starship-design: Mutiny, <was: Why go to the stars?>

["Kevin \"Tex\" Houston" <hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu>]

Antonio C T Rocha wrote:
> 
> Timothy van der Linden wrote:
> > BTW.  Writing this, I started wondering what would happen if people
> > start a mutiny.
> >
> > Timothy
> 
> Ask any naval officer. ?Probably the same that would have happened
> before the 1800s: starvation adrift or survivors marooned on some barren
> rock. With discipline and order, and luck and nearby infrastructure,
> maybe - just maybe - they could go "pirate". Does humanity change?
> 

Nonsense, They will be in direct line of sight the entire time. 
Communication might be slow, but it won't be a secret, everyone will
know what happened.  There'd be no way the mutineers could ever come
back.  That might happen on the hundreth trip, or maybe the tenth, but I
don't think it will happen on the first.

No matter whether we use FTL or STL, no one is going to be stopping
in-between.  that means to have a mutiny, it must happen in the target
system.  Since it's likely that we'd have a colony segment anyway, (in
case of accident if for no other reason)  then
probably what would happen is the mutineers would be the ones who
demanded to be left behind (and left alone) and let the loyalists go
back to Earth.
 

-- 
Kevin "Tex" Houston 		http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html
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