History Main / GenerationShips

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a destination -- it's an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[PortalNetwork Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[ScienceMarchesOn someone developed an FTL drive while they were en route]] and the world they were going to colonize already has a few million people on it ([[FridgeLogic although this brings to light the question WHY nobody bothered to track them down in transit and help upgrade their engines]]) (answered in a short story by Larry Niven: FTL ships and sublight ships simply travel differently. "How could a circling 747 help the sinking Titanic?")

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a destination -- it's an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[PortalNetwork Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[ScienceMarchesOn someone developed an FTL drive while they were en route]] and the world they were going to colonize already has a few million people on it ([[FridgeLogic although this brings to light the question WHY nobody bothered to track them down in transit and help upgrade their engines]])

* ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy~=]'', spoofed by the B Ark. The inhabitants think they're going off to colonise a "less doomed" planet - in fact, everyone else on the not-doomed-at-all home world just got sick of them.

* In Poul Anderson's ''TauZero'', the ''Leonora Christine'' is only supposed to take 5 years of time (relative to the passengers onboard) to reach Beta Virginis. It becomes a generation ship, though, when its decelration unit breaks down.

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a destination -- it's an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[PortalNetwork Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[ScienceMarchesOn someone developed an FTL drive while they were ''en route'']] and the world they were going to colonize already has a few million people on it ([[FridgeLogic although this brings to light the question WHY nobody bothered to track them down in transit and help upgrade their engines]])

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a destination -- it's an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[PortalNetwork Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[ScienceMarchesOn someone developed an FTL drive while they were en route]] and the world they were going to colonize already has a few million people on it ([[FridgeLogic although this brings to light the question WHY nobody bothered to track them down in transit and help upgrade their engines]])

* This is the backstory for the Terrans of ''{{Starcraft}}''. In the sequel ''Brood War'', it turns out that a contingent from Earth followed and has been watching them.

* According to the manual, you can occasionally run across these in the original Elite.
** Although they ''only'' existed in the manual in original Elite. In Elite's expandable remake Oolite however, you can ''really'' run across them.

** In an episode of StarTrekEnterprise, the enterprise [[spoiler: gets sent 100 years back in time with [[TrappedInThePast no way to return]]]]. The ship then becomes a GenerationalVessel in one of the few successful attempts at not screwing up the time line, [[spoiler: thought they wanted to.]] [[spoiler: They succeed so well that by traveling on TheSlowPath, they meet their parents/grandparents, completely the same as the ones that went back.]]

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a destination -- it's an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[PortalNetwork Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[ScienceMarchesOn someone developed an FTL drive while they were en route]] and the world they were going to colonize already has a few million people on it ([[FridgeLogic although this begs the question WHY nobody bothered to track them down in transit and help upgrade their engines]])

* The Axiom from ''Wall-E'' is one of these, sustaining human life in space after the Earth has become uninhabitable.

* Generation ships are used to carry messages and trade between planets in Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth's "Search the Sky". They're pretty horrid: while they don't ''quite'' forget their mission, the people on board end up suffering fairly severe mental retardation (it's not too clear why, possibly a lack of intellectual stimulation?), and they're kept from overpopulation by massive infanticide. But ''every'' place in that book is in horrible shape: it's a horribly DarkerAndEdgier world before it was popular.

* City 7 of ''Macross7'' was a rare example of a faster than light generational ship.

* ''{{Megazone 23}}'' (all three of them).

* City 7 of Macross7 was a rare example of a faster than light generational ship.
** Macross in general has these. MacrossPlus, to this troper's recollection, is actually the only series without one.

* The titular vessel in ''RendezvousWithRama'' appears to be one of these in the original novel. The sequels provide a different [[DarthWiki/WallBanger and much less satisfying]] explanation for its existence.

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a destination -- it's an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[PortalNetwork Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[ScienceMarchesOn someone developed an FTL drive while they were en route]] and the world they were going to colonize already has a few million people on it.

