>>2507
>Overpopulation wouldn't be the only reason to colonize. Might not even be the main reason, in the event of massive catastrophe (impending asteroid impact, nuclear war, etc).
please re-read >if the goal is simply to populate and hold a world through rules similar to homesteading then the best course of action is to send a lot of women and a handful of men or sperm samples or embryos ready for implantation that heavily favor women.
You can get rapid population growth with women or artificial wombs/incubators and a truckload of embryos. See back in the old days when we were all still tribal loosing half the men in a tribe was no big deal because the remaining dudes could just double up on wives and the next generation would be the same size as it normally would have been and the tribe would bounce back no problem. But if a tribe lost half its women-folk they were pretty screwed because it would take several generations to get back to full strength. This is why women and children are given preferential treatment for rescue in disaster scenarios and why men typically are expected to work in dangerous or difficult or hazardous jobs and fight in wars. Males have a very small role in reproduction so after making their contribution they're considered disposable and only a handful are needed to keep a large population going or to get one started. The number of women is the real limiting factor.
The reason for the shipments of embryos for each successive generation is to ensure the loyalty of the colony. See the big problem with interplanetary and especially interstellar empires is distance and the huge lag time between getting word of a rebellion against the central powers/core worlds and those core worlds being able to mount a coordinated response. By either genetically engineering the colonists to be addicted to a very complicated drug like the Jem'Hadar soldiers were in DS9 or making them all women and thus dependent on regular shipments of embryos you prevent the colonists from ever rebelling. If they did they would be the last generation to do so and die out from withdrawal or old age. A conga line of regular shipments also keep the colony informed of the goings on in the core worlds and if the ships make a return trip then it gives the core worlds a way to keep an eye on the colony and ensure compliance with core world directives. In space it's nearly impossible to lay siege to a star system but if the people living there are reliant on a few or even one supply line it's suddenly very easy.
The only reason to ever attempt to genetically engineer fully-functional intersexed humans would be if the colonists were trying to rebel and not have their entire civilization wiped out.
Finally, and I can't believe I have to say this here, but gender roles are not social constructs. The majority of gender roles are based on physical capabilities and those are determined largely by hormone levels and time constraints. The marines just recently did an exercise comparing the abilities of mixed sex units to stag units and found that the men scored better across the board in every aspect of fighting. Surprise, surprise.
But take away their testosterone or even just elevate their estrogen (and yes, men do have small amounts of estrogen and women have small amounts of testosterone) and those same guys would see their performance degrade. Gender roles are not disappearing, it's just become politically incorrect to point out sexual dimorphism or that there are not enough hours in a day for a woman to be a good top executive, a good spouse, a good mother, and have a decent social life. If there are no gender roles there is no disposable sex and no hard or dangerous work gets done.
Everything about us is a tradeoff and Noone can have it all. No one knows how or why Peter Noone can do this but he somehow manages.
As an aside, the more I think about it the more I really like the idea of this interstellar empire thing with planets colonized by only women and one rebelling by engineering intersexed persons as an end run around the embryos shipment population controls of the core worlds. The use of virotherapy to convert the population. Loyalists trying to retake the government and "stay pure" or "stay human" and fighting a running battle through a still terraforming world. The procedure for making it eventually being transmitted by wireless to other colonies because "you can't stop the signal, Mal." The virus would need to make people sick; fever, chills, vomiting, etc. because viruses reproduce by destroying the cells they infect and to have enough to change a persons anatomy and genetic structure so radically would require a lot of those little bugs. Maybe there could be one that rewrites and one that makes more of both. I think it could make a good story I just don't have the time to write it.