Advanced civilization within 200 years?

[Omnis]

In my book series, the main antagonist is going to be a totalitarian culture descended from a long-lost human colonization effort in the Proxima Centauri system. They are completely isolated from the rest of the human race for the next 200 years after arrival and undergo a massive cultural and technological divergence. They then launch a successful invasion of the Sol system. My question is, what factors would be necessary for building an advanced civilization within 200 years? The planetoid on which the expedition lands is not naturally earth-like and requires the use of either dome structures or terra-forming in order to be rendered habitable. In terms of building a sufficient population, one of the advantages the colonists have is the fact that their ship carries a supply a human embryos (which are concealed from the authorities on Earth prior to departure). Another "advantage" I'm considering is the presence on the planet of a malevolent non-corporeal entity that guides the colony's development towards the form it has taken by the time of the Sol invasion. In the face of all this, however, the colony is cut off from any external source of supply or trade, existing in a state of de facto autarky. I'm a little worried that this requires a bit more suspension of disbelief than some readers will be willing to give, and I was hoping someone had some ideas on how to make this all seem at least logically sound if not completely plausible.

 

[Venusian Broon]

From what you've written there Omnis, the problem I have the extra population advantage, is where are you going to put all these new humans, as you've effectively bottled them up in domes. Where is the space, energy and food to keep these people alive? (Terraforming, unless you invent a bang-whizz method of doing it will probably take longer than 200 years to get any decent results - although of course it does depend on the initial conditions of the planetoid.)

To overcome this, perhaps the colony found a cache of very advanced alien technology, (a ship, an empty colony, a communication portal etc...) and have purloined some of it to flourish. Perhaps they've found extremely advanced genetic manipulation tools, an armoury of advanced weaponary, matter transmutators or energy sources (perhaps to stop giving them too much of an advantage and give it a spin, these devices are not really what the technology's purpose is, in fact they still don't really know what these tools are all for, but the human colonists through experimentation found these 'side effects' that they wanted to exploit and flourish in their enviroment...)

Anyway just an initial thought. Might have been guided to the 'cache' by the maelvolent spirit.

 

[Omnis]

Though I didn't mention this in my initial post, your idea is very close to what I had in mind. I'm planning to have the colonists discover the ruins of a temple and city complex left behind thousands of years ago by visitors from a vanished civilization (in my fictional universe, this civilization is actually the inhabitants of very ancient Earth). During their time on the planet, these ancient visitors worshiped the entity as a god. After their disappearance, a great deal of their technology is left behind for reverse engineering. The entity has also preserved much of their knowledge and imparts much of it to the colonial leaders.

Thanks for confirming my idea!

 

[Hammerhand]

I would avoid convenient 'we found a bunch of cool stuff, now we can make lasers' devices, it is a bit of a cliche IMHO.

In reality, nothing drives technology harder and faster than war. Maybe your guys could have a civil war or fight against the planetoids original inhabitants; this way your civilisation is developing it's technology out of necessity rather than a pot luck jackpot find in a cave of wonders. You could even use espionage as a way of getting hold of new technology as this is at least making them work for their technological boon.

I assume that although the planetoid is not naturally 'earth-like' it is still inabitable to humans? Why try and make it earth like? More advances in technology can be gained by your people adapting to harsh living conditions. If they have to develop a way of building homes off the side of sheer cliffs it will require new technology to do it. Similarly, if they have to find means of transportation around a world mainly swamped in volcanic lava and ash they will also require technology to do that.

Also, as pointed out by VB, this planned explosion of population is going to require feeding, hospitaling, policing etc in a new way. When this first kicks off, children/adolescents are going to vastly outnumber the adults. Caring for the many is going to have to be undertaken by the few - requiring new and more efficient ways of doing things enabled by more advanced technology.

So you see, just by throwing in a war, and developing your technology through necessity you add so much more depth to the culture and steer clear of less believable 'jackpot' story lines whilst still developing your technology at an artificially advanced rate.

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse the matter!

Good luck

HH

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I tent to agree with the above comments. Ray Bradbury said something apropos, to paraphrase: Convenience in a story to get the characters into trouble is great, convenience in a story to get the characters (or writer) out of trouble is cheating.

 

[Bakerman]

I'd like to mention China. A command economy is nothing to sneeze at if you want to see rapid infrastructure booms, economies of scale, etc. When you mentioned the idea of a colony separated from Earth with a lot of children to deal with, I immediately thought some kind of relatively strict government control would be in order. Although the worry there is making the whole thing into some sort of US-China allegory! And don't forget that while China is an industrial powerhouse, it isn't (yet) a centre of innovation, which you'll want a lot of to drive the sort of 'advanced civilisation' growth you're looking for.

For the record, I'd also tend to avoid the 'found technology --> profit' trope, but I've got nothing against it when done well!

Actually, I think the question I would ask this point is not 'how are they so advanced', but 'why are they hostile?' The cultural divergence is just as important an issue to tackle, maybe even more so.

 

[kaufmannp]

I actually ran into this issue myself while coming up with a competetive (although not entirely antogonistic..at least not yet ) human civilization.

My solution: Long-lost colonization effort that ran into a temporal anomoly which sent them backwards in time a few thousand years. Their civilization eventually reverted to pre-modern technology levels before developing over time into an empire.

In my wip they are just about on par with the present-day level of technology of Earth.

Hope this helps!