# Faster than light travel:  Thoughts?



## Jbshare (Jan 2, 2009)

In Star Wars, a trip can take a couple months in HYPERSPACE depending on where they are and where they're going.
In Star Trek, Warp speed isn't nearly as fast as some of the other speeds.  (Let me know if I'm wrong, I'm not a big ST fan.)
In Halo, Warp Space takes a few days, also depending on where they are and where they're going.
In Mass Effect, there are two forms:  1.)  Mass Relays pretty much launch the space ship at its target and 2.) FTL travel allows them to fly very quickly to their target, though it still takes time to go there.
In my science fiction universe, a ship uses a special gas called SPRTA gas that along with certain electrical shocks allows the ship to instantly transport to the desired location.

Thoughts?


----------



## Erunanion (Jan 2, 2009)

Your form of FTL seems pretty similar to that alluded to in Battlestar Galactica's; their FTL drives are fuelled by tylium, although beyond that the concept is pretty much left undiscussed (as far as I'm aware; I think the writers assumed that they didn't need to do much beyond outline it - correctly IMO).  I don't point that out to criticise, just to show off my awesome sci-fi knowledge 

Aside from that comment, I'm not sure what to say.  I can't speak to the actual scientific basis for any of them, or if FTL is even possible with our current understanding of physics - someone who knows something about science might be able to do that better  

Personally, I like the concept that a lot of TV shows (that I know of anyway) go with for how FTL works, that being the hyperspace/subspace/the Warp in Warhammer 40k - a dimension that exists parallel to ours which entry into allows travel over the vast distances required for interstellar travel.  I think it works as an easy get-around for all the science problems inherent with FTL matters.  That said, I think as long as any FTL concept works pretty well if its been thought through properly.

By way of a thread hijack, everyone should look into the very cool premise of the Warp in the 40k universe.  Its an integral and incredibly well-realised and -used concept in the novels and gaming setting.  Hijack over


----------



## Scifi fan (Jan 3, 2009)

Keep the discussion going - what's the 40K version of the FTL?


----------



## dask (Jan 3, 2009)

Here's what J. Richard Gott says in his book TIME TRAVEL IN EINSTEIN'S UNIVERSE: "Unfortunately, you can't go faster than the speed of light --- special relativity demonstrates that, for your spaceship, it is the universe's ultimate speed limit. But according to Einstein's theory of gravity --- known as general relativity --- under certain conditions, spacetime can curve in ways that permit shortcuts through spacetime, allowing you to beat a light beam and journey back into the past."


----------



## Erunanion (Jan 3, 2009)

Scifi fan said:


> Keep the discussion going - what's the 40K version of the FTL?



Happy to oblige 

The 40k universe is based on the existence of the Warp, a dimension which is parasitically (in a way) attached to ours.  Within it dwell daemons, beings of the purest malevolence which exist only to devour and destroy the inhabitants of this universe.  These parastical daemons have a great deal of power in our universe, but are limited by their ability to only break through into the flesh of a person "touched by the Warp"; basically, people who manifest psychic, telekinetic, or other powers and who are then noticed by the Warp creatures and corrupted.

The other way daemons can attack the humans and other races of our universe is when they enter the Warp to travel through space.  This is different for each race in the 40k universe; humans break into and out of the Warp, and travel within it to cross the massive void between worlds.  There is the element of travel inside it - as its been described in the few books to tackle space travel directly, the Warp is described as a maelstrom with currents and eddies - in my mind I imagine it looking something like the Badlands from Star Trek, only with a blue-purple colour palette.  

Time is also not a definite factor within the Warp.  Ships have entered for a three-week journey and come out two centuries later, or not at all, or indeed exactly when predicted. Navigation is carried out, for humans, by triangulation of the Astronomicons spread throughout the Imperium of Man (the majority of the Milky Way, although tenuously held at best).  The Astronomicons are kept alight (they are described as powerful white lights cutting through the turbulence of the Warp) by the constant singing of psychic choirs.  The psychically-attuned, mutant Navigators on each ship guides their ship by these lights and through the drifts and eddies of the Warp.

