Biospherism

While an enclosed, regulated biosphere has been the norm among the saturnites and their ancestors all the way back to the first days of Bountiful Sky, these few generations are only an eyeblink in the whole of human history. Also, the original orbital settlement was never intended to operate wholly independent of Earth's immense resources. With this in mind, it is only natural that such a recent, radical re-engineering of the way humans live would remain controversial.

Debate still rages over what constitutes the ideal relationship between humans, other life forms, and even the inanimate matter and energy that is required to maintain both. This is likely to remain a contentious issue into future generations. One clear benefit that all sides can agree on is increased consciousness of something taken for granted throughout history.

Biosphere Naturalists
One view emphasizes that humanity evolved and spent all but the last few generations in a vastly diverse biosphere, and that this is humankind's natural state. They point out that there could still be long-term detrimental effects to regulated biospheres that have yet to be discovered.

Extreme holders of this point of view call for more efforts to create conditions as similar as possible to Earth: large-volume enclosed pressure vessels, higher gravity, and more diverse, less-regulated environments.

Biosphere Realists
The more mainstream view acknowledges that saturnite civilization is resource-poor and does not have the resources to create large environments, and will not for several generations.

The extreme ends of this belief contend that Earth’s biosphere betrayed humankind and humans are better off without it.

"“Sentiment aside, does it make sense to subject ourselves to the random malice of the weather? Storms? Floods? Crop failures? Famine? Disease?”"

Although it is true that a regulated biosphere is more efficient (allowing a given resource base to support a larger population) and more resilient (diseases are easier to contain and resource failures are swifter to recover from), this view is born of ignorance of history, and biosphere naturalists argue against its validity.