Question of Quarian Colonization

I have a question for the quarians. I know, during your exile, your people were unable to settle on another world due to your immune system's inability to properly adapt to the environment. But how come the flotilla didn't terraform a lifeless planets, build habitats on some asteroids or on the orbit of some gas giant? Did you not come across a system you can claim for yourselves, or do you not have the resources necessary to pull it off?

And now you got your homeworld back, does your people have a colonization strategy in mind?

This fraction of an already small population does not matter in the long run.

That's true, always was. Also not all quarians returned to the flotilla after their pilgrimage. I used to know an asari who became bonded to a pilgrim and they lived together throughout the natural life of the quarian, had two kids together.

A couple hundred years ago quarians used to be welcome additions to small mining colonies for their tech abilities.
I have yet to hear about small quarian run settlements though, all examples I ever heard about were settling on more or less established colonies. Could be remote and very secluded though, i wouldn't rule it out, quarians were very innovative when it came to survive in hostile environments. Maybe after the war, such small communities, should they exist might even have been left untouched.

I don't know if I should be asking this, but wouldn't the migrant fleet benefit from having a moon or two or an odd plant out designated for bumping criminals on, like what the British did when they still rule Australia back in Earth's past?

They do, do this!

Just change "moon" to everywhere populated and you have the quarian strategy for getting rid of psychopaths, sociopaths, and really scary people

Trying to settle other worlds when we've just reclaimed Rannoch is ludicrous. The totality of our species is, at the moment, not even a tenth of the size of the smallest major nation on the planet since the Morning War. You could fit what's left us inside a single city. We have no reason to begin colonizing within the next generation, and I don't anticipate that anyone has a particular strategy for it when we're disassembling many of our ships just to support the homeworld reclamation effort.

Ignoring the obvious limitations of our condition and the necessity of continued and controlled exposure to our fondest environment.

To answer your first question, yes, it was considered. It was, in fact, a question of heavy controversy within the Flotilla for years. However, to ask why we did not simply do it is minimizing the circumstances of our situation dramatically. Terraforming was outright impossible, and anyone familiar with the expenses and effort related to terraforming would allow you to understand how far beyond the means of the fleet it was. We were, fundamentally, limited by what we had on hand. Fifty thousand ships seems like many on paper, though one must consider that even if you must ignore the ten million souls aboard almost all of those ships, that's a huge amount of volume to accommodate for minerals, fuel, food, water (an unbelievable amount of volume, in fact), and replacement parts.

It also meant that remaining in one place for too long would be outright impossible. The fleet was defined by very harsh deadlines. We measured objectives by how long it would take us, and therefore, how much it would demand from the fleet's reserves. Forty days to strip-mine an asteroid, three days to negotiate a deal with an element zero corporation, etc. The fleet would plain and simply, not be able to afford the resource or time investment for staying to terraform a planet - often a decade-long process, if not longer. We were, after all, without the Council's most vaunted scientists. You may notice that even among the richest Council species, terraforming was not a job ever taken lightly.

Simply colonizing would be equally difficult. Even before the Exodus, we were in direct competition with the turians over colonization rights, and dextro planets have never been as common a discovery as levo. It was difficult enough to claim colonies even before then, hence why most quarian colonies were inside the Perseus Veil. Attempting to secure colonization rights inside of Council space after the Exodus would hardly be any easier. Yes, I am sure that colonizing within the Terminus was likely another option, though one must consider that even then we would still be competing against turians in most instances, and those from the Terminus would be less inclined to rattle their saber, so much as stab as deeply and cruelly into the heart of the fleet should we have tried. Even had we found a planet accommodating of our demands - an environment that our immune systems could more easily adapt to, much like Rannoch, and dextro-amino-based - our efforts would immediately be under attack from nearly all sides. Whatever settlement effort we could organize would be harangued by Terminus pirates identifying as the easy targets that we likely would be.

And it's important to note that even if we somehow managed to avoid or contain all such dangers, what would be the reward? Terraforming a planet for what? Colonizing a planet for what? Is that all going to be worth whatever payment that they would demand?

More importantly, many of us were of the opinion that the war for the homeworld was not over. That this was merely a generations-long general retreat. To settle for anything less than the homeworld would be akin to admitting defeat, an unacceptable prospect for such individuals, as one might imagine.

Suffice to say, colonization has always been a dim prospect for the quarian species, and given our collaboration with the geth to reclaim the homeworld, it's unlikely that it won't remain that way for a very long time.

That's a pretty good comment, Inquiry.

I have been thinking about a personal analogy with our new apartment. There's so much space in Kassali, it's kind of almost too much. I mean, I grew up having only a partial cubicle for myself and now we live in a multi room apartment. I think I could even have my own apartment if I wanted to, there's more space than people literally everywhere.

But like, I don’t really want to. It’s a bit like with thinking about colonies. Why exactly? Of course, there can be a reason to establish a mining post or something for raw materials but that’s a different thing than establishing something that’s meant to be an independent community some day.

Like me moving to a different apartment on my own although I now rather share this one with my dad and try to make this one and make it comfortable. It is a new and great thing already. It doesn’t leave me longing to move along again.

I want to see more of the galaxy, sure but I would not like to permanently move away from Rannoch again now.

Well, I understand the predicament of settling elsewhere just... I wish we had done so. I just feel like I've been forced to be confined to a single area unable to really explore anymore. My parents and their parents, my ship born ancestors went on pilgrimage, and I'm a bit jealous I couldn't engage in it because of the war and worried parents.

But there are always problems, and I think Inquiry said it best in that reguards. Lots of troubles in the long run, not really worth it I guess.

I share the sentiment about the pilgrimage, RX. But you know, um, while I have the feeling of having missed out on something at the same time I am aware that there sometimes the pilgrimage gets romanticized.

We, you and me today are free to go everywhere in the galaxy on our own will. Maybe not right now but in general we could. We would not be the vagrants or worse anymore, we actually have a home and travel on free will, we are not physically confined to Rannoch as we were on the flotilla. Isn’t that better?

Then go. I fail to understand how the obsolescence of the Pilgrimage's necessity is mutually exclusive with leaving the homeworld. Nor do I follow how colonizing any earlier would have helped this.

You aren't missing out on anything.