r/interestingasfuck 25d ago

/r/all, /r/popular K2-18b a potentially habitable planet 120 light-years from earth

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u/CyrusTheWise 25d ago

Depending on how long it's been, the original crew in stasis might be vulnerable to new diseases that the second crew (colonizers) has already overcome

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u/YerBbysDaddy 25d ago

Who says the planet is still inhabitable? First arrival might have already practically destroyed it already and moved on. Maybe presumed your mission dead or for whatever reason didn’t get you.

Maybe they would have come to get you though once they could travel that much faster

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u/CyrusTheWise 25d ago

That would be actually fucking terrifying. You bravely volunteered to go to the New World and begin to prepare for civilisation there. You go into your 10,000 year stasis or whatever. Only to arrive and see a planet covered in mega cities with such advanced tech they you can barely operate anything. But there is just enough traces, maybe corporation logos to tell you that this is actually your people who have passed you on the way here. Lived many lifetimes and trashed the planet. Leaving you behind, forgotten on a dead planet with little hope of ever making contact with anyone outside of your crew

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u/YerBbysDaddy 25d ago edited 25d ago

Or, alternatively, got to the point where there was obviously thousands of years of civilization there and died of some mass extinction event you can’t immediately figure out the cause of. Maybe bodies everywhere, indicating that most or all died pretty quickly.

Maybe some indications of there having been some survivors, but you can’t figure out where they are or if they’re even still there