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| 11 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1517933602019174400 |
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| 14 | [[quoteright:350:[[Literature/FarmerInTheSky https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_rick_sternbach_farmer.png]]]] |
| 15 | [[caption-width-right:350:[[WesternAnimation/WallE There's plenty of space in that place called space.]]]] |
| 16 | |
| 17 | ->''"(It is) ..our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty"'' |
| 18 | -->-- '''John O'Sullivan''', ''The Morning Post'', 1845 |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Once the {{Bold Explorer}}s have finished ''their'' job and found some exotic new lands or strange new worlds, it's time to take advantage and start a colony or settlement! |
| 21 | |
| 22 | There are many reasons why people might choose to leave everything they know behind and set off to carve a new life out of an untamed wilderness. They might be seeking freedom, opportunity, or wealth. They might be fleeing an intolerable situation: discrimination, overcrowding, debt, poverty, bad governments, crime, ruined reputation, family conflict, or maybe the fallout of a terrible divorce; none of that matters in the frontier, in the frontier it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from or what happened to you, all that matters is what you can do and how can you contribute. On the other hand, it might be the case that the settlers simply had no choice in the matter -- far-off lands are such a ''convenient'' place to [[PenalColony store your criminals, dissidents, and other unwanted population]]. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | The dangers in settling new territory are great: hostile terrain, hostile wildlife, hostile natives, bad weather, lack of readily accessible resources, and much more. You may end up cut off from your homeland completely, and contact without settlements isn't guaranteed either; oftentimes, the Frontier becomes a PointsOfLightSetting, where homesteads and towns are deeply isolated from one another. Success is never guaranteed, and many settlements will fail, often with great loss of life. Nevertheless, the biological urge to expand and grow is strong, and new colonies will rarely lack for volunteers (or "volunteers"). Successful colonies can even end up matching or exceeding their homeland in power or resources, leading to plenty of opportunities for conflict. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | And what about those natives, or small green creatures, who live where you've planned to plant new roots? I guess they'll just have to take their chances. Of course, if you ''are'' one of the natives (or small green creatures), living where someone has decided to settle, you may not be very pleased with the notion. If you can't talk them out of the idea, then it's possible that ThisMeansWar |
| 27 | |
| 28 | This trope tends to be a big part of American and Australian self-identity and mythos, though it is, of course, not limited to America or Australia. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | See also: CultColony, LostColony, PenalColony, InjunCountry, ColonizedSolarSystem. Related to TheMigration. May serve as a mere setting for a work, or be an active element of the plot. Works in this setting often involve ThePioneer or the DeterminedHomesteader. |
| 31 | ---- |
| 32 | !!Examples: |
| 33 | |
| 34 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 35 | |
| 36 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 37 | * The second episode of ''Manga/TwoThousandOneNights'', "Symbiotic Planet", deals with two sets of colonists on the planet Beta Hydra V, from two different factions back on Earth, and the dangers they face from each other as well as from the new, untamed planet. |
| 38 | * ''Franchise/DragonBall'': In ''[[Manga/DragonBallSuper Granolah the Survivor Arc]]'', the Sugarians who survived their planet's destruction settle in Cereal after buying the planet from the Hiita family. They feel pretty guilty when they meet the last Cerealian still living on the planet and find out his race was also nearly wiped out by Frieza's forces. |
| 39 | * ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'': |
| 40 | ** The Spacenoids in the Universal Century ''Gundam'' works started out as this, whether as willing pioneers seeking a new life or forced off-world by TheFederation. The simmering tensions and divides that emerge between them and "Earthnoids" eventually culminate in the One Year War and subsequent conflicts. By the time the events of ''F91'' and ''Victory'' take place, the Side colonies have all but usurped the Earth Federation as the dominant force in the Earth Sphere. [[spoiler:And by ''Anime/GundamReconguistaInG'', are for all intents and purposes the ones calling the shots.]] |
| 41 | ** ''Manga/MobileSuitCrossboneGundam'' meanwhile deconstructs the trope further with the Jovian colonies. As end-points for the ''Jupitris''-class cargo vessels carrying their precious Helium, Jupiter was promoted by the Federation as a bold opportunity for would-be settlers. But as the colonists and their descendants find out, life in the new frontier proves to be much harder, far more punishing, and isolating than in the Earth Sphere. Which in turn fuels bitter resentment within the Jovian Empire. |
| 42 | * In ''Anime/{{Macross}}'', following the conclusion of [[Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross Space War I]], which nearly annihilated all life on Earth and reduced the human population to mere millions, a massive space colonization program was started. The idea was to spread humanity out so that if Earth got blasted again, the whole human race wouldn't be at stake. Later series take place either on colony worlds or on large fleets looking for a colony world to settle. |
| 43 | * ''Manga/SilverSpoon'': |
| 44 | ** Mikage's grandmother likes telling stories about the time when the Japanese settled Hokkaido. Wild animals (bears) and natives (Ainu) appear. |
| 45 | ** Later there is a two-chapter side story about Hachiken's great-great-grandparents who were Japanese pioneers settling Hokkaido. |
| 46 | * ''Manga/TowardTheTerra'': The refugees postpone their search for Terra and colonize a marginally inhabitable planet for a few years. Unfortunately, the humans eventually caught up with them. |
| 47 | [[/folder]] |
| 48 | |
| 49 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 50 | * ''ComicBook/FTLYall'': A recurring theme across several of the stories. Once space travel became possible, Earth governments set out to colonize everything they possibly could. |
| 51 | * ''ComicBook/SonsOfAres'': Triton and most celestial bodies beyond the orbit of Saturn are considered the frontier of the solar system by their settlers. |
