So I was in Borders the other day trying to decide between buying "Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke or getting something to eat (guess which one I went for) when an idea for a novel hit me in the brain. I've toyed with it since, but there are some things that I can't decide and/or figure out.

The basic premise is that, hundreds of years prior to the start of the story, Earth sent a colony ship towards a j-random habitable planet. Since it is a ship of more or less this era, it's traveling at very sub-light speeds. In the intervening time of hundreds of years while it's in flight, however, humanity discovers faster-than-light travel. They expand, colonize, and generally start an empire, all the while having forgotten about the colony ship.

The story focuses on when the ship arrives at its new destination and finds all these people already there and thriving. I imagine the people on board will have very mixed reactions; some, who were not looking forward to the hardship of founding a new world, might be relieved, while others will be mortified that they were just sent on this long journey for nothing.

So here are my questions and concerns. First and foremost, has this been done before? Either by a published author or a Hatter here who is currently working on it (besides me). I don't want to step on anybody's toes, and I definitely don't want to get slapped with plagiarism.

My others are far more story-related:
- should the colony ship be a generation ship or a cryogenic ship? Should generations of people have lived their lives for a lie, or should the volunteers have been torn away from everyone they knew and loved for nothing?
- should the colonists be volunteers at all? Maybe they were some form of undesirables that Earth thought they were getting rid of, perhaps due to an overpopulation problem.
- what should the main conflict be? Should there be armed tension between the colonists and the citizens of the planet? Why would they hav weapons? Or should it be primarily a political drama situation, with the colonists trying to learn to fit in while the government figures out what to do with them?

How you handle the story will make all the difference.

Consider, there was a document in earth's records that specifies that the destination planet belongs completely and wholy to the colony ship. They arrive and a colony is still there. In disputing the ownership of the planet, that very document is found in the colony's records and it has not been supercieded by other claims.

If you use today's technology, it would have to be a generational ship. I was involved in a discussion on the subject, mostly one sided, and deduced that a thousand years is the maximum time we could possibly keep a ship going. The star would have to be reached at speeds within that range. I also deduced that a light month a year would be a likely maximum speed to maintain. The star would likely be well within seventy five light years.
While the most likely design would require a spinning ship, there could be physical changes in the people, better suited to ship conditions, smaller, more monkey like feet for gripping, needing the higher humidity of the air for breathing. able to take colder temps,

One can figure that the people would be more comfortable on a ship rather than a planet as that is all they know. They might wave off on planeting and start colonizing the asteroids around the star instead.

One could also have it where the colony is expecting an alien attack and the ship appears at that point. If there are physical changes, the colony might not believe they are human.

My colony plan was based on the need to evacuate earth due to some disaster in order to make it really likely due to costs. I would have fleets of ships going to five or six possible destinations in hopes that a few ships might get somewhere. All life possible would be brought, even the most vile pests and diseases, in case there is something needed to cure something.
One could assume all sorts of disasters creating thousands of potential stories. What arrives might be nothing like what left. One ship out of a thousand that launched this direction.
The story could be from the colonist's side, trying to figure out what happened on the journey, trying to figure out the history of the trip.

One question one should decide is how long has the planet been colonized. that could make a big difference in the reaction too. If it was colonized for several hundred years, they would never consider giving up the planet. If it was colonized for less than a century, they might be convinced that some place else might be better.

another option is that once the ship arrives, they are given a new ship, faster than light ship, to go to a star system that is better suited for them. That might be the compromize they come up with.

I came up with the notion of a deliberately-induced genetic mutation---as the generation ship approached the target star, there would appear a generation that wanted off the ship and onto a world to colonize---as opposed to the older group that wanted to stay with the ship.

In the planned course of things, everything would go smoothly. But the world ahead had been colonized while the generation ship traveled. The decision was made to go on to the next star without stopping---leaving a generation of disgruntled mutant teenagers who want off the ship.

I suggest having somethign that the slow colonists learned/discovered/figured out/have in their possession that makes them useful to the fast colonists. Maybe have them not know it but the fast colonists do know it and therefore manipulate to take advantage. Stuff like that - add a layer of intrigue by making it clear that it's more than just "dumb slow colonists dominated by faster-than-light discoverers."

Of course with that line of thinking you can put in some kind of secret, some kind of hidden thing. Like maybe the FTL colonists are all dying and they don't know why, and it turns out it's because of the FTL effects...(remember the star trek where they figured out warp was tearing space-time or some such, and they basically instituted a galactic speed limit?)

Anyway - there's a ton of richness in the idea, in the setting. Now you have to do the hard part of figuring out what kind of story you want to tell!