# Warp Path ways



## jjabrams55 (May 6, 2014)

This is a scifi idea, a way to go FTL.

Step One: Make a pathway beam emitter. Pathway beams travel at FTL anyway. And they don't diffract like light does. The pathway pushes all matter away from it, so nothing will pass through it but radiation. This is essential so your ship won't ram anything while at FTL.

Step Two: Shoot emitter in the the direction you wanna go.

Step Three: Move your ship into the beam. Once fully into the beam, you can activate the warp tunnel. You will fly at FTL. Be sure not to leave the tunnel, or you will hit hydrogen atoms at FTL, which is instant death for your ship.

Step Four: All ships entering the warp tunnel fly in the direction the emitter has fired. Ships stop when when the emitter shuts off the warp tunnel, bringing them to lower speeds. The warp tunnel is kind of like Alcubierre drive, only it's a tunnel instead of a bubble. And it requires an emitter plus a ship with a pathway receiver to enter it.

Collisions: Say a planet orbits into the tunnels path while your flying. Obviously the pathway cannot move any object so big that it generates a gravity field on it's own that pulls. So your ship would simply drop out of warp once it reaches close orbit of the planet. If you wanted to reenter the tunnel you would have to fly around the planet and resume entry to it on the other side to continue your travel

Advantages: Ship no longer has to worry about hitting ANYTHING at FTL.

Disadvantages: Ship is stranded if the emitter breaks. But that is not a huge deal, since FTL sensors are implied. and there is more than one emitter. If stranded you could call for help and they would beam a pathway to you. It would just take waiting time, that's all.


----------



## Ice fyre (May 7, 2014)

Indeed a quite original way to fly Pan Galactic! 

Now would this way of travel incur the usual nasty time dilation effects of FTL? Also, I wonder, if gravity from the target planet pulls the ship out of warp, would the gravity of another body do the same? Or would it have to a larger body than the ship itself? 

Nice thought tho, would be useful in a story I think.


----------



## Tower75 (May 7, 2014)

I like it.

However, if the pathway pushes everything away from itself, how does the ship enter the pathway?


----------



## JonH (May 8, 2014)

Tower75 said:


> However, if the pathway pushes everything away from itself, how does the ship enter the pathway?



Why bother sending a ship anywhere, when you can just blow holes in your neighbours' planets from the comfort of your own armchair? Hmm... perhaps that's just me and Ming the Merciless.

What's the range of this awesome long-distance FTL weapon, and can I get it for the Playstation?

Edited to Add:

Oops. I should have read the OP properly!


----------



## jjabrams55 (May 8, 2014)

Tower75 said:


> I like it.
> 
> However, if the pathway pushes everything away from itself, how does the ship enter the pathway?



Well... I could be cheap and just say the ship needs an receiver for the beam the pathway emitter is emitting. But let's not do that.

Lets use more science!

How does the ship enter the pathway?

Quantum Metamaterials OR Electromagnetic radiation bending (light plus all other types of cosmic rays) cloak field.

We actually have metamaterials (google it if you care). Quantum refers to stuff that is smaller than small. Basically, super small, like smaller than an atom. I'm talking so small that even a nanobot would be bigger.

Anyway, the hull of the ship is made out of quantum metamaterials usually (since you need precise gravity control/generation without needing a planet's worth of mass to be able to cloak a ship, not everybody has that tech).

Quantum metamaterials are are able to reflect ALL electromagnetic radiation.

Any object that can either reflect or bend ALL electromagnetic radiation can travel inside the warp tunnel.


----------



## jjabrams55 (May 8, 2014)

Ice fyre said:


> Indeed a quite original way to fly Pan Galactic!
> 
> Now would this way of travel incur the usual nasty time dilation effects of FTL? Also, I wonder, if gravity from the target planet pulls the ship out of warp, would the gravity of another body do the same? Or would it have to a larger body than the ship itself?
> 
> Nice thought tho, would be useful in a story I think.



Any object that is massive enough to make a gravity field of significance, like a moon or planet.

Just because your bigger than the ship don't matter if you don't have field strong enough to pull stuff toward you just by you being there. Natural stuff that can do that is either a planet, moon, or really big asteroid.


----------

