What exactly is the definition of an oasis, anyway? Is it something
such that once one party colonizes it, it can be defended so that no
one else can take it over? Or perhaps it is a unit such that once
colonized, its resources can be exhausted so quickly that by the time
anyone else gets there, probably there's nothing left?
I've been thinking of solar systems as oases, rather than (say) galaxies
or asteroids. If a galaxy is an oasis, then presumably the time to
expoit it is a large fraction of the time to travel to the next one, and
so it is likely that more than one party may be colonizing a given galaxy
at one time.
If a solar system is an oasis, then as Richard says the characteristics of
colonization within a galaxy could be very different from those between
galaxies because of the different distances.
Even with solar systems as oases, unless special defenses are built, it
may be that more than one colonizer at a time can be involved with one
system. They could be in distant parts of the asteroid belt, for example.
Or, there might be different strategies for replicators, some which try to
defend their solar system while others go for quick replication without
much defense.
Hal
Received on Thu Feb 5 23:54:03 1998
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