User blog comment:PitaKang/Funday Monday 3: What would an interstellar civilization look like?/@comment-4621372-20130503231446

Neither. Instead, Humans will be spread out as individual nations forming loose confederations over the stars- no FTL travel, remember?

Unless...

Well, see, I recently read an article- in Popular Science, I think it was, with an online subscription- well, they were talking about FTL travel.

The only feasible idea ever given for FTL travel is something called an Alcumbierre bubble. Transversable wormholes, like an Einstein-Rosen bridge, have been suggested before, but there are 3 problems here: A) The tidal forces would rip apart any craft trying to cross, B) the bridge would collapse too quickly for anything to cross, leaving C) a gigantic black hole that would then destroy wherever the start point of the journey was.

The other idea, accelerating to near light-speed, doesn't work because space is littered with the occasional hydrogen atoms that would get energized and kill everyone on board. You can't attack an atom plow, either, because it would have to be thousands of miles wide, something which is just not on. Basically, you can move at a tenth light speed or not at all.

Or you can use an Alcumbierre bubble, though that requires huge amounts of negative energy- which we can't produce.

Perhaps we can freeze people cryonically. Sorry- we cannot revive people in cryonic sleep.

So, err, all that seems left are some sort of generational arks.

No FTL travel- outside SF.