| 52 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': |
| 53 | ** In ''ComicBook/TheKryptonChronicles'', Superman and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'s ancestor Val-El sets sail to explore Krypton's unchartered seas. After a long and eventful voyage, Val and his crew find a large landmass, subsequently named Lurvan, and decide to settle in that place and build their own city-state, Argo City, instead of returning home. |
| 54 | --->'''Val-El's log:''' "The betrayal of my brother stings-- but I sail on. At last we sight a wild continent-- the one called Lurvan... But we do not take possession in the name of Erkol. We like the new land and decide to settle-- to build our own city-state... We find outcroppings of stone slab, which we trim to build the first stone houses of Argo City..." |
| 55 | ** In ''ComicBook/LetMyPeopleGrow'', Superman finally finds a way to enlarge the Bottle City of Kandor, and its inhabitants choose to colonize a large, primitive world orbiting a red sun. Kal and Kara pick an area near water sources and surrounded by fertile land, and they enlarge the city. |
| 56 | [[/folder]] |
| 57 | |
| 58 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 59 | * Creator/AAPessimal's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12321109/31/Gap-Year-Adventures Gap Year Adventures]]" is a tale of two adventurers crossing Howondaland, the Discworld's Africa. They arrive in the white colony of, err, ''[[Usefulnotes/{{Zimbabwe}} Smith-Rhodesia]]'' and note that the settlers, descendants of white Central Continent emigrants from Ankh-Morpork and [[UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands Sto Kerrig]], are greatly proud of the land they wrested from the natives and settled. A [[UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} Cenotian]] visitor notes: |
| 60 | -->One thing we see a lot on posters and even carved into the facades of buildings is\ |
| 61 | "The mantle of the Pioneers has fallen on our shoulders to sustain civilisation in a primitive country."\ |
| 62 | This quote is attributed to your ancestor Sir Cecil Smith-Rhodes. People believe it and quote it as if it were holy religious writ. As I understand it, the original pioneers were the Boortrekkers of several centuries ago: several hundred years later, Sir Cecil successfully revived the Boortrekkie spirit and led a new trek out of the Transvaal into a new country. And Smith-Rhodesia is all around us as we travel. Mariella is seeking to leave S-R behind us and cross the state line into the Transvaal. Where of course your family home is. This land is merely named after your family. [[note]]The quote in RealLife is from Ian Smith, the last white ruler of Rhodesia before it became UsefulNotes/{{Zimbabwe}}; he was seeking to evoke the spirit of national founder Victorian imperial adventurer Sir Cecil Rhodes. A very marginal canonical character in the Discworld is called Smith-Rhodes; Pessimal's take on things gives her and her family a backstory in "Africa"[[/note]] |
| 63 | * ''Fanfic/KaraOfRokyn'': After moving to planet Rokyn, the last surviving Kryptonians rebuild their city, Kandor, and begin exploring their new world, expanding into new lands and starting new settlements. |
| 64 | * ''[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/tyranids-r-us-40k-tyranid-hivemind-si.1077327/ Tyranids "R" Us]]'': The SI experiments with life-bearing worlds, but mostly prioritises colonising star systems containing supermassive blue giant stars, which no one else wants. The reason for this is because Tyranid FasterThanLightTravel is based on gravitational lensing with speed dependent on the gravity well at the destination, so jumping between massive stars is highly efficient, even better than the average speed of warp drive travel. The conditions are extreme, with radiation levels that endanger even Tyranid biology and need special magnetic shielding just to endure the star's presence, but the payoff for succeeding is a second-to-none galaxy-wide transportation network. |
| 65 | --> They're one and all ionizing blue Hells of heat and radiation, but that doesn't bother me much, and holding those systems is relatively easy since nobody else really wants them, but to ''me'', they're superhighways. |
| 66 | [[/folder]] |
| 67 | |
| 68 | [[folder:Film -- Animation]] |
| 69 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'': All about the settlers at Jamestown colony and how they interact with the Powhatan people. |
| 70 | * This is what [[PerspectiveFlip the antagonists believe they're doing]] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Wolfwalkers}}''; English invaders "civilizing" both a wild forest and the native Irish population, both of which are represented by the titular [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Wolfwalkers]]. |
| 71 | [[/folder]] |
| 72 | |
| 73 | [[folder:Film -- Live-Action]] |
| 74 | * ''Film/{{Aliens}}'': the planet on which the Xenomorph was first discovered has been terraformed and colonized by the Wayland-Yutani corporation. |
| 75 | * ''Film/TheBigTrail'' is about a group of pioneers headed across the Oregon Trail to settle the territory. They have to brave the usual hazards, like InjunCountry, the ThirstyDesert, and the snowy Sierra Mountains. |
| 76 | * In ''Film/CanyonPassage'', Jacksonville is a small settlement on the very edge of the frontier. This means the residents have to be self-sufficient and are completely isolated when the Indian uprising occurs. |
| 77 | * ''Film/{{Cimarron}}'' is another film about the Oklahoma land run. The Oklahoma land run came about because the United States, which had previously set aside Indian Territory for the Indians after stealing the rest of America from them, decided to steal that too. |
| 78 | * The Creator/RonHoward film ''Film/FarAndAway'', with Creator/TomCruise and Creator/NicoleKidman, tells of Irish immigrants who end up participating in the great [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rush_of_1889 Oklahoma land run of 1889]], where over 100,000 people competed to settle the newly opened territory. |
| 79 | * The 1923 silent short film ''Film/{{Jamestown}}'' is a dramatic version of the founding of the first English colony in the Americas, starring Dolores Cassenelli as Pocahontas. |
| 80 | * ''Film/TheLastOfTheMohicans'' is set against the backdrop of the settling of the American Frontier, and the settlers' interactions with the native peoples. |
| 81 | * ''Film/TheNewLand'' is about Swedish immigrants settling in the wilds of Minnesota. |
| 82 | * ''Film/PaintYourWagon'': This musical features the colonization of a new town, No Name City, in the American West. |
| 83 | * ''Film/{{Pandorum}}'' takes place aboard a colony ship launched towards an inhabitable planet from a dying earth. Unfortunately things went wrong... |
| 84 | [[/folder]] |
| 85 | |
