07-18-2017, 11:09 PM
While apparently the opposite of how compact dimensions are believed to behave in actual reality, I've been thinking for the last while on how they might be used as a thin cloth of justification to wave in front of the plot hole that is FTL travel and communications for the purposes of a space opera setting. The premise is that a doohickey was invented which can shift matter within an arbitrary field of effect along one, so that if the were 100% efficient it would be like that episode of Voyager that even the Trek writers realized was too silly to keep in continuity where "warp 10" means you're everywhere in the universe at once, or at least that everywhere in the universe is a single Planck length from anywhere else.
In practice, even shoving normal matter a tiny fraction of the way along ... let's call it the Q-axis with R measuring the apparent motion relative to S as in the normal three dimensions, since T commonly used for time and UVW/XYZ/WXYZ with various methods of describing the normal dimensions ... is intensely energy-expensive, so the apparent motion R-factor remains largely in normal space, if with reduced interaction with normal physical laws.
Instead, a more convenient set of guidelines apply, some more variable than others, which by the time of the story have been called "phasics" in popular media that even the hoariest dinosaurs of academia have long given up and adopted the term, and the laser optics and imaging company that had laid claim to the name back in the early 21st century was just as long merged, split, spun off and disincorporated. These boil down to the familiar old saws of space opera:
* constant thrust equals constant acceleration at a constant Q-displacement, because while actual travel is via the compact dimensional shortcut all the other matter in the normal universe is also in the way and acting as drag.
* Passing through space dust with neither party being effected is trivial, pinhead micrometeors needed a bit more research and development to make it practical; walking through walls is a real trick but possible with preparation and expense; flying into a planet will be (briefly) very exciting but have no more overall effect than something moving at the actual (not relative) velocity, which might be anything from a gentle stroll to several times the speed of sound but no, your FTL spaceship isn't going to be a planet- or even city-busting KKV no matter what you try unless it's large and heavy enough to physically crush the city when it hits.
* R-values far higher than the speed of light are easily achieved, for values of easy that involve fusion or antimatter power generation. Walking through walls requires a tight body suit with a breathing mask and a handbag-sized power supply worn on a belt or at the back, and generally means the first thing you walk though are any clothes or unconnected equipment being worn over it. Actually making off with any loot once you've walked through the side of a vault requires bringing a container of some kind that is also synchronized to the Q-displacement effect.
* If you want to fight, you pretty much have to get in visual range and fine tune your Q-displacement to match your opponent, then shoot them with something that is either big enough to have its own Q-sustainer like a missile, or which moves fast enough not to drift too far out of Q before it hits, like a laser. Lasers used for the purpose have a very slow R-value and bleed light in all directions due to the way they're transitioning out of Q, and tend to hit with concussive force more than they burn. In an atmosphere, they produce a dopplered bloop dependent on the light frequency (UV Q-lasers shriek, IR ones wub, and visible light is somewhere in the "pew pew" range, naturally -- yes there is performance art taking advantage of this effect) followed by a bang as the blast hits. Physical bullets smaller than 8" artillery are too small to maount a sustainer and therefore useless, running into the S-drag as soon as they leave the barrel and falling out of Q to be run into with their negligible S velocity. Even artillery suffers from low reliability due to the Q-displacement mechanism being a little too physically fragile to respond well to being shot out of a gun.
* Q-lasers are common sidearms for military and police forces because of the obvious military and criminal applications of the personal Q-displacement suits previously mentioned, and are generally popular because blassty lazors are cool, a weapon for self defense is up against he same considerations as one chosen for police use, and they're actually less lethal overall than normal bullets since they don't tend to penetrate deeply with civilian-grade short pulse durations, hitting more like a beanbag round with an added cigarette burn and a scorch-mark. Long-pulse and/or high-rate Q-lasers are regulated as the military weapons they are.
* A minor tweak of the Q-displacement effect provides simulated gravity inside the field, and the vehicle and any occupants are only subject to the inertia of the real (not R) acceleration. Vehicles that move entirely by Q-displacement are possible, if slow relative to ones with jets or rockets, but famed for their inertialess ride that's as stable as sitting on a mountain.
