FTL travel in Science Fiction

[StringJunky]

12 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

Hell no

Your aspirations are loftier? A higher class of BS. 

[dimreepr]

29 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

Hell no

Maybe spice is your poison.

[michel123456]

I agree with Swansont. Describe what you expect to happen in your FTL story.

To me there are 4 possibilities

1. Create your scenario, don't bother with physics.

2. Change the value of C. Make it a variable (there are such theories), then switch the variables, so is to say that C for me is different than C for your hero.

3.Describe new physics, where FTL is allowed, but I am afraid you will have to dig quite a bit before ending with something consistent.

4. [insert your idea here]

 

[Moontanman]

10 hours ago, YaDinghus said:

Can't really watch videos while at work. Could you give me a compressed version?

 

Photons have no mass, always travel at c. It would be fast as light travel, which would already be pretty cool, but a civilization that covers a decent portion of the galaxy would necessarily diverge politically

 

Intriguing. Entangled Particle communications was used in Mass Effect 2, as a method of communicating in real time with the guy who runs Cerberus. Now, I'm aware that we need to break or circumvent the known laws of physics at some point. I know there's a hypothesis that claims every particle in the Universe is entangled, but using this for FTL anything seems quite a reach because if everything is entangled, how do you know which particle to pull to affect another specific particle? Also there's the issue that you're not actually actively controlling which state the wave-function collapses into, just that you make a measurement and this immediately determines the measurement of the entangled particle. Now if you COULD restore the wave function (how?) I could go for a frequency modulation approach where the mere frequency of measurement events encodes a message. On the other hand, if all of this fails, entangled particles would have to be 'produced' somewhere and taken to galactic communication terminals, and could be a scarce trade commodity.

Concerning wormhole travel: any specifics on the possible mechanism?

 

The physics shouldn't be so much as explained to the players, but implied by the game mechanics. A smart and interested player should be able to figure out something about it, and not have to rely too much on a suspension of disbelief

There is little to no info on the net about this subset of warp drives. Here is a paper but I can't access it... 

 

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2437558

[YaDinghus]

36 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Your aspirations are loftier? A higher class of BS.

I'm already pretty good at BS, but what I'm going for is the supercake of BS

[Moontanman]

8 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

I'm already pretty good at BS, but what I'm going for is the supercake of BS

In science fiction it's best not to agonise about the details... 

[dimreepr]

15 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

I'm already pretty good at BS, but what I'm going for is the supercake of BS

I imagine you'd deny this joke is to deflect.

The point is, it doesn't matter how close to reality you get, if you've made it up, it's fictional (ask Stan).

Edited May 30, 2018 by dimreepr

[YaDinghus]

4 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

In science fiction it's best not to agonise about the details... 

I'm pretty obsessed with details. Insofar this isn't a choice for me. 

 

2 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I imagine you'd deny this joke is to deflect.

The point is, it doesn't matter how close to reality you get if you've made it up, it's fictional (ask Stan)

There's no denying it this time. Totally deflecting. 

[StringJunky]

1 minute ago, YaDinghus said:

I'm pretty obsessed with details. Insofar this isn't a choice for me. 

 

There's no denying it this time. Totally deflecting. 

If you're going to BS make it a whopper.  

[YaDinghus]

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

If you're going to BS make it a whopper.

Believe me I'm going to town on the BS Whopper. BS Sextuple Whopper FTW!

[Moontanman]

1 minute ago, YaDinghus said:

Believe me I'm going to town on the BS Whopper. BS Sextuple Whopper FTW!

 Just don't forget it takes two hands to handle a whopper! 

[YaDinghus]

Just now, Moontanman said:

Just don't forget it takes two hands to handle a whopper! 

I forgot to mention in my scifi reality it's absolutely possible to grow additional limbs so you can handle a Whopper AND drink simultaneously

[dimreepr]

12 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

There's no denying it this time. Totally deflecting. 

 

So much easier than admitting fault, but OK.

[DrP]

3 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

I forgot to mention in my scifi reality it's absolutely possible to grow additional limbs so you can handle a Whopper AND drink simultaneously

You should make that painful imo....  Growing pains are painful anyway...  imagine all those years of painful growth experienced in a few seconds of mutation as skin cracks and extends, flesh and bone crack and grow out of a stump.  -  I think it would be painful.   You could have it so that it is normally painful...  but sometimes a freshly grown nerve is a bit sensitive and fresh and is very sore or maybe a nerve gets trapped in the accelerated growth process leaving the arm in agony until it is re-grown or re-shaped or whatever BS is happening, lol.  Sounds like it could be a darkish comedy sci-fi.

[Janus]

2 hours ago, Moontanman said:

In science fiction it's best not to agonise about the details... 

Right. Unless how the FTL drive works is involved in an essential plot element of the story,  the details aren't necessary.  If you are writing a action story, you don't bother explaining how the protagonists, revolver operates, and if you need it not to work at some critical juncture, you don't need to include that it was caused by the extractor spring breaking.