suddenly reveal itself - and it would be unrealistic to expect them to.

Maybe they were prepared for any threats, such as meteor impact. But such predictable threats would give them enough time to evacuate. Ruin gave them no such time.

Truthfully, Chucklefish did make up their minds. Their premise for humanity is that since Earth's destruction, they're numerous but scattered. It seems to work better that way narratively, and honestly, I see no reason to freak out that fiction doesn't adhere to reality.

 

I may have missed this, but how did the ruin actually end up on earth? I was thinking about that meteor impact statement and I was like..... did the ruin arrive on a meteor? Seems like its fairly large. Were humans unable to detect it?

 

In a single moment, tentacles started bursting from the ground, all over the surface, as far as anyone could see.

Haven't you witnessed that moment in-game?

 

I blame Japan! they sure did knew something about it..i mean, come on!

 

You seriously don't think that after 4 years of constantly repeating this joke, it might be getting a little stale?

 

this joke is like a McDonald man, it's kinda good, but it's actually bad, and it won't stale

 

I understand the size of the ruin. I want to know how it arrived on earth. I have witnessed the moment it destroyed the university, but that doesn't answer my question.

Something nearly as large as a planet would not arrive on a planet without some kind of massive consequence. If it landed, it would have caused massive destruction(and as you mentioned it would be seen coming). If it was summoned, it would have displaced a massive amount of the planet's core. These are not things that should go un-noticed...

 

It hasn't "arrived", I actually doubt that it appeared on Earth in its entirety.

My own guess? Recall back to the Heart of the Ruin fight - the Ruin opened wormholes other worlds to summon hostile creatures. I believe it's similar the other way too. When the Ruin attacks a world, it likely attacks it through such wormholes.

 

That pattern of development would make sense, but larger settlements would probably make themselves known, especially in the event of the destruction of Earth. "Survivors of Earth, this is Alpha Hydra. We are a human colony at these coordinates, and we are ready to receive refugees. We are attaching the coordinates of additional human colonies in the region." Alternatively, they'd be mapped by cartographers.

Also, a proper census would state its limitations. If it only surveyed within a certain distance of Earth, it should say so and possibly make an educated guess about settlement beyond the range of the census.

Random asteroids aren't the only threat, though. Consider a successful invasion from the Miniknog or the Church of Kluex, or eiter of them finding a way around Earth's defenses and dropping an asteroid. Even if the "average joe" is reckless and doesn't 't worry about bad stuff, there will still be specialists and policy-makers who will. And again, all you need is one administration or colony-happy group across the centuries since human space flight to establish colonies. And think about it: right after we figure out warp technology, everybody would probably be really excited about new colonies, and at least some of those colonies would probably last.

Remember that humans are super-diverse. You can't really summarize us as "reckless and optimistic" because there are lots of us who aren't. For example, Ocassus, though we never really get to see why.

As far as I know, no explanation is given. Presumably it makes use of some portal ability like it uses to summon minions during the boss fight. Back when it was just "the tentacle beast," my headcanon was that it arrived on a minor meteorite, worked its way underground, and then grew slowly over the course of centuries before finally emerging with a "BLAAARGH!"

 

As I already covered in one of my initial posts about humans, "let's unleash a world-destroying abomination, humans will surely survive!" is pretty reckless and optimistic.

I mean, I get your point, I just waited to point that out.

But the true answer is that Starbound is just a fictional, simpler universe. It isn't exactly bound by the same realities as our reality does and it does not attempt to be fully realistic. You honestly can't expect everyone in a fictional world to always take the most reasonable course of action - because then, you just wouldn't have any story at all.

 

Portal Technology isn't just limited to the Ruin though. So, even if that was the primary means of attack, shouldn't there be some kind of defense/warning system in place?

 

Stuff like this reminds me why I hate it when people hold every piece of fiction is held to a "realistic" standard. Trying to make everything "realistic" just makes it extremely boring. Making humanity independent of Earth, unaffected by its destruction would its loss completely meaningless.

What's important is the lore of the universe, because ultimately, Chucklefish created Starbound universe, not "prophetic vision of our real universe in X years" universe.