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Notes -
Mormons would probably pull it off okay, especially since the hardliner Mormons still have steady tfr. Plus I don't think the tfr would keep declining once exposure to the monoculture is cut off.
Genetically, I'd choose the groups that settled the prior frontiers with minimal homeland assistant: the Borderers, Mormons, and certain Germanic groups. Pick some traditionalist subsets and go. How many people does a generation ship really need? 500? 5000? Either way it's so small that you're best off looking for weird small subgroup that is optimal for it rather than selecting people who are good at playing our society. High IQ is somewhat important, but not massively so as long as they're like 100 average at least, with a few especially bright individuals. I'm sure engineering a generation ship requires elite IQ, manning one likely does not. Probably a few solid Asian groups that would fit the bill, but I'd be hesitant given the lack of prior history of frontier-settling.
Beliefs-wise, nearly any cohesive religious group is fine. They do exist. It's not as if we live in a 100% atheist society.
I mean there’s the 50/500 rule for genetic quality, but any cohesive group is going to be more related than average so it’s higher. The more interesting question is ‘how many people are required for the maintenance and supporting the maintainers and passing on necessary skills, and what fraction of the population can be engaged in those things’. Is maintaining the ship the sort of thing largely restricted to able-bodied males, either because of physical requirements or because of radiation exposure precluding reproductively active women? And what’s the necessary precursor and support technologies that need to be brought with, how much redundancy is the minimum, and how many people are necessary to maintain those things? And that comes down to ‘how many people does it take to maintain a technological civilization in complete autarchy’.
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