If the laws of physics don't allow FasterThanLightTravel, it's going to take a long time to colonize the stars. If you can't get close enough to lightspeed to take advantage of TimeDilation, don't have the medical technology for functional {{Immortality}}, and you don't want to resort to [[HumanPopsicle Suspended Animation/Hibernation]] (or, in more recent SF, BrainUploading), you're not going to see the destination yourself -- it may be your grandchildren, or ''their'' grandchildren, or '''their...''' You get the idea.

This doesn't ''have'' to wind up as a CityInABottle, but frequently does (and did in what is perhaps the first story to [[strike: use]] popularize this trope, Robert A. Heinlein's "Universe"). Several examples of GenerationShips are listed on that page.

Sometimes, a Generation Ship doesn't ''have'' a destination -- it's an interstellar trade ship, connecting isolated colonies or installing the [[PortalNetwork Hyperspace Gateways]] that will allow FTL expansion and exploitation. Occasionally, the generation ship will arrive to discover that [[ScienceMarchesOn someone developed an FTL drive while they were en route]] and the world they were going to colonise already has a few million people on it.

* A ''FantasticFour'' story had the FF come across an [[http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/kestoranracenegzone.htm alien race]] who had been travelling so long that they had adapted to their ship's artificial environment and could not survive on a planet. When Reed reveals this to their captain, he [[GoMadFromTheRevelation doesn't take it well]]. Ultimately the next leader decides to keep the truth from her people [[IDidWhatIHadToDo for the greater good]].
** He doesn't take it well because the religion he follows find the idea that they are not as their god created them but have evolved abhorent. He commits suicide. Incidentally all the aliens look the same. It's a bit of a surprise to find the first mate is female, the captain's wife, and that her ancestors knew all along but kept it a secret.

* ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy~=]'', spoofed by the B Ark. The inhabitants think they're going off to colonise a "less doomed" planet - in fact, everyone else on the not-doomed-at-all home world just got sick of them.

* The titular vessel in ''RendezvousWithRama'' appears to be one of these in the original novel. The sequels provide a different [[WallBanger and much less satisfying]] explanation for its existence.

* The most extreme axample-- in LarryNiven's ''Ringworld'', the Fleet of Worlds is the Puppeteers' ''entire Solar System'' converted into a generation ship to flee the galaxy.

* ''Second Genesis'' has a LivingShip called Yggdrasil that takes a journey between galaxies; it would normally be called a generation ship, except its inhabitants have discovered {{Immortality}}, and so a few centuries of relativistic travel is not much of a burden.

* In AlastairReynolds ''Chasm City'', the planet of Sky's Edge was settled by 5 [[spoiler: Only 3 made it]] generation ships traveling at 6% lightspeed. There are at least 4 generations on the ship. [[spoiler: Also, a cold war forms between the ships, due to scarcity of resources. Then a full blown war on the planet.]]

* Rob Grant's ''Colony'' deconstructs this somewhat. Various systems go wrong (notably the eugenics program determining who is allowed to mate with whom, and the career-allocation system), so the later generations are hopelessly inbred, illiterate and unqualified for their jobs.

* The planet Martine was settled by one of these in {{Crest of the Stars}} and the Abh's original home was one as well before they cracked the FTL issue.

* In Octavia Butler's ''Lilith's Brood'', the Oankali travel on these as they go from world to world making genetic trades. Also a LivingShip.

* [[AllThereInTheManual It appears]] the 'Verse was colonised by these in ''{{Firefly}}''

** Janeway often wwonders whether "Voyager" will become such a ship itself: the original return estimate is 70 years, after all. [[spoiler: they make it in seven]]

* The Eldar Craftworlds in {{Warhammer40000}}. They do have FTL-capabilities, but since they are essentially spacefaring colonies designed to house the survivors of the Fall, they count.

* Parodied in one Australian play (forgot the name, sorry) where the crew of a Generation Ship fall into barbarity and think that the {{Human Popsicle}}s are the equivilent of frozen food. When the last remaining colonist wakes up early, he's not to impressed.

-->"Of course they did. But we ate them anyway!"

* In MassEffect the entire quarian species dwells in a massive floatilla consisting of thousands of this trope due to being driven off their original planet. The fleet isn't going anywhere in particular, but the trope still fits.