| 86 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 87 | !!Authors |
| 88 | * Creator/PhilipKDick used this trope constantly, particularly in his '50s and '60s work. Often, the dream of the frontier is juxtaposed with an authoritarian government that has taken over Earth, and his everyman protagonists must choose between an unbearable life under fascism or the hardscrabble freedom of the outer planets. His novels which focus primarily on settling the frontier itself are ''Martian Time-Slip'', ''The Unteleported Man''[[note]]''also known as'' Lies, Inc.[[/note]] and ''A Maze of Death''. |
| 89 | * Creator/RobertAHeinlein loved colonization. Being an {{Eagle Land}}er, he believed that colonization brings out the best in people and was responsible for American superiority. He dialed it up for his future societies. Specific examples include: |
| 90 | ** ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'': The Terran Federation and the Bugs are at war over real estate. It's taught in schools that any civilization that stops expanding is doomed to extinction at the hands of more aggressive competitors. |
| 91 | ** ''Literature/MethuselahsChildren'': The long-lived Howards hijack a GenerationShip seeking a new homeworld so they can escape persecution. |
| 92 | ** ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove'': Two thousand years after Methuselah's Children the Chairman of the homeworld the Howards eventually established asks the oldest human alive for assistance in establishing a new colony. [[TheOlderImmortal Lazarus Long]] also recounts a time he was a settler in the old western American style on another planet. |
| 93 | ** ''Literature/FarmerInTheSky'': The characters are settlers on the Jovian moon Ganymede. |
| 94 | ** ''Literature/TunnelInTheSky'': Gates are used to send people to establish fairly low-tech colonies on distant planets. A survival class on a jungle DeathWorld gets stranded for years and has to build a colony from scratch. |
| 95 | * Creator/DavidWeber: |
| 96 | ** ''Literature/HonorHarrington'': A major part of the backstory is the Diaspora of humanity made possible by FasterThanLightTravel. By the time this series takes place, most of the settling has already been done, and many of the colonies have launched their own colonies. |
| 97 | ** ''Literature/StephanieHarrington'' (a spin-off of the previous) is a more direct example, which takes place during the early years of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Stephanie's family have settled on [[DeathWorld the wild and untamed world]] of Sphinx, offering professional skills desperately needed on Sphinx after most of the original settlers died due to [[ThePlague a native disease that was very deadly to humans.]] |
| 98 | ** ''Literature/InFuryBorn'' has Alicia DeVries' family use "Colonization Credits" to fund their purchase of land and equipment in a frontier world. The dangers of this kick off the primary plot of the final novel of the series. |
| 99 | |
| 100 | !!Individual works |
| 101 | * In Creator/MikhailAkhmanov and Christopher Nicholas Gilmore's ''Literature/CaptainFrenchOrTheQuestForParadise'', humanity has settled thousands of worlds and explored hundreds of thousands in the 20,000 or so years since the discovery of interstellar travel (which happened in the mid-21st century). The titular character has been around for all this time (thanks to relativistic travel and the [[TheAgeless CR treatment]]) and has participated in a number of ventures related to humanity's expansion. In fact, his first "participation" was the test flight of a ship equipped with the Ramsden relativistic drive, during which he explores the [[UsefulNotes/LocalStars Alpha Centauri]] system and names a habitable planet there Penelope, after his daughter. Instead of returning home, he continues to explore a number of other nearby stars, discovering several more habitable worlds. By the time he returns to Earth, over a century has passed, and humanity begins to build colonization ships to settle the newly-discovered planets. Much later, French helps a group of settlers from San Brendan to terraform Brunnershabn, whose former settlers have destroyed themselves in a nuclear war, into a once-again livable planet now-called Transformed. |
| 102 | * The ''Literature/{{Coyote}}'' series by Allen Steele is about the colonization of a new planet using slower-than-light technologies, which makes communication with the home world very slow, and frequently surprising. |
| 103 | * Creator/NancyKress's novel ''Crossfire'' is about humanity's colonization of the planet Greentree--and the unexpected things they find there. |
| 104 | * In Creator/MarionZimmerBradley's ''Literature/{{Darkover}}'' series novel ''Darkover Landfall'', a starship is forced to land on a planet and the passengers start a colony which eventually becomes the planetary civilization of the other books. Problems include hallucinatory pollen. |
| 105 | * ''Literature/TheEmigrants'' by Vilhelm Moberg tells the story of several Swedish villagers who claim new land in Minnesota and explore the new country during the mid-19th century. |
| 106 | * Creator/CJCherryh's ''Literature/FortyThousandInGehenna'', part of her ''Literature/AllianceUnion'' series, features the Union's attempt to secretly colonize a newly discovered world with 40,000 cloned workers (from a wide variety of genetic lines). |
| 107 | * [[Creator/JohnHemry Jack Campbell]]'s ''Literature/TheGenesisFleet'' series (prequel to ''Literature/TheLostFleet'' series) is set during the age of humanity's expansion into the galaxy. The [[FasterThanLightTravel jump drive]] has been invented only a few decades ago, and it has already changed the galactic landscape. [[EarthThatWas Old Earth]] and the old colonies are no longer relevant, as travel times have been drastically reduced from years to weeks. Earth's once-mighty fleet is being decommissioned, and the old colonies are no longer capable of enforcing law across the ever-expanding sphere of human space. Naturally, [[SpacePirate piracy]] is rampant on the fringes, and militant colonies are seeking to bully their neighbors into submission. One of the protagonists is Robert Geary (the ancestor to John Geary, the hero of the main series), a retired fleet officer, suddenly once again thrust into combat, as his new home, a recently-settled world named Glenlyon, is being threatened by a hostile world called Scatha. This is the time when colonies realize they can't rely on help from Earth or the old colonies anymore and must band together in order to survive (i.e. they will eventually form TheAlliance). The series also mentioned a number of colony ships sent out by corporations, heading out into the unknown regions, seeking to establish corporate utopias (presumably, they eventually become the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Syndicate Worlds]]). The novels also make mention of another group of colonies in the opposite direction from Earth, who have cut ties with the homeworld. Those play a small part in the first spin-off series. |
