Generation Ships

Generation ships are a subtype of colony ship with a focus on long-term accommodation--entire generations may be born, live full lives, and die aboard a generation ship. Generation ships tend to be relatively slow, moving at sublight speeds to get where they're going, and carry at least 1,000 occupants to ensure genetic diversity.
== Night-Shift Systems ==
Some generation ships might be hybridized generation/sleeper ships, keeping a portion of its population in suspended animation (such as cryosleep or nanostasis) while the "day crew" maintain the ship and raise new families. With the right timing, you may end up with several generations of a family arriving at their destination at the same age.
== Emergency Industrial Systems ==
A generation ship may have truly impressive resource-processing systems within it, capable of strip-mining asteroids and finding usable materials in even the most desolate places. These systems are an important backup for long-distance, high-risk travel, and getting them online (after a dire accident) might make a thrilling adventure.
== The Sovereign Ship ==
Many science-fiction scenarios with generation ships have occupants that, after generations, have adapted to living within the ship and may not recall their destination or the ship's original purpose. A classic tale of stagnant safety vs chaotic freedom arises when such a ship finally reaches a viable solar system, only for its crew to fight about whether or not they should land...
== Cloning Banks ==
In case of a "genetic bottleneck" from too few viable partners, a advanced (or comically over-equipped) generation ship might have a long-unused cloning bay to produce more suitable mates. Whether this results in comedy (everyone loves the clones) or horror (they're trained by some long-forgotten military AI) is up to you.
== Examples ==
* Many of the civilizations in the mecha-themed Lancer RPG were seeded with near-light-speed ships that spent centuries without contact, leading to many "orphaned species" cultures. The Aunic Empire, for instance, is an entire civilization originally born from a single generation ship.
== References ==
* Spaceships 5: Exploration and Colony Spacecraft p.21
Category:Spaceships