A Dyaush-class interstellar colony ship; long and thin, to
reduce impacts with the interstellar medium Interstellar
colonisation is an ancient dream. As early as the 20th century
c.e. (1st century BT) visionaries debated how to reach the
stars, but the practical achievement of interstellar colonies
had to wait several centuries more, and remained a highly
uncertain venture for almost two millennia afterward. Even
today, with ten millennia of experience and technology the
ancients would not have dreamt of, interstellar colonisation
remains an expensive and sometimes controversial venture.
Despite the aid of data from the occasional interstellar probe
and high-resolution imagery from space telescopes, the
Interplanetary Age produced only a few of colonies, and of those
even fewer - Nova Terra and Penglai are examples — were
successful. There were two primary reasons for the dearth of
interstellar colony attempts at the time. The first of these was
technical: starships of sufficient speed, reliability and colony