| 108 | * In Creator/AndreyLivadny's ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' books, the early history of interstellar exploration involves hundreds of {{Sleeper Starship}}s being sent through the newly-discovered [[SubspaceOrHyperspace hypersphere]], hoping to find habitable worlds. A sizable percentage were either destroyed or found no habitable worlds in the star systems where they "surfaced" (with no ability to re-enter hypersphere again). Since the nature of hypersphere was unknown in those early years, no navigational devices existed that would function in the anomaly until the eventual development of mass-detectors. The rest ended up creating [[LostColony Lost Colonies]], as reliable [[SubspaceAnsible Hypersphere Frequency (HF) communication]] was not yet possible. Even the very first extrasolar colony ship, the ''Alpha'' (also the largest ship ever built by humans), ended up forming a LostColony. Its powerful fusion drives tore the fabric of space/time upon activation, pulling the ship into hypersphere (it was years before scientists figured out what happened and replicated the event to develop FTLTravel) and depositing it somewhere in the Orion Nebula. |
| 109 | ** In later novels, most of the "settling" is done by automated robotic complexes sent by {{Mega Corp}}s in search of new resources, although people show up later, eventually transforming outposts into colonies. |
| 110 | ** One later novel has the [[TheFederation Confederation of Suns]] government sending dead people who have undergone BrainUploading prior to expiring to explore and settle far-off worlds using the "vertical" lines of hypersphere that lead to every star in the galaxy. Why? Because the government is afraid to "resurrect" people (i.e. download them back into cloned bodies) and become like the [[HumanAlien Harammin]] [[ImmortalityImmorality Immortal Quota]]. Thus, the condition to "resurrection" is that the "dead" agree to be "resurrected" somewhere far away from human space. |
| 111 | * ''The Legacy of Heorot'' by Creator/LarryNiven, Creator/JerryPournelle, and Creator/StevenBarnes: Human colonists on the planet Avalon have problems building their colony. The [[HumanPopsicle freezing process]] they underwent during the trip damaged their brains, and the planet has deadly predators with SuperSpeed. |
| 112 | * ''Literature/TheLongEarth'' at some point follows a bunch of settlers emigrating onto one of the parallel Earths to start over in a world without industrialisation. |
| 113 | * Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/TheMartianWay": The ColonizedSolarSystem is in its infancy, and each colony represents a drain on Earth's resources because they're still growing. This is extremely common in frontier societies because the growing colonies are usually not immediately self-sufficient. The distance and hardships of colonizing also cause the culture of colonies to shift away from the parent society. Martian colonists have a number of traits that distinguish them from their "Grounder" counterparts. |
| 114 | * Creator/JohnScalzi's ''The Last Colony'', and its companion novel, ''Zoe's Tale'', both part of his ''Literature/OldMansWar'' series, describe the attempt to start a secret colony in order to protect against the possibility that mankind will be wiped out forever by hostile aliens. |
| 115 | * Diana Gabaldon's ''Literature/{{Outlander}}'' series begins dealing with this in the fourth book, ''Drums of Autumn''. North Carolina's Royal Governor, William Tryon, grants Jamie Fraser a ''huge'' swath of land to populate and run as he sees fit, and the struggle to do so while having virtually no hard currency with which to buy things (most commerce in the backcountry is barter) eventually leads to the founding of the area known as Fraser's Ridge. |
| 116 | * Kim Stanley Robinson's ''Literature/RedMarsTrilogy'' covers the colonization and terraforming of Mars over the course of 200 years. |
| 117 | * In ''Literature/TheRedVixenAdventures'' House Darktail's plan to escape Countess Highglider's petty revenge was to save up enough to buy a fleet of colony ships for themselves and their loyal sworn commoners, which was why they couldn't afford to pay Rolas' ransom in "Captive". But [[spoiler:after the Red Vixen helps expose the Countess's crimes they get her lands and the plan is sidelined. Up until Salli claims the planet Bloody Margo was using as a secret base in the "Shadow" books and they start a colony there.]] |
| 118 | * ''Literature/TheSecretRiver'' focuses on the conflicts between Australian settlers and the native Australians, as seen through the eyes of a transported colonist. |
| 119 | * In Creator/AleksisKivi's ''Literature/SevenBrothers'', although the brothers' new Impivaara home is situated on Jukola property and not too far from civilization, they effectively live separated from others. Toward the end of the story, they turn vast areas of forest into farmland around the house. |
| 120 | * ''Literature/TheSharingKnife'' by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where farmers are trying to reclaim and settle new land, some of it deemed unsafe by the Lakewalkers who guard against the dangers. |
| 121 | * ''Literature/TheSonOfTheIronworker'' is set at the beginning of the discovery of America and the conquest of the Aztec Empire, with the main character fleeing to Cuba, becoming shipwrecked off the Mexican coast, meeting a new culture, being rescued by Hernán Cortés' soldiers and joining his army as an interpreter and scribe, and finally settling down as a farmer in the region of Tabasco. |
| 122 | * In ''Literature/TheStarchildTrilogy'', the people fleeing the tyranny of the Plan of Man on Earth have formed settlements in the mysterious reefs of space, between the stars, where [[BizarreAlienBiology exotic fusion-based life forms]] have created great, hidden, habitable masses far from any star. |
| 123 | * ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': |
| 124 | ** ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'': The three tribes of the Edain flee from Eriador, where most of Men have been corrupted into wickedness by Morgoth, cross the western Blue Mountains and arrive in Beleriand. The Bëorians settle in the forested northern mountains of Dorthonion and become of lords of Ladros, the folk of Marach emigrate the mountains of Hitlum after swearing fealty to the High-Elven House of Fingolfin, and the House of Haleth end settling in the Forest of Brethil after a very long and turbulent migration. |
| 125 | ** ''Literature/TheFallOfNumenor'': After the War of the Wrath, the Edain (Men of West) set sail towards the country-sized, star-shaped, virgin island of Elenna, created for them by the Valar, who wanted to reward them for fighting Morgoth alongside them. There, the Edain build their first cities and found Númenor, the greatest Mannish civilization. |
