Embryo Space Colonization - Examples in Fiction

Examples in Fiction

• James P. Hogan's novel Voyage from Yesteryear features a planet that was colonized a few generations ago by an automated ship capable of abiogenesis from computerized DNA records of humans and other Earth life, now being visited by a more advanced interstellar spacecraft capable of carrying an adult crew.

• Richard Morgan's novel, Broken Angels (a sequel to the first Takeshi Kovacs novel Altered Carbon), shows Embryo Colonisation as the only one humanity could have ever developed, with only STL travel and string communication being available to them. It describes also, its stages and flaws.

• Tomasz Kołodziejczak's novel Caught in the Lights (the second book in the Solar Dominium dilogy) describes embryo space colonisation in two stages, the robotic and the embryonic. There was a time period in the book's universe called "The Sperm Wars", in which embryos were forced to rapidly grow and fight to defend the colony. Most of those children never reached adulthood due to either forced growth suspension, or being killed in action.

• Jack Williamson's Manseed has as a protagonist one of the robots responsible for protecting and assisting colonists created on a new planet by an automated "seedship", though in this case the colonists are "born" as full adults and with implanted knowledge recorded from preexisting humans via mind transfer technology.

• In Yukinobu Hoshino's 2001 Nights manga, Night 4 showcases an interstellar mission where an automated ship bearing frozen embryos is launched with the help of a comet. Two later chapters, or "Nights," in the series explore what happens to the mission after it touches down on the surface of the destination world.

• In David Brin's The River of Time (1986), the short story Lungfish - which prominently features Von Neumann probes - mentions a class of probe called Seeders which seem to be a type of self-replicating EIS.

• In Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series a faction of humanity known as "Amerikano" sent numerous colonization ships out into the galaxy. Almost all of these missions ended in failure, although they did have some success. One noteworthy example (although only a partial success) is the planet "Yellowstone", a planet in the Revelation Space Trilogy and the primary location for another novel in the same setting, "Chasm City", as well as one of the major human clusters in the galaxy.

• In Arthur C. Clarke's novel, The Songs of Distant Earth (1986) humans respond to the prospect of unavoidable doom by launching a series of robot colony seedships into space, to continue Earth life after the destruction of the homeworld (caused by the Sun becoming a nova). Thalassa is colonised by one such ship, but loses contact due to a natural disaster. As technology advances the mantle of colonization is then taken up by sleeper ships. Meanwhile, just as the predicted time of cataclysm is due to elapse, vacuum energy technology is invented to allow the construction of one near-light-speed vessel, the Magellan, which is launched to build the last colony of mankind. (Previous colony ships involved frozen embryos, or various forms of DNA synthesis. In Magellan, a living crew is transported in cryonic suspension.) The Magellan will also assist in terraforming the colonists new planet, Sagan Two.

• In the episode Scorched Earth of the TV Science Fiction series Stargate SG-1, a ship created by extraterrestrials known as the Gadmeer was in the process of 'terraforming' a planet (or rather, adapting it for non-terran life). It contained genetic information from all the life forms of the sulphur-breathing Gadmeer's home planet, all the knowledge of the Gadmeer, and things of cultural importance to the Gadmeer, and was to re-create them once the 'terra'-forming process was completed.

• In the animated film Titan A.E., during the destruction of Earth by alien invaders, a ship is launched with the DNA of every species on the planet.

• In Vernor Vinge's 1972 short story "Long Shot", the story of an attempt at embryo space colonization is told from the point of view of the artificial intelligence bearing the embryo through interstellar space. In his Marooned in Realtime, which posits a society with few remaining Earthlings, artificial womb technology is discussed as necessary to rebuild the population of Earth, since a sufficient rate of natural reproduction would be unfeasible.

• The failed MMO Seed revolved around the concept of embryo space colonization.

• In Pamela Sargent's novel Alien Child (1988) humanity is extinct except for two children raised by aliens that were found in a storeroom full of embryos. The storeroom was built before humanity destroyed itself with wars. The children have to decide whether to revive the other embryos or let the human race die completely.
• Embryo space colonization is treated with derision in Kurt Vonnegut's satiric short story The Big Space Fuck.