The human ships, while they are within the Warp, are the object of the intense need of daemons to inhabit hosts, making Warp travel exceedingly dangerous.  The incursion of daemons onto ships is held back by the Geller fields (something which is never really explained - its just there), but other races do things different.  Orks, for instance, when within the Warp just let the daemons come, and enjoy the bloody good scrap which ensues 

The genius of this idea is that space travel, which is so utterly vital to maintaining an interstellar power, is also so incredibly dangerous and unpredicable.  Warp storms have been known to cut off entire planets and sectors from communication and travel with the rest of the galaxy at random.  The unpredictable nature of it makes for a wonderful setting in which to insert stories.  The 40k universe will lack subtlety for seasoned sci-fi veterans, but the action contained within the best books rivals anything else I've read.


----------



## sloweye (Jan 3, 2009)

In SF light speed is light speed as far as i know (most cases they travel in excess of light speed by factors). its just the way they get there that changes. for example in Star Trek the Federation use the Cochran warp core but the Romulan's ues a Quantum singularty drive.


----------



## Jbshare (Jan 3, 2009)

You know -- I'm slightly surprised that I have never seen Dark Energy (I would post the link to the Wikipedia page, but at the moment I don't have that privelege) used as a means of transportation.  It could theoretically be harvested...


----------



## sloweye (Jan 3, 2009)

Event Horizon - 1997 used this type of drive.
Event horizon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## Paul Jennings (Jan 3, 2009)

In Marc Miller's Traveller Universe and its very very many derivatives ships enter jump space by using a piece of technology called a jump grid; this essentially puts them in a different kind of space for around a week. A really fast ship might jump 6 parsecs in a week, a standard merchant ship 1 parsec. The main effect of the way jump travel works in the Traveller universe is that it takes a long time to cross space and the slower ships need to stick to the mains of star systems because they can usually only carry enough fuel for one jump. So the TU has some of the features of the Terran Age of Sail: there is no faster form of (interstellar) communication than travelling which means that the "man on the spot" becomes very important indeed, and if you need money, mostly you have to carry it with you. Defence and communication in interstellar communities hundreds of parsecs across becomes fraught with difficulties; imagine requiring at least weeks, usually months to organise fleet reinforcements and anything up to a year to travel from the capital of the Third Imperium to its furthest frontiers.
As far as physics is concerned, one academic of the Third Imperium has said that if you think you understand jump travel then you are clearly missing something.


----------



## chrispenycate (Jan 4, 2009)

David Drake's spongespace (Lt Leary, Starliner) postulates a near infinite set of universes in which physical laws and characteristics, including lightspeed, are different. Energy for travel is drawn from the differences, by sails (more or less)

Alternative methods are the Pournelle tramlines, set up by thermonuclear reactions (stars) criss-crossing the galaxy (The mote in god's eye) Wormholes, either natural or created (Honorverse), cosmic shear planes at which spacetime is discontinuous (a bit rough on lifeforms depending on physical laws, methinks), a wide variety of hyperspaces, and mapping the entire cosmos point for point onto a universe that has barely started expanding so is only a few kilometres across.

You can always try spindizzies, or inertialess drive.

And, while you're trying to cheat your way round conservation of energy, remember conservation of momentum...

Teleportation has certain very important advantages (and does not contradict special relativity, as you're not moving, just being here, then being there, without having been in any of the intervening spaces) but don't do it too close to a planet; proper motion of celestial objects is itself considerable.


----------



## Jbshare (Jan 4, 2009)

Hmm...

So if you were to make a science fiction universe, and it had faster-than-light travel, what method would you use?


----------



## Scifi fan (Jan 4, 2009)

I would use a buzzword, warp drive, hyperdrive, wave motion engine, Cherenkov Drive (I think Heinlein used that one), or whatever. It doesn't matter, because writers aren't in a position now to know how such a drive would work.


----------



## chrispenycate (Jan 4, 2009)

Jbshare said:


> Hmm...
> 
> So if you were to make a science fiction universe, and it had faster-than-light travel, what method would you use?