| 126 | --->''Then the Edain set sail upon the deep waters, following the Star and the Valar laid a peace upon the sea for many days, and sent sunlight and a sailing wind, so that the waters glittered before the eyes of the Edain like rippling glass, and the foam flew like snow before the stems of their ships. But so bright was Rothinzil that even at morning Men could see it glimmering in the West, and in the cloudless night it shone alone, for no other star could stand beside it. And setting their course towards it the Edain came at last over leagues of sea and saw afar the land that was prepared for them, Andor, the Land of Gift, shimmering in a golden haze. Then they went up out of the sea and found a country fair and fruitful, and they were glad. And they called that land Elenna, which is Starwards; but also Anadûnê, which is Westernesse, Númenórë in the High Eldarin tongue.'' |
| 127 | * The ''Undersea Trilogy'' by Creator/FrederikPohl and Creator/JackWilliamson was one of the first in-depth (if you'll pardon the pun) explorations of the notion of colonizing the bottom of the sea. |
| 128 | * In the ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series, Galactic civilization grants temporary colonization rights to clans for terms of thousands or millions of years, but the planets must be abandoned and allowed lie fallow periodically as well, in order that new species with the potential for [[UpliftedAnimal Uplift]] can arise. The only planets exempt from this system are species' homeworlds, which they retain until they eventually "[[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence fade away]]". The second trilogy has members of six species, including humans, illegally colonizing the fallow and criminally abused planet of Jijo, seeking redemption through devolution (it's complicated). |
| 129 | * The ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' starts on the newly discovered world of Sergyar, and its colonization is part of the backstory of the rest of the series--especially after Miles' father is appointed governor of the new colony. |
| 130 | [[/folder]] |
| 131 | |
| 132 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 133 | * ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' shows the colonization of New Caprica (though later abandoned) and [[spoiler:Earth]]. |
| 134 | * ''Series/{{Deadwood}}'' depicts the gradual advancement of the eponymous and illegal gold rush town -- illegal because the land had already been [[InjunCountry ceded to the Lakota]] by treaty -- as it wrestles with the dilemma of incorporation into the United States, the influx of new settlers, internal power struggles and the dangers of Lakota raiding. |
| 135 | * Series/DoctorWho'': In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E4ColonyInSpace Colony in Space]]", the Time Lords takes control of the TARDIS and the Doctor and Jo arrive on a Earth Colony in the 25th Century, where a ruthless mining company are using a dinosaur-like creature to force the colonists to leave the planet. |
| 136 | * ''Series/{{Earth 2}}'': A group of rebellious humans attempt to colonize an alien planet after their spaceship crashes due to government sabotage. |
| 137 | * The backstory of ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' as well... "EarthThatWas got all used up, so we found a new solar system. Dozens of planets, hundreds of moons." There is also a fair amount of on-going colonization seen during the story. |
| 138 | * ''Series/{{Outcasts}}'' chronicles the story of refugees from wars on Earth who settle on a new world called Carpathia. |
| 139 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'' |
| 140 | ** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': |
| 141 | *** "This Side of Paradise" has the Enterprise on a rescue mission to a Federation colony, supposedly endangered by deadly radiation. |
| 142 | *** "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E29OperationAnnihilate Operation: Annihilate]]" introduces the audience to the planet Deneva. Originally home to a freighter base that transferred materials mined in the asteroid belt to Earth or other planets, the planet soon became home to a Federation colony. By the mid-23rd century, the planet was on its way to becoming a major Federation colony with over a million people living on the surface, and over 100,000 people living in the capital city itself. In the [[AlternateTimeline First Splinter Timeline]] Deneva had continued to grow in the 24th century and became a full member state in its own right before being destroyed by the Borg in their 2381 invasion. |
| 143 | *** In "The Way to Eden", the crew of the Enterprise meet a group of space hippies who hope to create a new colony on a planet they call Eden. |
| 144 | ** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': One of the ongoing missions of the ''Enterprise'' was assigned to was scouting star systems for suitable planets to establish colonies on. In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E22Emergence Emergence]]" this is averted as the part of the galaxy the ''Enterprise'' is in is full of main sequence binary stars with no M-class planets. |
| 145 | ** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': |
| 146 | *** After first contact with the Vulcans and rapid improvement of conditions on Earth humans started to spread out through the solar system, starting colonies on the moon, Mars, and in the asteroid belt. In "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E06TerraNova Terra Nova]]" it's revealed the first extra solar colony was set up on a planet called [[TitleDrop Terra Nova]]. While initially successful the planet was hit by an asteroid which irradiated the survivors. Unable to send anyone to investigate the fate of the colony was a mystery until the ''Enterprise'' visited in 2151. Convincing the survivors that Earth had not attacked them, the ''Enterprise'' helps the colonists relocate to an uncontaminated part of the planet. In the [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse expanded universe]], the colony later joins the United Federation of Planets and by the 24th century has grown to about 378,000 people. |
| 147 | *** In "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E04StrangeNewWorld Strange New World]]" the ''Enterprise'' comes across an uninhabited Minshara class planet orbiting 61 Ursae Majoris, about 31 light-years from Earth. While toxic pollen renders the planet uninhabitable at the time, the Federation was able to eliminate the pollen from the planet in the early 23rd century, which was named Archer IV after Captain Jonathan Archer. By the middle of the 23rd century, the planet had become a major Federation world with a population of over 700 million people. |
