My Future world timeline. What do you think?

I have revised my timeline. I need 5 future ideas for each era. It can be an invention, scientific discovery, technology etc. Thanks

Era 1: Post-Information Age (circa 2020-2060)

-the immediate future

Era 2: Fusion Age (2060-2100)

--the advent of fusion power eliminates the need for fossil fuels and ushers in an age of unlimited energy

Era 3: Interplanetary Age (2100-2200)

--Humanity explores the solar system and establishes bases on the moon and Mars

Era 4 Interstellar Age (2200-2300)

--The invention of Faster than light travel allows humanity to explore the galaxy

Era 5: Age of Abundance (2300-2400)

--Humanity colonizes the galaxy

Era 6: Transcendent Era (2400+)

--Humanity uploads their minds into computers and live in their own immortal designer universes

 

The ages seem pretty short... Like, 100 years for humanity to colonize the entire galaxy? That seems, if nothing else, beyond the range of human reproductive powers...

 

I would think that transhuman age would predate interstellar age. People vastly underestimate the affects of Moore's law. We'll probably have to be immortal or close to it in order to survive interstellar journeys. The idea of terraforming a planet is a little far out there in terms of achievable technology. Sure you could pump out tons of the right gases, but biospheres and geological changes happens painfully slowly no matter how much technology you have. It's possible that the first person to live to be a thousand is alive now, as well as the first human to permanently live on Mars. It's not possible that the first human to set down on a extra-solar world is.

100 years is way to short to colonize the galaxy. The galaxy is way bigger than you think it is, even at faster than light speeds you couldn't even reach the far side of the galaxy in that time. It wouldn't take super long due to the geometric progression though, I'm sure you could figure it out with some math:

Spoiler: math

There are 40 billion habitable worlds in the galaxy (latest estimate based on Kepler study.)

The fastest that any given population can double is one generation, so lets call it 20 years to make the math easier. This number has to take into consideration both replacing dying generation and growth. This also has to take into consideration the time it takes to travel to the next location.

So that means that your population is doubling every 20 years or that the population is growing by 1/20th each year. We can represent that mathematically by this equation:

(1 + (1/20)) ^ X = Population

Where X is the number of years.

Since the actual population doesn't matter, we'll use the value 1 to represent the population of one planet. So we need the Population variable to be set to the number of planets: 40,000,000,000.

(1 + (1/20)) ^ X = 40,000,000,000 || X ~ 500
Or if it takes 50 years to double our population
(1 + (1/50)) ^ X = 40,000,000,000 || X ~ 1200

Or more generally:
(1 + 1 / Generation)) ^ Years = 40e9

So about 500 years is the quickest we could colonize the entire galaxy, 2000 is more likely.

 

I don't want to sound rude or negative, but it's incredibly unbelievable in my ears. Mostly because I've read a lot on terra forming mars which I assume would be the case with 98%> of the habitable planets. Settling a permanent colony on Mars and the moon within 300 years, it would cost a tremendous amount of money and resources, then I am not even near the costs and resources required for terra forming only Mars to create a permanent 'second home' for humans, and life. A non-terra formed planet where humans only live in bases and need suits to go from one place to the other isn't suitable for regular human life. Researchers, astronauts etc, sure. But I wouldn't bet my money on moving from earth to mars, where you'd live in a massive building where if one thing goes one, it all collapses. So would most humans. Without rationalizing those thoughts you'd create major gaps.

Then I am not even near mentioning what would happen if there's colonization outside of the earth. How would the speed of light travel go? How would it all work? All answers that should be explained. How would it be possible that humanity could colonize something that has probably 6-10 times more habitable planets than living people in 2017 when it's expected the population growth will shrink in the near future?

Sci-fi that's set in the future of earth should be somewhat believable that it could be the human future. If you have a solid foothold you can change many things to be more plot convenient. Consider to take look at this site

http://www.futuretimeline.net/

 

Gonna have to go with the masses on this one.
Roughly 500 years to a massive undertaking
that is not even possible or plausible under
normal human circumstances and ingenuity.

Unless your civilization is based on a more
science heavy culture, than the current one,
and has had a thousand year head start from
our own as well. It would still take the better
part of a few thousand years to even be outside of
the solar system. And that would be just barely
after they have amassed a Dyson Swarm around
our own sun.
Transhumanism is in its infancy now, but it will
be a few hundred to a thousand years from being
what we think it can become.
Even a fusion capable society would take a while
to spread it self around the galaxy as they will be
going at around 10% C at a maximum speed to
go anywhere, in a plausible sense. So there will
be massive generational ships traveling for extremely
long periods of time to just get where they are
wanting to go.

So yeah, your timeline is really pushing the
suspension of disbelief to the max, and is
highly fantastic in terms of meeting some
quite tight deadlines per age.

 

I get what you're going for here. Other than just stretching the timeline, I think you've got it.
I just have one thing to add: Faster than Light sucks. That's right, I said it! It's lazy. It requires too much energy (all of the energy in the universe...) and unless it's Star Trek, it's overused. I suggest something more original.

 

So you're ok with Star Trek's warp travel, but not any other FTL?
Interesting as it would be highly destructive given the way it works.
If you pass to close to a planet while the Warp Drive is active, you
would destroy it. It works on the principal of narrowing the space
in front and expanding it at the rear. It is like using a black hole
as a horse to ferry your ship through space. The gravitational
tide created in bending the space/time would be a detriment
to going anywhere and coming close to what you want to land on.

Also since it is impossible to go 100% C or faster, space flight will
actually be quite long and boring between points A and B. Even
at C it would still take you quite a while to get where your going.
(Just don't wack into your destination, or it will be destroyed
by the force of the impact.)

 

I agree that your timelines are short, but not that short. 400 years is a long time - think what our technology was like 400 years ago. It's increased a lot since then, but at an exponential rate - advances build on other advances.

How quickly can we colonise the galaxy once we get FTL travel? If we move beyond the human womb as the place that we make humans, 200 years should be doable, especially if we don't demand every planet has a population in the billions. Of course, FTL is impossible with our current knowledge of the laws of physics, but then 150 years ago we believed that it was impossible to split the atom.

Even if you go without FTL, the trips don't have to take as long as you think for the travellers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Length_contraction allows an accelerating spaceship to travel an apparently shorter distance. Of course you have to somehow generate constant acceleration, but once more we're back to the question of what technological advances we can create. An acceleration of g would be best for current humans, but if you could genetically enhance people to withstand greater forces...

 

Don't forget that someone has to raise them, though, and since they're not farm animals and we care whether they come out as psychopaths, "raising" them is going to require relationships with human or human-like caregivers. I'm not saying that in science fiction you can't find a way around that, but it's not just a matter of millions of humans hatching like baby chicks.

 

@big soft moose Now I need to learn about this Scalzi Skip Drive.
Sounds far better than ST Warp Travel. Though WH40K uses something
similar by traveling in a place beneath space called the Warp, but it
is kinda dangerous because it is infested by Chaos. And it can vary
on travel times.

 

No, no. I think Star Trek is the laziest example of space travel, HOWEVER, it has gone on so long that it's its own thing at this point. I don't think anyone else gets to use it. It'd be like anyone else using a TARDIS... this must simply not be done.
Personally, I prefer SG-1 or even Dune dynamics (folding space) even though it makes my brain hurt. But I think an original and entirely new take on space travel could be very captivating. Although, that is a hard one to pull off.

 

Colonization of the US was, of course, hampered by being done largely by Europeans...