Abducted!

[Chris]

Perhaps a vague story idea forming here…

Let’s start with the basics – aliens basically descend on Earth, kidnap a few thousand people and transport them to another world. The one time they speak to their captives, they basically tell them that Earth is on the verge of being destroyed and that the captives will be all that remains of humanity. They provide a limited amount of farming tools and food supplies, but after that the human survivors are on their own.

The world is basically Earth-like; human food-crops and suchlike can grow on the planet. But as the humans keep exploring, it becomes increasingly clear that they are not alone…

Thoughts?

Chris

[Alex]

So the aliens that might at least appear benevolent from the get go? I presume they take a wide cross-section of humanity to have a reasonably genetically diverse population?

Also, as far as them not being alone, some specifics might be needed for a scenario - who else is there, are they friendly, malevolent, indifferent, etc? Are the "others" numerous, or are they another species or two that was "rescued" in the same manner? Finally, what if the whole thing is some kind of a sick alien experiment, and Earth is nowhere near destruction?

[Chris]

Well, my feeling was that it was some kind of sick joke – or an experiment. Earth may or may not be destroyed (either by human hands, alien hands or natural catastrophe) but the settlers will not be returning to Earth. They either tame the new world or they die trying.

I haven’t really worked out the settling. My first thought was that the planet might have its own intelligent life, or perhaps there might be other human settlements dropped onto the planet by the aliens. The results would be interesting.

I was thinking that they would need some degree of genetic diversity, if only to survive.

Thoughts?

Chris

[Admiral Canaris]

Do the humans get to bring any personal possessions? Or books - Bibles, Torah or other sacred books as appropriate for ethnicity, political/philosophical documents or the like? Or just a few cheap Baen paperbacks by David Drake and John Ringo? I figure that in a completely alien environment holding on to your human culture will be perceived as vitally important, on par with if not above actual physical survival for many/most people. Every scrap of written word will be a greater treasure than a truckload of grain.

[Alex]

What about several human settlements... and several settlements from other sentient species that were dropped off on this planet in the same manner? Perhaps the planet is some kind of a zoo/wildlife preserve as far as the aliens that deposited humans there are concerned, or something close enough to it.

It could make for a good story when our characters, whose group perhaps numbers 4-5 thousand strong, find out that similarly sized groups from other parts of the planet appear... and that there are also similarly sized groups of other sentient species there, some almost human-like in that humans can communicate and deal with them, some so strange and alien that humans may not even recognize them as sentient.

It would be interesting to see what happens if the aliens were to deposit what they thought to be representation of several major overarching cultures from Earth. Perhaps they take 4-5 thousand people from the US (maybe a smallish college town, which should have decent amount of genetic diversity due to many non-related people capable of producing offspring)... then, they may take similarly sized group from Russia... another one like that from somewhere in, say, South America... another one from Africa... another from Middle East... another one from China... and another from India.

The interesting thing is, what will happen when all inhibitions of how a society is supposed to act are dropped? I am talking about the cultural norms that are often reinforced through fear of "big brother", government, deity, or looking bad to outside groups. This is why even brutal and genocidal dictators will not publicly admit to some of their worst vices, if only to maintain a degree of legitimacy. But how many of the old prejudices or traditions are going to resurface now that the restraining factors are gone?

I am talking about perhaps widespread return of polygamy, slavery, social segregation based on race, caste systems, and worse. My expectation is that if these societies do not come into contact soon (in which case fear of the "other" is likely to keep them more or less in line), we will see many things rear their ugly heads. Keep in mind that many of the worst excesses of humanity are still simmering under the civilized veneer; a situation like this might bring them out the same as any of the Mad Max style scenarios.

[bach sion]

Another interesting idea Mr. Chris, but I think you're overlooking a lot of possible problems, primarily on the logistical side. One quick one - how many people really know how to grow crops? More later, class starts in three minutes.

[bach sion]

Ok, some more thoughts on this.

Five thousand individuals should easily be enough to ensure genetic diversity, so that's not really a problem. How are the aliens choosing thier subjects? Is it all seperate individuals grabbed from all over, couples, families, or a mix? What ages? What about various skills or professions?

One major thing that I think will be a problem is how fast will the people have to revert to earlier civilization levels? This problem is well discussed in the 163x series. Unless the aliens are very careful choosing who they take, many modern day people will have few skills that can be of any real use.

This idea is doable, but you're going to have to do a lot of preplanning to make it work.

[GBW]

I like the idea of other sentient alien species dropped there, both easy to communicate with and truly alien, but it might be interesting to have a few other human settlements made up of peoples from previous eras that the aliens dumped there under the same pretense and see how these different historical cultures have developed. Maybe one settlement from the Dark or Middle Ages, another from the Age of Exploration, another from the Victorian Era, and another from, say, the height of the Cold War. Perhaps they could be made up of people taken from around the world of their times.

[stalkere]

I knew this plotline sounded sorta familiar;

http://www.annemccaffrey.net/index.php?page_id=30

Freedom Series
Freedom's Landing , Bookcassette 1995
Freedom's Choice, aka Catteni's Choice , Bookcassette 1997
Freedom's Challenge , Bookcassette Sales 1998
Freedom's Ransom , Bantam Press 2002

What you've described so far kinda sounds like this series....

[Chris]

Saw those a long time ago - I wasn't very keen on them. They just struck me as silly.

Chris

[stalkere]

Saw those a long time ago - I wasn't very keen on them. They just struck me as silly.

Chris

They were pretty good, up until the point that they discovered the alien technology and it became a "a bit of everything we need" sort of story.

This was also done in both Trek TNG and Trek Enterprise, and Trek Voyager, IIRC. Not enough of a Trekkie to recall the TNG episode more than the recollection that "The thirty sevens" in STV and - can't recall the title - in STE were derivative.

But I do recall that Picard, Janeway and Archer all ran into "Lost Colonies" of humans planted by aliens who abducted from pre-space Earth.

This is, actually, a recurring theme in SG1 - the Goauld basic thing seemed to be in transporting culture samples of humans to different worlds and having them develop them so that they could enslave..."Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, then take his fish away at gunpoint, and he will figure out a way to catch enough fish for you to steal some more tomorrow."