| 148 | * ''Series/TerraNova'' features a time-traveling colony in the late Cretaceous era established by a dying 22nd-century Earth. |
| 149 | * In ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' episode "[[Recap/OnThursdayWeLeaveForHome On Thursday we Leave for Home]]", there's a colony with 189 people on the desert planet V9-Gamma. The colony was established in 1991, and they left the colony in 2021 when a ship arrived to take them back to Earth |
| 150 | [[/folder]] |
| 151 | |
| 152 | [[folder:Pinballs]] |
| 153 | * The first ''VideoGame/ThreeDUltraPinball'' is based on building a deep space colony and launching a starship. |
| 154 | [[/folder]] |
| 155 | |
| 156 | [[folder:Podcast]] |
| 157 | * The ''Podcast/TwilightHistories'' episode “Hannibal One” takes place in a world where Carthage won the Punic Wars and crushed Rome. 1000 years later, they’re establishing their first colony on Mars. |
| 158 | [[/folder]] |
| 159 | |
| 160 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 161 | * ''Age of Empires III'' (this game has nothing to do with the video game): Send your colonists to the new world. Defeat the natives. Get goods. |
| 162 | * ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'': Before the Fall, almost every rocky planet and large moon in the solar system was colonized by the old Earth nations and the hypercorps. [[AfterTheEnd After the Fall]] the [[PortalNetwork Pandora gates]] were discovered, and the major factions controlling the solar system started using them to expand into other systems. The ''Gatecrashers'' module includes info for running campaigns where the players are exosolar colonists. |
| 163 | * In ''TabletopGame/{{Ironsworn}}'', Ironlanders are humans [[TheMigration who have fled]] The Old World and are now settling the edge of the world--the Ironlands--in hopes of making the peninsula their new home. As the rest of the setting suggests, this settling is perilous. |
| 164 | * ''Puerto Rico'' is a EuroGame where you send colonists to [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Puerto Rico]]. They work your plantations. |
| 165 | * ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'''s Venus is becoming covered in settlements. These are a mixture of corporate and national, mostly being Earthling controlled, but the one exception is Tamatha, a Martian City-State made up of refugees from the Ebb Revolutions. |
| 166 | * ''TabletopGame/RogueTrader'': One type of commercial venture Rogue Traders can carry out is establishing colonies on newly discovered worlds beyond the Imperium's borders. Or preparing [[LostColony lost colonies]] for integration with air-dropped cathedrals to the God-Emperor of Man, or mercenary companies. |
| 167 | * ''San Juan'' is a Euro card game closely related to ''Puerto Rico'', but you colonize a different island. |
| 168 | * In the default campaign setting of ''Tomorrow's War'' the various nations and corporations of earth have colonized several planets. Most scenarios are colonial insurrections or wars between independent colonies. |
| 169 | * In ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' all the major races (those who have developed Jump drive, meaning Aslan, Droyne, K'kree, Hivers, Vargr, and three human races) rule interstellar empires of hundreds of colonies, and they're settling new ones all the time. The Aslan in particular have a thing for expansion due to the males' drive for land ownership. Aslan have a bad reputation for aggressiveness but they will just as often settle on empty or near-empty planets or trade mercenary service to the local government for land. |
| 170 | * ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'' is a PointsOfLightSetting where only the scattered Free Cities remain as sanctuaries in a {{Multiverse}} where EverythingIsTryingToKillYou; the Dawnbringer Crusades are armed expeditions that set out to found new Free Cities and expand that pocket of safety just a little more. Given the myriad dangers that exist in the Mortal Realms, this is easier said than done, and more Crusades than not fail for one reason or another, usually resulting in the horrible death of everyone involved. |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 174 | * ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII'' has the players who chose one of the European powers establishing settlements in the Americas or Asia (with some supplies from their home cities). |
| 175 | * In ''Videogame/AlienLegacy'', you are the captain of one of many colony ships sent from Earth about to be destroyed by a hostile alien race. Your goal is to settle the Beta Caeli system and discover what happened with another colony ship sent to the same system. You build colonies, explore planets, moons, and asteroids, research new technology, and search for traces of your sister ship and the colonies it created 20 years ago. |
| 176 | * ''VideoGame/{{Ascendancy}}'' fits the typical pattern. The main difference is the utter absence of humans. All aliens are of the [[StarfishAliens starfish]] kind, except for the Minions who are machines and Balifids who look like {{Intelligent Gerbil}}s. Additionally, some worlds have no habitable "squares" at all, meaning that, while it's possible to land an initial colony hub there and, thus, call it a colony, it's impossible to develop it until terraforming is researched. The exceptions are the Orfa, who thrive in hostile environments. |
| 177 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series features expansion of your Earthly empire through colonization or conquest. |
| 178 | * ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'', the SpiritualSuccessor to ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', is where you also colonize a new planet with the added bonus that you are the first faction to arrive on the planet and it's just you versus the environment for a while. Eventually, though, the other colony expeditions from Earth will land and it becomes more of a traditional ''Civ'' land grab fest. Additionally, it's heavily implied that expeditions are also sent to other habitable worlds. This is confirmed in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersStarships'' (which is not an example of the trope, as the game doesn't involve settling anything), which states in the intro that multiple worlds had been settled by humans thousands of years ago. |
| 179 | * ''VideoGame/{{Colonization}}'', a TurnBasedStrategy game from Sid Meier, which involves colonizing the New World as one of four European nations. |
