A question about colonization

[Junghalli]

OK, another question for my own universe.
Do you think it would be more realistic for Earth to have A) about 180-200 colonies with average populations of several hundred thousand each or B) 300-400 colonies with average populations of several tens of thousands each? Assume that there was a fairly large boom in colonization when FTL was discovered, that humanity is competing with several alien species for habitable worlds (so there's an impetus to settle any new ones you find), but also that FTL travel is relatively slow and expensive so you want a good return on your investment of founding one in some form.

[Jalinth]

Who is founding the colonies, the government or other groups?

Other groups (think of modern day pilgrims) would tend to have smaller colonies but many more of them since they would be on shoe-string budgets. Some reasonable percentage would likely fail (not enough redunancy) if they face adverse circumstances.

Governments would tend to produce larger but fewer colonies. Better funded, but would only have the budget for a finite number.

[Surlethe]

OK, another question for my own universe.
Do you think it would be more realistic for Earth to have A) about 180-200 colonies with average populations of several hundred thousand each or B) 300-400 colonies with average populations of several tens of thousands each? Assume that there was a fairly large boom in colonization when FTL was discovered, that humanity is competing with several alien species for habitable worlds (so there's an impetus to settle any new ones you find), but also that FTL travel is relatively slow and expensive so you want a good return on your investment of founding one in some form.

I think the impetus to found new ones because of competition for habitable planets would imply B, taking a shotgun approach. After all, several tens of thousands is still quite viable as a colony.

[tharkûn]

Only in very few scenarios will colonies have any meaningful impact on Earth's economy and production potential (Weber is one of the few authors who has given this some thought and has explicitly stated that bulk freight is so ridiciously cheap colonies and interstellar commerce matter). The cost of lifting crap out of gravity wells (planetary and stellar) is going to make very few things cheaper than building them indigeniously (say by mining Titan). Certainly the traditional colonial cash crops and rare mineral mining models are going to fail.

In which case I see the only impetus for colonization being flag planting - in which case you want as many as you can realisticly support and defend, ideological/opurtunistic emigration - which is going to go for quantity over quality if history is a valid model, and coaling station - which is going to look only for a few strategic places needed to base ships.

When looking at alien competition, I'd suspect quantity is going to have a quality all its own.

[Junghalli]

Hmm, what if you assumed competition wasn't a factor?

[tharkûn]

Without competition flag planting becomes less of an issue. Likewise a coaling station model can be expanded without having to grab the good ones before they are gone. Emigration will be much more dependent on internal factors as there will be no political imperative to help these people get out there. Of the three I'd expect emigration to dominate and the size of colonies would be wholly dependent on what type of manpower and resources the emigres could command.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Is your future Earth repressive ? A repressive Earth might deport large numbers of forced colonists. Since they wouldn't care much about the welfare of the "colonists", they might put down more but smaller colonies; if a few die out because they're too small, too bad. If they are expansionistic as well, an Earth like that might plop down as many colonies as possible, in order to claim as much territory as possible using the colonists as expendable pawns.