For years, I’ve wrestled with a thought experiment I call the “Impossible Scenario.” The premise is simple, yet staggering: what if a benevolent (or perhaps just inscrutable) alien empire offered to transport billions of humans to three potentially habitable exoplanets? The catch? These worlds, while life-sustaining, are significantly larger than Earth, crushing inhabitants under approximately 1.5g of gravity.
How do you move billions? How do they survive, let alone thrive, under such conditions? It felt, well, impossible. But after years of turning it over, the pieces of a potential, albeit fraught, solution have finally clicked into place. I call the whole process “The Big Move.”
The Offer and the Crushing Reality
First, we accept the alien’s premise: instantaneous travel (“zapping”) is possible. This solves the how of getting there. The where is the real challenge. Life under 1.5g isn’t just inconvenient; it’s a fundamental biological hurdle. Bones, muscles, cardiovascular systems – everything is under constant, immense strain. How could humanity possibly adapt long-term?
The First Wave: A Controversial Foundation
Any colonization needs pioneers. For “The Big Move,” the scenario proposes seeding the three planets with an initial wave drawn from the population of the United States – perhaps 100 million per planet. Now, let’s be clear: this choice is incredibly problematic on a geopolitical scale. The chaos and conflict back on Earth are unimaginable. But within the logic of the thought experiment, it serves a purpose. The US, as a nation historically forged from diverse immigrant populations, provides a symbolic (and potentially practical, if deeply flawed) template for building new societies from scratch under pressure. It’s a messy, difficult starting point, chosen for its perceived macro-level utility in kickstarting the process across three worlds simultaneously. These first waves face the unmitigated hell of adapting as adults.
The Masterstroke: Solving for Gravity
Here lies the linchpin, the piece that finally made the long-term survival aspect feel solvable: the subsequent waves of billions arrive not as adults, but as “clone babies.” Using advanced alien tech, embryos (clones sourced from… well, that’s another complex question) are zapped directly into artificial wombs or host mothers on the new planets.
Why? Gravity.
A child born and developed entirely within a 1.5g environment would adapt physiologically from the very beginning. Their bones would grow denser, muscles stronger, systems attuned to the constant pressure. They wouldn’t know Earth’s gentle 1g; the high gravity would simply be normal. This bypasses the agonizing, potentially crippling process of adult adaptation. It’s a radical, ethically loaded solution, but it directly addresses the single biggest environmental barrier to long-term success. It’s the “selling point” – sacrificing individual continuity (for clones of existing people) or starting fresh, in exchange for a generation that belongs on these heavy worlds.
The Hope and the Inevitable Friction
Underneath this logistical and biological framework lies a deeper hope: that this shared exodus, this shared struggle, and the emergence of a generation unified by their unique adaptation and (presumably) a deliberately fostered shared culture, could finally allow humanity to see itself simply as human.
But this is no utopia. The process – The Big Move – is inherently traumatic. And even this solution breeds new conflict. An almost certain source of friction? The experiential chasm between the gravity-adapted, potentially culturally unified children of the new worlds, and the first-wave adults who arrived fully formed, carrying the memory of Earth and the physical burden of 1.5g. That tension, that divide between the ‘born’ and the ‘arrived,’ becomes the next great challenge.
A Solution, Not The Solution
So, is the Impossible Scenario truly “solved”? Perhaps. This framework provides a path, a chain of difficult choices and technological leaps that could theoretically lead to humanity establishing a permanent, adapted presence on these challenging worlds. It acknowledges the immense trauma and ethical gray areas involved. It accepts that solutions create new problems. It’s messy, controversial, and relies on god-like alien intervention. But it hangs together. It feels… possible, within the realm of ambitious sci-fi.
And maybe that’s the point of these thought experiments – not to find perfect answers, but to explore the complex, often uncomfortable paths humanity might take when faced with the truly impossible.
