Heck, sign me up. That's basically time travel to a future where presumably humanity has gotten its shit together if they're still around inventing better ships. I see no downsides.
Or you end up with the version of this from the Coriolis RPG setting where humanity collapsed into a second dark age in the time you were traveling, so now you're trying to bring it cultural enlightenment to the barbarians who have better tech but no idea how to properly build it maintain it.
It's an interesting setting. Got some science fantasy stuff going on, plus a dash of Babylon 5. It's published by Free League and uses the same system as Tales From The Loop and their Alien RPG (which is very, very good, btw).
Yeah that's literally getting to leave with a parade and arriving to being an instant celebrity.
This human being was around 3,000 years ago! They've traveled deep space through hypersleep! What mysteries do they have of the long forgotten and ancient past to reveal to us?
Also, here's all of your space credits from the $1.67 you left in your savings account. You're now a multi-trillionaire.
Horror movie idea, this concept but when the second humans arrive, they find the human civilization that got there first was wiped out before they got there and they don't know why.
In short, the faster ships catch up with the slower generation ships, facilitating trade, arranging transport for those who want to leave, and allowing them to become extrasolar cities and stepping stones to the wider galaxy.
Bad news. Everyone's a hero, since it's a communist society where everyone is eager to add their own unique contribution to the common good. Everyone has a Hero! plaque on their wall.
Good news! You're in a communist society where everyone is eager to add their own unique contribution to the common good!
The sensible way, of course, is to take this into account when planning your mission. Send ahead a big, slow, minimally crewed or autonomous spaceship, totally full to the brim with equipment, supplies, etc. Some years later, send your faster ship full of people and whatever newer technology you just can't do without, catch up and intercept the big slow boi, and then land to start your colony.
Isn't this the dream, though? You didn't have to experience any of that boring "building a society" bullshit, you get to jump straight to "living in the future".
Not mine. I want to work 18 hours a day on difficult and high stress job that I literally cannot quit, getting paid in company scrip, only to spend my retirement (if I ever have such a thing) in an environment that's hopefully been made somewhat hospitable.
I see what you mean, but I don't think you'll find consensus on this point. The whole of Robinson Crusoe literature and fiction is practically its own genre at this point. Heck, just check out how many views Primitive Technology has over on Youtube. I think the number of people that would eagerly bootstrap civilization on another planet is easily in the tens of millions, possibly more.
Children of Time is a 2015 science fiction novel by author Adrian Tchaikovsky. Similar idea; in the far future, an exhausted Earth sends out a fleet to try and terraform exoplanets. Problems arise...
Bugs. It's bugs, lots of bugs. Super unique concept though.
In a dramatically less serious series with a similar theme, that's very aware of its cheesiness is The Galaxy's Edge series. Military sci-fi series where humanity has populated the galaxy using FTL tech developed 50 years after the richest and upper society tech billionaires/politicians abandon Earth on their own generation ships they used to dupe the rest of humanity to not bring them. Flash forward to current times and their generation ships are slowly catching up with the rest of humanity who leapfrogged them 6,000 years ago and they're the "Savages" now having done space Nazi experiments on their shipmates over the thousands of years in the void, while the rest of us built a galactic Republic.
If we have giant bugs why stop there? I mean, what if the bugs aren't gigantic at all but they are proper bug sized to the intelligent aliens out there and it's a human skill issue for being smaller than bugs? /S
This is kind of the plot of the Forever War. Because of time differential, the crew which reigned to earth between missions watches humanity evolve drastically from when they first left.
Developed a passion for space travel and orgies, did you? Me too.
Seriously, though, it's a good book. Pretty hard on the sci-fi spectrum and deals a lot with how time actually functions in space, which a lot of books don't touch (even harder sci-fi books like the expanse)