The History of Failed Colonies

Mickey’s reading of past expeditions supplies both warnings and moral tests, gradually shifting his view of survival from simple endurance toward coexistence.

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Asher’s World Gives Up

A World Too Hot The Destination Misread Mickey reads of an expedition that finds its target planet too close to its star for liquid water, despite atmospheric oxygen that had suggested possible life. The settlers cannot build a livable world quickly enough with their failing ship and limited supplies. A Deliberate Ending The colonists send their findings home, enter orbit, and choose explosive decompression rather than a slow collapse. Their decision makes survival itself look less like an absolute good when no viable future remains. The account unsettles Mickey because his own job assumes that another version will simply continue. It shows that even a colony with advanced technology may face conditions no individual sacrifice can repair.

New Hope’s Civil War

A Dispute Over Sentience A Hidden Cause Mickey discovers that New Hope’s collapse grew from a dispute over whether native birds were sentient beings to protect or edible animals to exploit. The disagreement became a civil war among humans who had already built a precarious settlement. Refugees Reach Midgard A younger group escapes in a stripped-down colony ship and reaches Midgard as refugees. Their arrival reshapes Nasha’s family history and exposes how quickly fear of outsiders can outlast the crisis that produced them. The story warns Mickey that ecological and moral questions can become political flashpoints. It also shows that a society may inherit the consequences of another colony’s failure while still choosing whether to repeat its exclusions.

The Hunger of the Ching Shih

A Mission Runs Out of Food Crops Fail in Transit Mickey reads about the Ching Shih, whose agriculture fails after years of radiation damage during a long interstellar voyage. With no recycler to make the crew’s waste a dependable food source, the ship steadily loses its margin for survival. Volunteers Become Food The commander eventually asks for volunteers to be converted from calorie consumers into sources of calories. Crew members accept, but even those sacrifices cannot save the remaining settlers, who finally open the air locks years before reaching Eden. The history makes the ration conflict between Mickey7 and Mickey8 more than a local inconvenience. Scarcity can force people to consent to terrible acts, while sacrifice may still fail to produce a future.

Gault and the Cost of Multiples

Replication Turned Into Conquest Manikova’s Copies Mickey recounts how Alan Manikova used mind replication and printed bodies to build an army of himself on Gault. He seized people for raw materials and converted entire groups into copies as his power grew. A World Destroyed The response to Manikova ended with The Bullet striking Gault at relativistic speed, turning a conflict over replication into the destruction of a planet’s ecosystem. The catastrophe explains why multiples carry a social horror far beyond their immediate resource cost. The history helps define the danger Mickey faces, but it also tempts people to collapse his accidental duplication into Manikova’s deliberate conquest. The past explains the taboo without proving that these two men pose the same threat.

Long Shot’s Slow Encounter

Time Before Judgment A Different First Contact Mickey recalls that the colonists on Long Shot lived for decades near native cephalopods without recognizing them. The eventual coexistence is unusual among colony histories, and the record offers few simple explanations for its success. A Theory of Security Mickey concludes that the settlers may have encountered the natives only after becoming secure enough to stop responding to every uncertainty with fear. His own truce with the creepers could require the same interval. The story reframes delay as an ethical resource. Time cannot guarantee peace, but it can let a frightened colony discover that an unfamiliar intelligence is not automatically an enemy to be eliminated.

During Mickey’s early months aboard the Drakkar

In the history Mickey reviews after the colony’s first casualties

While Mickey8 and Mickey7 negotiate shared rations

After Command discovers the two Mickeys

After Mickey7’s contact with the creepers