Qoheleth Brainstorming.

[Superfluous Crow]

I disagree. The false premise of your argument is that humans are rational beings :D
Anyway, you see the same kind of action with real-world refugees and illegal immigrants who will take pretty much any risk for the chance at a better life.
Just think about the mexican-american border. Admittedly, all I know about this situation is taken from movies, but it seems like a lot of people are willing to take great risk to cross the border to the land of milk and honey, just to make their lives and the lives of their loved ones a little bit better (and even that is not a sure thing).  

EDIT: I realize refugees fleeing wars and the like would be a better example, but I feel like I don't know enough about their situation to turn it into a reasonable example.

[Xathan]

Okay, point taken. :P

Still curious about how much is known about these planets - is it a "We can see flora through telescopes" situation or "It is in its star's habitable zone, has a surface temperature that life would find comfortable, and a breathable atmosphere, but that's about all we know" type deal?

[beejazz]

Okay, point taken. :P

Still curious about how much is known about these planets - is it a "We can see flora through telescopes" situation or "It is in its star's habitable zone, has a surface temperature that life would find comfortable, and a breathable atmosphere, but that's about all we know" type deal?

The second one, with a heaping dose of "but the light's a few thousand years old, and we'll be going slower than light, so it's anyone's guess what it's like when we get there." There are ways to sort of predict living conditions, but no way to directly observe.

re:crow: Yeah, that's also a big part of it. If you've got the choice between your kid dying in a genocidal war on an Earth that will starve in a few hundred years or your kid dying in a shot at a new life out in the stars, you might pick the latter even if you know. People want hope and purpose and all that. The details of the Earth's problems and the place on the timeline will probably be glossed over, to avoid having the comic age badly (and because further on it won't matter much), but it's definitely there in the background.

[beejazz]

Something I've put a little thought into (for the second or third story I'll run) is ship-to-ship combat. This is especially focused on boarding.

Ship-to-ship
>Projectiles and missiles are illegal on civilian ships. Debris can cause damage, especially in dense groupings.
>Energy weapons don't fit the tone, and most of the plausible ones I've read about seem to require atmosphere. (I want to learn more about high tech unconventional stuff)
>Ships have limited abilities to "clot." There's a fast-hardening liquid plastic in the ship's surface. Hardening occurs in response to low pressure. So the hull has limited capacity to plug holes.
>Compartments can close themselves off in response to pressure loss, so the problem doesn't spread to the whole ship.
>Gravity is generated mechanically (rotating drum with radial levels; I'll illustrate later), but only in select parts of the ship. On the salvagers' ship, that's the crew quarters.

Boarding
>Combatants are typically armed with guns that use frangible bullets. Damaging the hull would suck.
>Frangible bullets break on impact with a hard surface. So light armor and even shields work pretty well. Same goes for light cover.
>A melee weapon is a must, both because of effective armor and close quarters. Typically this means a short stabbing sword.
>Sometimes low or absent gravity means combat will focus on stabbing not swinging. Hard to get leverage.
>Grenades are uncommon. See comments on breaking a hull and losing pressure. Gas grenades, smoke grenades, etc. find use, as do gas masks.