| 180 | * ''Videogame/{{Destiny}}'' invokes this with suggestions that the people of the Last City will one day spread out and retake the ruined remains of their homeworld, though it isn't followed up on because [[DeathWorld the entire system outside of the Last City is incredibly hostile to human life]]. In ''Videogame/Destiny2'', after much of humanity was forced out of the City by the Red Legion invasion, the leaders of humanity have started pushing for more expansion, after both realizing that by concentrating in the City they were leaving humanity vulnerable to another attack, and because the Guardians have realized that just because ordinary humans don't have the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Traveler's blessings]], [[BadassNormal they can still fight and hold their own against the monsters beyond the walls.]] |
| 181 | * This is a big part of ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'''s lore. The game takes place on a colony world, several of the hunters previously held jobs protecting colonists from deadly alien fauna on their new worlds, and the constant expansion [[spoiler:caused the monster invasion by spreading the blight of Patterson tech]]. |
| 182 | * ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': To the New California Republic, the Mojave is a frontier territory they plan to annex once the Second Battle of Hoover Dam is won, and Courier can meet sharecroppers sent settle the land. The local opinion of this varies. |
| 183 | ** The latter half of the mod ''VideoGame/{{Russell}}'' takes place in an NCR pioneer settlement called Silverwood, where The Courier and the titular bounty hunter arrive to find a wanted scalp hunter called Glanton. Silverwood is constantly getting harassed by a tribe called Sand Wolves and the town's sleazy mayor has hired Glanton to take care of the threat after [[spoiler:the natives slaughter an entire family in the outskirts of the town]]. Courier has the choice to either help the town after it gets attacked by Caesar's Legion or help Glanton commit genocide. [[spoiler:Either way, Glanton will wipe out the Sand Wolves, whose survivors swear vengeance on both him and Courier. If saved, Silverwood will eventually turn into a prosperous mining town and its future inhabitants will forget the horrors committed by Glanton.]] |
| 184 | * The intro to ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'' starts with five {{Sleeper Starship}}s making a blockade run during the final battle of the 100-year war started in ''VideoGame/{{Starlancer}}'' and jumping into the unexplored Sirius sector. The game then picks up 800 years later, when the Sirius sector has been settled and split up between four Houses, the descendants of four of the colony ships (the fifth one suffered a breakdown and disappeared): [[EagleLand Liberty]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} Bretonia]], [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany Rheinland]], and [[{{Wutai}} Kusari]]. In between the region of space claimed by each House, there are unclaimed Border Worlds, where the feeble rule of law is barely kept in order by the Zoners, a 100% neutral faction that is the de-facto owner of these worlds and only cares about running strictly neutral anarcho-capitalist commerce hubs called Freeports; the rest of these worlds is variably split between House-run colonies and detachments, criminal bases and private corporate operations. |
| 185 | * ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations'' features alien races competing to colonize new worlds. The game's backstory even explains why all races start this at the same time. Until recently, aliens only used [[PortalNetwork gates]] to travel between stars. Any other travel was by sublight and took millennia. Arceans planned to trick humans into building a gate with no "off" switch so that they could invade. However, humans had fusion technology and used it to miniaturize the gates into portable hyperdrives. Then some well-intentioned idiot sent the plans to all other races... |
| 186 | ** Occasionally when settling a new world, the player will find that it is inhabited by a (comparatively) primitive race. The player is then presented with an option to leave the natives in peace and settle where they aren't, move the natives together to free up more land for yourself, or just enslave them and take the whole planet. |
| 187 | * ''VideoGame/Haven2020'' centers around protagonists Kay and Yu avoiding persecution by the Apiary, their home planetary system, by settling the distant, uninhabited planet Source. It becomes clear not long after their arrival that they weren't the first to try and live on the planet, but what became of their predecessors isn't spelled out until later in the story. |
| 188 | * ''VideoGame/HaegemoniaLegionsOfIron'': Humans discover wormholes and start settling other systems. They don't stop even when hostile aliens show up. |
| 189 | * ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'': The player takes on the role of child who was born on a ColonyShip on the way to settle a new planet, with the game starting right before it makes it to its destination. The game adresses the fact that any planet that would be a good place to build a settlement would have pre-existing wildlife that will inevitably get disrupted by the colony's very presence and respond in kind. |
| 190 | * This is part of the plot of ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda''. Besides exploring the Andromeda galaxy, you must carve out a home for yourself and the Milky Way colonists. |
| 191 | * ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion'' and its sequels all involve trying to colonize planets in nearby star systems. New colonies are fragile and have to be protected, but a race that doesn't create enough colonies will find itself helpless in the face of bigger, more powerful enemies. |
| 192 | * This trope is the basis of the entire plot of ''VisualNovel/OurPersonalSpace'', taking place on a newly founded extraterrestrial colony. |
| 193 | * ''VideoGame/TheOuterWorlds'': Settling a new planet was the reason that the [[PlayerCharacter Unknown Variable]] signed on for. Unfortunately for them, a malfunction in the ship's FTL drive resulted in it taking decades longer to reach the Halcyon system than expected, and by the time they arrive it's already been settled and [[OneNationUnderCopyright taken over]] by a conglomeration of {{mega corp}}s. |
| 194 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Outpost}}'', you have a starship of limited that you must decide what items to bring before you shoot it out towards one of several possible planets. You then choose your landing site and start building up buildings and facilities like many a sim-game. |
| 195 | ** ''VideoGame/Outpost2'' is a more typical RTS game and while there is some building going on, ultimately everything you do will be destroyed by the apocalypse (possibly a reference to the first game's UnintentionallyUnwinnable bugs). Though if you finish the campaign by outrunning the threat, [[spoiler:the survivors steal a rocket ship and depart to somewhere more hospitable]]. |
