Spes-Alpha - the introduction

Hey, everybody... I've been reading a little bit about philosophy lately, and I want to try and define a structure to some ideas that are recurrently in my mind. Differently of all the personal projects in my life, this time I really don't give a s*** about any kind of restriction - I will just try to put some ideas in the form of eventual texts, allowing myself do change or delete something if in the future I perceive that it was not what I wanted to say.

So, I will start with a little fictional scenario. Some decades in the future, as the developments in space exploration grow significantly, the same cannot be said about or environmental issues. Global Warming - or any other catastrophe you might prefer - give a last Check-Mate to the humanity in Earth, and the scientists decides to keep some colonies in different planets to try and maximise the possibilities for our species (and others believed to be important, such as some bacteria and the pigeons) to keep existing for a long time.

I know this idea is not original - actually, I have already used a similar storyline to a RPG campaign about 8 years ago (good old Hades, such a nice planet!!!) - but it is the only scenario I can find to illustrate some of my ideas. So, for the moment, let us focus in one of these attempts to build a new colony. Consider a small group, just as big as it would be necessary to proliferate the species (please, I am not considering the incestuous or miraculous ways of the Bible, so we will need much more people than just a couple).

For the moment, we will call this mission Spes-Alpha. After several projects, meetings, publications and some last-minute definitions because of deadlines, they defined a prototype of the society that should be kept in the beginning of the mission - and the profile of the people who would be involved. All of those persons are specialised in some functions (art, technology, whatever). None of them have met each other before, and also none of them follow any strong religious or politic doctrine. They came from different parts of the world, but are able to communicate properly in a common language.

Everybody has an important task in the mission. While travelling through the space, the amount of tasks is reduced - but everybody knows that those not actually working now will essential in the colonization of the new planet, that I suppose is not an easy task. In general lines, if somebody does not perform the job properly, the life of all the society is at risk - therefore, everybody is originally as being equally important and no status hierarchy should imposed over the group.

In this society, there is no general leadership. Any decision related to a specific problem is taken democratically by those who are responsible for the subject. In any case of really important decisions, involving conflicting subjects, bigger meetings are performed to get the more accepted decision. Each individual is motivated to always act according to a set of rules, seeking for the welfare of the group as a whole - among those rules, an important one is not trying to give your opinion in a subject that you are not related - the group would see in a very negative way if a communication expert try to say how the food chemists should perform their work.

The last aspect that is important to think about this society is: there is no scarcity of resources. They have more than enough food, clothing, technological gadgets, musical instruments, and whatever else is necessary for them until they are capable to produce new products in the new colony. In general lines, the society is projected to not perish by lack of resources - and the members of the society have enough education to understand which habits are adequate relating to the consumption level and even about reproduction rate.

That is it for today... Just think about the Spes-Alpha society for a while... Do you think they are capable of keeping this social organisation??? When do you think the first serious conflicts will appear??? If the new planet allows, will they be able to start new generations with the same social order? In a positive case, how many generations do you think it will take to start appearing conflicting groups within the society???

I'll continue the discussion someday... Cheers