Lunar Earth (rwarr!)

[dragon]

No, because she's fictional, not to mention implausible.

Well thats not a problem becuase the situation is fictional, and I was using her as an example after all the airforce do have astophysists on their payroll.

But fine 50k might be a few to many.

[Hawkwings]

So the only argument against having 5% military personnel is "they'd take too much time training" and "they'd displace all the better civilian peoples"?

I'd argue for more military personnel, just because of the discipline and stress points. I'm sure that of all the military people in the world, we can find 50,000 that are near the top of their fields, and will benefit from their military experience in this situation. I mean really, you toss a bunch of people together in a high-stress situation with a bunch of strangers, and survival on the line, I would feel a lot better with people that are used to working in more stressful situations.

What also helps is that taking military people means that there will already be an organization among them, and they can get to work a lot faster, without having to organize themselves first. This may or may not be critically important in this scenario, but it will definitely be of benefit.

Finally, there's a morale issue. Not much says "I'm here to save all your asses" better than someone in uniform, with the proper tools.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Civilian ones are superior exactly. . .why?

There's far more to choose from for one; I'd expect there to be more good civilian ones because there are more civilians. They are used to working in a more realistic economy for another, instead of cost-is-no-object military projects.

Military personnel tend to be capable of handling a greater deal of pressure with much tighter deadlines than their civilian counterparts are used to. That is why I specifically mentioned discipline, which is going to be essential in any sort of colony not based on earth with very limited resources.

Which is why you want civilian people; the military tends to be wasteful. The military is more concerned with speed in a task and the highest possible effectiveness in equipment, not in efficiency and budgeting.

Finally, there's a morale issue. Not much says "I'm here to save all your asses" better than someone in uniform, with the proper tools.

Except in this case, people will be looking at the person in uniform and thinking things like "Wonderful. My wife was left behind to die so this guy could get in just to fill a quota for soldiers." They'd be despised.

[General Zod]

There's far more to choose from for one; I'd expect there to be more good civilian ones because there are more civilians. They are used to working in a more realistic economy for another, instead of cost-is-no-object military projects.

That's broken logic. More of something does not inherently translate into higher amount of a certain quality of that thing.

Which is why you want civilian people; the military tends to be wasteful. The military is more concerned with speed in a task and the highest possible effectiveness in equipment, not in efficiency and budgeting.

The military is only as wasteful as its executive leadership. Many nations militaries manage to perform adequately on a smaller budget

Except in this case, people will be looking at the person in uniform and thinking things like "Wonderful. My wife was left behind to die so this guy could get in just to fill a quota for soldiers." They'd be despised.

The obviously simple solution to this would be to include families in addition to the skilled workers and scientists. This means a significantly lower amount of skilled workers, but it makes your morale complaint fly out the window. Even then there's still the point that military personnel are more adept at handling high-stress environments than their civilian counterparts. Any type of lunar colony would be arguably high-stress.

[madd0ct0r]

Um, you all forgot to specify the 'Emporer' in you quotas...

[Szass Tam]

I would say:

Demographics: Age >16 & age <50. We need people of breeding age that are old enough to work, but exceptions could be made for those >50 with exceptional skills, say the inventor of a crucial piece of technology.

High ratio of women:men. We need an efficient, not equitable, breeding population. I'd consult geneticists, and see what the highest ratio we could have before problems emerged, and then go somewhat under it.

Ideally, large genetic variation. No quotas or anything of that sort, however. If all the people trained in operating the technology on the moon colony are Western Europeans, I won't bring along 100,000 minorities or whatever just to be "fair" or improve genetic stock. Survival is more important--qualifications, skills, and health are much more important.

Also ideally, I'd favor "secular" people, (atheists/agnostics/deists/whatever) over religious people, and then members of innocuous religions, (Buddhists/Sikhs/probably some others) and finally other religious moderates (Christians/Jews/Muslims/Hindus). Discriminatory? Clearly. Do I care? No. Religion can only fuck things up.


Healthy: no communicable diseases or harmful non-communicable ones, good eyesight, fertile, near-ideal BMI, etc. Time permitting, a full genetic screening to check for recessive genetic diseases. We've got 6 billion to pick from, might as well not drag genetic flaws and diseases and whatnot along.

Profession: Hard to say, but priority would be given to people trained in operating that technology, and/or who understand how that works--technicians (whom I suspect will form the majority of the population) and engineers. The focus of the rest would be on all the things a city of 1 million needs: lawyers, doctors, teachers, sanitation engineers, psychologists, whatever. Preference given to those who have useful background: a lawyer with a bachelor's in engineering, for example, over pre-law or business.