* R-motion at any significant fraction of lightspeed let alone actual FTL creates tiny gravitic ripples detectable at long range and propagating at the same R-value as the device creating them. At very high R-velocities it is perceptible to human senses, comparable to the wibbly feeling of being near something loud enough to feel vibrating in your chest, without the associated pain and hearing loss. Some people find it irritates their digestive system and/or inner ear, some have reactions to it as bad as being spacesick from zero-G and requiring about as much acclimation. Others find it relaxing and most shrug if anything and carry on with their business. Civilian craft generally stick to a R-values no more than a thousand times lightspeed (called "one megalight" despite being the wrong standard prefix for one thousand, a "light" as found in marketing material being back-derived to 0.01% of the actual speed of light; and yes even hundreds or thousands of years after Harrison Ford said it much hay is made of "point five past lightspeed" by used rocket salesmen looking to move a half-megalight rated hoopty) to avoid dealing with the problem entirely.
* Though generally less useful than just having the courier stop and transmit information normally the Q-engine can (and are legally required to) be adjusted to encode an identification signal into this effect, though spoofing the IFF is as common as you'd expect for military or criminal purposes. Since it's only possible to determine that something is there and how fast it's moving otherwise, not size or shape etc., not slowing to more sedate speeds and visit waystations set up for the purpose before entering controlled space like inhabited solar systems is considered impolite at best and is apt to lead to stern lectures from people in official uniforms at least.
* Traveling at FTL R-velocity is the same relativistically as traveling at the real non-R velocity as far as the rest of the universe is concerned, with no discernible red or blue shift despite the fact that the observer should be running into photons from behind. IC, you need years of post-doctorate study to understand the math of why this is so, let alone grasp it personally. OOC, please pay no mind to the curtain, it is there for your convenience.
Heh, used rocket salesmen. I'm now imagining a wide stretch of old, cracked concrete studded with various (ahem) classic personal interstellar craft, strung about with strings of fading plastic pennants, a weaselly looking fellow (whose name is not Apollo) with salt-and-pepper hair perched on a folding chair set outside the small office building and a big sign forming an arch over the lot entrance reading "Apollo's Rockets to the Moon!" but which the locals call "ARDie's" for "Appalling Rockets to your Doom."
Anyway, to quote Joel and Mike, what do you think, sirs?
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
In practice, even shoving normal matter a tiny fraction of the way along ... let's call it the Q-axis with R measuring the apparent motion relative to S as in the normal three dimensions, since T commonly used for time and UVW/XYZ/WXYZ with various methods of describing the normal dimensions ... is intensely energy-expensive, so the apparent motion R-factor remains largely in normal space, if with reduced interaction with normal physical laws.
Instead, a more convenient set of guidelines apply, some more variable than others, which by the time of the story have been called "phasics" in popular media that even the hoariest dinosaurs of academia have long given up and adopted the term, and the laser optics and imaging company that had laid claim to the name back in the early 21st century was just as long merged, split, spun off and disincorporated. These boil down to the familiar old saws of space opera:
* constant thrust equals constant acceleration at a constant Q-displacement, because while actual travel is via the compact dimensional shortcut all the other matter in the normal universe is also in the way and acting as drag.
* Passing through space dust with neither party being effected is trivial, pinhead micrometeors needed a bit more research and development to make it practical; walking through walls is a real trick but possible with preparation and expense; flying into a planet will be (briefly) very exciting but have no more overall effect than something moving at the actual (not relative) velocity, which might be anything from a gentle stroll to several times the speed of sound but no, your FTL spaceship isn't going to be a planet- or even city-busting KKV no matter what you try unless it's large and heavy enough to physically crush the city when it hits.
* R-values far higher than the speed of light are easily achieved, for values of easy that involve fusion or antimatter power generation. Walking through walls requires a tight body suit with a breathing mask and a handbag-sized power supply worn on a belt or at the back, and generally means the first thing you walk though are any clothes or unconnected equipment being worn over it. Actually making off with any loot once you've walked through the side of a vault requires bringing a container of some kind that is also synchronized to the Q-displacement effect.
