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[Sheb]

You do realize forcing millions of people to live inside dome would be unbearigly expensive, technically night-impossible and utterly dangerous? What if the dome crack? Are you willing to let tens of millions of honest citizens die for your science?

As for the other two worlds, that aren't going to be settled immediately, delaying the bio-terraforming would cost billions, as expensive industrial complex would have to do the job the bacteria didn't. Is South Africa ready to shoulder that cost?

[Taricus]

We'll not be sending large amounts of people to live on the colonies until all the infrastructure is there.

[Sheb]

Well, then you'll have to oppose your own population. In Belgium alone, more than 500,000 people volunteered to emigrate to Alpha Centauri. There is already talk of General Motors going to the stock market to raise fund for a privately owned colony ship.

Moreover, the safety concern will stay, even if all the infrastructure is there, would you let millions of people to risk dying from an airlock malfunction?

[Taricus]

Well, that what you get for relying on a privately owned company.

[Shootandrun]

What is so special with these rocks, anyway? Life will be placed on the planet. Maybe, maybe some rock formations will suffer from the terraforming. If you dig five hundred meters down, no living being will even be near of your rocks!

[Demonsul]

What's so special about them? As it is, those entire planets are unexplored, vast worlds which could contain literally millions of things unknown to science! We cannot simply demolish billions of years of natural rock formations of a planet with erosion and water everywhere simply to... I'm not even sure why! You seem to want to terraform the worlds because you can. Why is establishing dome cities not enough?

[Phantom]

Well, let's look at it.


Would you rather live in a tent for the rest of your life, or a large majestic city that you can build and mend at will?

[Shootandrun]

There are billions of planets in the galaxy... In a few years, we will probably have other colonies in other systems. If we let scientists do funky thing on every single planet we want to colonize, we'll never get there! There are other planets and moons in the systems. Take those. I will not let the governements spend billions into geology, only to have scientists telling us "It's incredible how this planet is not special!"

What you want to do on these three planets, you can do it on any rock in the galaxy. But these planets are important. We want to colonize and terraform them as quickly as possible.

And as of establishing dome cities... As you said, we want to terraform these planets because we can. Dome cities will cost billions. It could be the most expensive project of the century. And we will be obligated to keep making dome cities. For every thousand humans who are going to come in the system to live, the governements will have to spend at least a million. After that, who is going to expand? Who is going to pay billions simply to establish a city on a wasteland? No one. You could ruin the whole project, only to look at rocks.

[Demonsul]

You talk as if terraforming is cheap, or even free! Building mile-wide dome cities or massive tent cities, as has been theorized on lower gravity worlds, would be far cheaper than terraforming an entire planet just to live on a third of its surface. Terraforming would cost a fortune to develop a perfect bacteria, and it would take a million years for just one bacteria strain to convert a planet alone! Greenhouse gas conditioner plants, atmospheric flybys of asteroids, it all adds up, and it would still take anywhere from two hundred years to a thousand to even get to breathable levels, let along something permanently livable! Dome cities are both more economical, and they also preserve the natural beauty of the worlds. I can't see why you continue to insist on terraforming when it is by far an inferior option!

Great cities can be built under domes, I believe the maximum diameter of a low dome using modern materials could be something like eighteen miles, four miles high at the middle. 'Living in a tent' as it was put, is an awfully unfair analogy. It is the superior option in the short term, at least until the world is understood. Surely, you do not want a repeat of Mars, where the entire Marineris trench was ruined by misguided terraforming attempts?

[Phantom]

Would I have to remind you of the New Thermopylae disaster that had also occurred on mars, where a mining explosives accident within cost the entire city, AND most of the human lives?

[Taricus]

You do realize that the planets are barren...

[Shootandrun]

It will cost at least one billion to terraform the first planet. We all know that. But domes are only a short term solution, and as time will pass it will cost more and more money.

And two hundred years to terraform one planet? In wich century do you live? Ten years is the worst possible case, and specialists think that with an atmosphere bearing planet like this one, with liquid water, we could do it in less than three! In five, the ecosystem could be finished!

[Demonsul]

I apologize; I wasn't aware that your nation advocated the thermonuclear warming method, or some other dangerous experimental method the South African Territories has not invested in. I was only imagining the use of proven safe methods would be accepted. I was quoting the figures for 'non-invasive terraforming' that would not immediately destroy or damage all the planets natural formations. If you truly demand it, we can of course put all effort into creating a hundred controlled nuclear furnaces on the world to heat it. But may I remind you that at current levels, each of those furnaces stands at a billion each, for one year of operation?I assume you were quoting your own currency; that is the only way I can imagine you using such a grossly undersized figure. A billion is but a spit in the ocean to the governments of most countries, after all!

((OOC: Ten years as a worst possible case? What techniques were you imagining, may I ask? Unless these are worlds the size of a small pebble, that should not even be physically possible D:))

[Taricus]

This world already has water in liquid form, heating would not be required.

[Sheb]

Actually the only thing we need is to make sure the athmosphere is breathable. And establish working ecosystems and churn some rock into fertile soil. A few years of terraforming with bacterias, followed by GM worms, legumes (to build up nitrogen content) and finally other plants would be more than enough. Large swathes of New Terra, even whole continent, could be used as natural reserves, to preserves some of Earth's most endangered ecosystems, to the greatest joy of biologists!