I'd bring a moderate amount of scientists and academics--enough to preserve as much knowledge as humanly possible and staff a university or two. My reasoning here is that for the first generation or so, preserving the old knowledge and educating the second and subsequent generations is going to be the priority, with emphasis on making a functional society. Scientists aren't going to be able to do serious research in the short term, and engineers would probably be more useful in designing short-term workarounds, but their knowledge will be vital to training future generations.

Third, I'm with Zod. I'm assuming this is a typical sci-fi emperor with fanatically loyal troops. A corps of trained soldiers would be hugely useful, even without outside military threats. No matter how enlightened your people, they're still capable of crimes and insurrection, and the prevention of said things must be a top priority, be it with a dagger in the dark or 1,000 swords at dawn. Instability is one of the biggest risks in trying to create a new society, and it will be stable, if not voluntarily, than through fear and violence. Further, there may be sensitive areas you need to keep people out of, and I'd certainly want a competent bodyguard.

I'd bring around 5,000-10,000 full-time police and security officers, who can double as unskilled labor in an emergency, in order to keep the peace, keep people from wandering into the reactor, or whatever, including SWAT teams and some trained in wet works.

The remainder would be "undercover," working full-time in whatever jobs they are capable at, (even if their efficiency is a bit behind dedicated workers) who could then be called up as reserves in the event invasion or insurrection. Society is going to still need semi-skilled/unskilled labor in 2020-2050, so having the street sweeper or the crane operator be a soldier doesn't seem like it would be horribly troublesome, and so the majority of such positions would be military. I'd much rather have a fanatically loyal soldier hauling garbage than a Ph.D. who is pissed that he isn't able to use his credentials, no matter the I.Q. difference.

This group would function essentially as a (non-paranoid) secret police, to give forewarning of any threats to the stability of the colony. They'd be kept as secret as humanly possible, and kept under tight control. I'm thinking along the lines of the Stasi, but trained only to report actual crimes (say, if Joe Engineer is hording food or is has the body of Sally ObGyn in his basement) or plots to form a rebellion in the colony, not rumors of disloyalty or the suchlike.

Overall, stability and efficiency and survival are the big priorities. I'm aiming to repopulate the Earth and preserve the human race, not create an enlightened utopia.

[Guardsman Bass]

Keep in mind that you probably want at least the bulk of the colony to consist of family units. They tend to make for more stable colonies (witness the Puritan colonies versus Jamestown in colonial America), not to mention that this may end being the only breeding population of humans left alive.

[Hillary]

What, no accountants?

[NecronLord]

You would want the military to keep the few remaining people from erath attempting to launch an attack.

Why? Their skills are almost completely obsolete in a lunar enviroment, unless they're missile technicians.

I'd bring policemen and expert workers instead.

Let see electricians, communications, computers, medical and so forth.

That wasn't what you said. Read again. You specifically said these people are going to be a deterrant against attack, not be selected simply for having otherwise useful technical skills. I have nothing against bringing the most useful persons from the military (and every other area of life) however, your claim was that they'd be useful in a directly military role to defend the colony, when really, for the most part, the training they have in that role is useless unless you're specifically selecting those who are missile technicians or something similarly useful, and then, there's no reason to just select them from the military. You'd want the best missile technicians who can be found, be they serving members, ex military, civillian contractors, or academics.

[xerex]

to those wanting an imblaanced male -female ratio, you're going to have to consider the social implications of that, unless you pick alot of fundamentalist muslim/morman women your going to be find a lot of dead spouses in a year.

I remember reading somewherethat men are more likely to die earlier than women -accidents, disease, murders. So for the under 25 population a slight majority of males say 5% actually works best since by the time you hit the late 20's/early 30's the numbers will have equalized.

[xerex]

addtionaly you're recreating a society/ civilization- your going to need more than just scientists and labourers.

you're going to need the other peole who make living bearale--

entertainers- singers,musiicians,actors, authors,artists.

wouldnt it be nice to a some french/chinese/indian resturants ? you can have a couple of KFC's and Pizza Huts if you want.

mini marts?

is there is still going to be commerce ? people buying and selling household items ? also if you damage something in your apt you replaces it ? do you have to buy a new chair? light bulb or Cd player ? or are these rationed ?

Clothes!!!! and the attendant industry. or are people all going to be wearing white unisex spandex ?

[Hawkwings]

Forget capitalism, this is going to have to be a command economy. New clothes? Where are we going to get them from? You want to eat good food? Oh, sorry, that steak you just ate is worth a week of food rations. Looks like you're going hungry for a while.