| 196 | * Creator/ParadoxInteractive games tend to feature this, most prominently in ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'' and ''VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun'', which take place from 1400-1920, when most of the world's colonial empires were formed in RealLife; ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' adds [[TropesInSpace SPACE]] colonization. |
| 197 | * The 1993 remake of ''VideoGame/{{The Seven Cities of Gold}}'' from Creator/ElectronicArts added the creation of colonies in the New World to the original's missions and forts, though the focus of the game remained on exploration and gathering gold from friendly or hostile natives. |
| 198 | * An interesting case in ''[[Creator/ChoiceOfGames Planetary Quarantine]]''. All planets are settled by STL {{Sleeper Starship}}s. A few days before waking up the crew and the passengers, a team of carefully-chosen and anonymous experts is woken up to go through the minds and belongings of everyone else for contraband. The idea is that the powers-that-be don't want any of Earth's "baggage" from ending up in its off-world colonies. This includes such ideas as religion, class differences, racism, etc. Any inappropriate property is incinerated, and any unwanted ideas (which somehow got through screening back on Earth) are "corrected" with appropriate tech. Communications with Earth are carefully screened in order to prevent the public back on Earth from knowing the truth. However, the point of the game is that, as you find out, it may be already too late, as contraband items and ideas have already made their way to the new worlds. It's up to you how you want to react to that. |
| 199 | * In ''VideoGame/PlanetExplorers''[='=]s campaign, the player is one of a thousand colonists sent to settle on the Earth-like planet Maria. Things get a bit hectic when their starship crashes and the [[SuperPersistentPredator native wildlife]] start taking an interest. |
| 200 | * In ''VideoGame/TheRiftbreaker'' your main goal is to explore the alien world of Galatea 37, pacify the local wildlife and build up the necessary infrastructure so humanity can start colonizing the planet in earnest. |
| 201 | * Two of the three default starting scenarios in ''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'' have this as their basic premise. "Crashlanded" follows three survivors smashing down on the planetary surface in escape pods and forced to survive in the wilderness by gradually building and protecting a settlement until they along with whoever else they may have recruited up to that point can jury-rig together a ship to leave. "The Rich Explorer" leaves you with an eccentric Richard Branson-esque millionaire adventurer who one way or another got fed up with the glitterworld life and set off into the unknown; though this one character is better equipped than the three crash survivors, he is still (at least initially) alone, so it is considered the much more challenging start. |
| 202 | * ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' is a spiritual successor to ''Civilization'' where you colonize a new planet in the [[UsefulNotes/LocalStars Alpha Centauri]] system. |
| 203 | * ''VideoGame/SinsOfASolarEmpire'' combines FourX style expansion with RealTimeStrategy, as three species race to colonize available planets. |
| 204 | * ''VideoGame/SpaceColony'' involves you trying to create colonies on planets so you can exploit them for their minerals, or turning them into tourist destinations. This would be easier if it weren't for the fact that everyone you control is an idiot, insane, or both. |
| 205 | * ''VideoGame/SpaceEmpires'' also uses colonization of new planets as a strategy to expand your empire. |
| 206 | * ''VideoGame/StarControl3'' tries to get the player to do this by allowing you to transport members of various allied races to habitable worlds in order to establish colonies that will then start to generate resources. One of the reasons why the fans of the second game hated this one. |
| 207 | * In ''VideoGame/SurvivingMars'', the entire point of the game is to create colonies on Mars and try to make them self-sufficient as possible. |
| 208 | * ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' allows you to explore and colonize planets as one of several different races. Bonus points for each race having different requirements for what they consider an "ideal" world. For example, a hellhole for a human may be perfect for a [[BeePeople Hiver]]. |
| 209 | * In ''VideoGame/WildStar'' the Dominion and the Exiles are both trying to colonize Nexus, the newly rediscovered Precursor homeworld. The Dominion because they see it and the artifacts that can be found there as their heritage, while the Exiles are FightingForAHomeland. |
| 210 | * While this is not your goal in ''{{VideoGame/XCOM}}: Interceptor'', as various corporations are the ones who set up mining bases in the Frontier, your task is protecting them from alien attacks. |
| 211 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'': After Earth's destruction by a pair of warring alien fleets, one of the few surviving colony ships crash-lands on a new world they name "Mira", and the game is mostly about the colonists' attempts to establish a permanent colony there. Things get complicated when they learn that (some of) the aliens that destroyed Earth have ''also'' crash-landed on Mira. |
| 212 | [[/folder]] |
| 213 | |
| 214 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 215 | * ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' takes place on a newly colonized planet in the final stages of terraforming. |
| 216 | [[/folder]] |
| 217 | |
| 218 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 219 | * ''Literature/ChakonaSpace'': Chakats were designed for exploration and settlement of alien worlds. The more recent Stellar Foxtaurs come in seven breeds specialized for settling different environments with minimal technology. |
| 220 | * ''Roleplay/ThereIsNoGATEWeDidNotFightThere'': Rhavenfell constantly calls for and attracts migrants to settle and reclaim more and more land after clearing away outside threats. |
| 221 | [[/folder]] |
| 222 | |
| 223 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 224 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Bravestarr}}'': A SciFi {{Western}} which focuses on the settlement of New Texas, a planet created to resemble the American Frontier. |
| 225 | * The ''WesternAnimation/SchoolhouseRock'' episode "Elbow Room" is about the expansion of the US from the original 13 states to its current size (not counting Alaska & Hawaii, [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons the "freak states"]].) It also suggests that if we need to expand more we'll settle the moon. |
| 226 | [[/folder]] |
| 227 |
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