My technique requires a very massive ship, and gives considerable navigational difficulties as distance travelled is irrelevant, so you can accidentally travel a million light years instead of twenty (total sum potential and kinetic energy remains constant)

It involves concentrating the entire gravitational field of a medium-sized asteroid into a toroidal black hole, then flying through it. Don't be on the outside rim during transit. Works more predictably further away from stellar systems, where the galactic gravitational field is all you have to worry about rather than localised gradients, but in a pinch it isn't critical.

And if by any chance you hit a star you're moving backwards so fast it doesn't have time to vaporise you.


----------



## Erunanion (Jan 4, 2009)

I like the idea of jumpgates which are so popular in computer games (and probably quite a few novels) for regular-use travel between stars (or within - this is how the great game Freelancer handled FTL travel within solar systems), and have some kind of very expensive, complicated, and arduous means of FTL travel outside the established network of jumpgates.  This works within my own little idea of a sci-fi setting, as it supports the plot elements of elitism and restriction within society - only those who are of the upper class can afford to pursue FTL exploration into new parts of the galaxy, funded by the duties earned from ownership of the jumpgates.

I think Sci-fi fan makes a good point.  As long as the writer thinks of the implications of the means of travel and ensures that his plot works with and around it, it doesn't really matter what means is used.  Find a cool buzzword, come up with a cool effect that it generates when used for the reader to visualise, and off you go


----------



## Ursa major (Jan 4, 2009)

chrispenycate said:


> Teleportation has certain very important advantages (and does not contradict special relativity, as you're not moving, just being here, then being there, without having been in any of the intervening spaces) but don't do it too close to a planet; proper motion of celestial objects is itself considerable.


 
I tend to have this problem when reading about worm holes: their ends seem, miraculously (at least in the books I've read) to stay motionless with respect to planetary surfaces (or, with slightly less of a jar, nearby planets).

If someone has a half**-plausible explanation of how this might happen, I'd like to hear it.


* - Even tenth-plausible would do.


----------



## ktabic (Jan 5, 2009)

Jbshare said:


> Hmm...
> 
> So if you were to make a science fiction universe, and it had faster-than-light travel, what method would you use?



It would depend on what the story requires. Do you need instantaneous transport between planets or not? Does information need to travel faster than people/goods? Does it matter if it's hours/days/weeks/months or even years to travel?


----------



## Interference (Jan 5, 2009)

Jbshare said:


> [*]In my science fiction universe, a ship uses a special gas called SPRTA gas that along with certain electrical shocks allows the ship to instantly transport to the desired location.



Is this "gas" in the "gasoline" sense or the "gaseous vapour" sense?  Not that it makes a heap of difference, depending on whether the fuel combusts or performs some chemical magic with the sub-anatomy of the ship.

This is all up for speculation, of course.  FTL drive is fundamentally impossible according to current thinking.  The increase in mass as matter approaches light speed would require a comparable increase in the energy it takes to move it.  It's mooted that on approaching light speed, the mass comes close to infinite and the energy required would have to be about the same.

Consequently serious authors and screenwriters have elected for outside-the-box solutions, such as jump-gates, star-gates, space warps and hyper-space, most if not all of which hypothesise that the fabric of space can be folded in some way.  In order to maintain a suspenseful and dramatic restriction, even this folding method takes time to traverse.  How unexciting would it be if you needed to get to Supra Prime to stop a coup if it would take two seconds to make the journey?

Notice, though, that the hyper-space device itself is never explained.  Warp drive has been worked out, not by the authors, but by the fans.  How does the star gate work, for example?  We don't know and we don't need to know.  It's sufficient that it does.

So, by all means, fuel your vessels with a mysterious and empowering fuel and let your more nerdish fanbase explain how it works.  They'll love the challenge, I'm sure.


----------



## Jbshare (Jan 19, 2009)

You know, It's kind of nice to, as Mythbusters say, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

Another utterly unexplainable element is Overden Gel.  It basically, with a small jolt of electricity, can cause any element to regenerate, and restore properties previously lost.  Such as fuel, or especially ammo.  I wonder how the fanboys can explain that...


----------