* If you want to fight, you pretty much have to get in visual range and fine tune your Q-displacement to match your opponent, then shoot them with something that is either big enough to have its own Q-sustainer like a missile, or which moves fast enough not to drift too far out of Q before it hits, like a laser. Lasers used for the purpose have a very slow R-value and bleed light in all directions due to the way they're transitioning out of Q, and tend to hit with concussive force more than they burn. In an atmosphere, they produce a dopplered bloop dependent on the light frequency (UV Q-lasers shriek, IR ones wub, and visible light is somewhere in the "pew pew" range, naturally -- yes there is performance art taking advantage of this effect) followed by a bang as the blast hits. Physical bullets smaller than 8" artillery are too small to maount a sustainer and therefore useless, running into the S-drag as soon as they leave the barrel and falling out of Q to be run into with their negligible S velocity. Even artillery suffers from low reliability due to the Q-displacement mechanism being a little too physically fragile to respond well to being shot out of a gun.
* Q-lasers are common sidearms for military and police forces because of the obvious military and criminal applications of the personal Q-displacement suits previously mentioned, and are generally popular because blassty lazors are cool, a weapon for self defense is up against he same considerations as one chosen for police use, and they're actually less lethal overall than normal bullets since they don't tend to penetrate deeply with civilian-grade short pulse durations, hitting more like a beanbag round with an added cigarette burn and a scorch-mark. Long-pulse and/or high-rate Q-lasers are regulated as the military weapons they are.
* A minor tweak of the Q-displacement effect provides simulated gravity inside the field, and the vehicle and any occupants are only subject to the inertia of the real (not R) acceleration. Vehicles that move entirely by Q-displacement are possible, if slow relative to ones with jets or rockets, but famed for their inertialess ride that's as stable as sitting on a mountain.
* R-motion at any significant fraction of lightspeed let alone actual FTL creates tiny gravitic ripples detectable at long range and propagating at the same R-value as the device creating them. At very high R-velocities it is perceptible to human senses, comparable to the wibbly feeling of being near something loud enough to feel vibrating in your chest, without the associated pain and hearing loss. Some people find it irritates their digestive system and/or inner ear, some have reactions to it as bad as being spacesick from zero-G and requiring about as much acclimation. Others find it relaxing and most shrug if anything and carry on with their business. Civilian craft generally stick to a R-values no more than a thousand times lightspeed (called "one megalight" despite being the wrong standard prefix for one thousand, a "light" as found in marketing material being back-derived to 0.01% of the actual speed of light; and yes even hundreds or thousands of years after Harrison Ford said it much hay is made of "point five past lightspeed" by used rocket salesmen looking to move a half-megalight rated hoopty) to avoid dealing with the problem entirely.
* Though generally less useful than just having the courier stop and transmit information normally the Q-engine can (and are legally required to) be adjusted to encode an identification signal into this effect, though spoofing the IFF is as common as you'd expect for military or criminal purposes. Since it's only possible to determine that something is there and how fast it's moving otherwise, not size or shape etc., not slowing to more sedate speeds and visit waystations set up for the purpose before entering controlled space like inhabited solar systems is considered impolite at best and is apt to lead to stern lectures from people in official uniforms at least.
* Traveling at FTL R-velocity is the same relativistically as traveling at the real non-R velocity as far as the rest of the universe is concerned, with no discernible red or blue shift despite the fact that the observer should be running into photons from behind. IC, you need years of post-doctorate study to understand the math of why this is so, let alone grasp it personally. OOC, please pay no mind to the curtain, it is there for your convenience.
Heh, used rocket salesmen. I'm now imagining a wide stretch of old, cracked concrete studded with various (ahem) classic personal interstellar craft, strung about with strings of fading plastic pennants, a weaselly looking fellow (whose name is not Apollo) with salt-and-pepper hair perched on a folding chair set outside the small office building and a big sign forming an arch over the lot entrance reading "Apollo's Rockets to the Moon!" but which the locals call "ARDie's" for "Appalling Rockets to your Doom."
Anyway, to quote Joel and Mike, what do you think, sirs?
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows