Going interstellar is hard.
Some say it's a real test of your cojones to go that far out. At least if you're in system and get in over your head, someone will generally be willing to wander over and save your incompetent kiester, for gloating points if nothing else. But the number of people with interstellar communciations is smaller and the chances are very slim that anyone will be able to get to you in time to do more than divide up whatever of your stuff survives you.
And those few who might save you are not likely to be the ones you want to be saved by. If nothing else, due to the humiliation.
But that's not really the problem. No, while there are no hard figures on how many people go to warp or whatever, it's actually pretty hard to fuck up badly enough to come a cropper out there. There's not much out there to cause problems until you get to a system and anyone who can get past Cochrane's limit (no, the guy who named it wasn't called Cochrane, he was just a trekker, and most us drop the 'Cochrane') shouldn't have any problem they can't deal with if there's an actual star system to work with.
Unless they find someone. Which, thus far, no one has that I know of.
No the problem is The Limit. Captial T, capital L. It's a notional sphere centred on the Sun and roughly eighty AU in diameter. Thus far, no one has managed to build a faster-than-light drive that works. Outside, Einsteinian physics can fuck right off. There's serious bragging rights in who can go faster and further. I think some kid from New York has the top slot right now for getting a clear thousand light years, but it took him two weeks and some of his numbers are suspect.
Inside? Light's still the fastest thing outside of theoretical physics and most of us only scoot around at about half that. Which means that it takes around, hmm, ten hours to get from the Earth to the Limit. Granted that ten hours isn't _that_ long given that a good number of us are apparently living in modified automobiles these days.
But the thing is, you're probably not alone. You're going out to take someone maybe, some dirtsider willing to pay for the experience (good money in that, even these days), or someone with a cargo they don't trust you alone with, or just someone to stand up and swear up and down that you did or saw what you say you did or say.
Ten hours with someone else in somewhat confined quarters that one of you may very well consider the only home and sanctuary that you have?
And then however long interstellar (if you can hold it together that long, a four light year hop to Alpha Centauri is maybe an hour at most and there's a fair sprinking of Fen in near there), plus getting into whatever system you're headed for.
And then back.
Some day there will be the equivalent of sevice stations on The Limit, where you can stop to de-stress. But not yet.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Some say it's a real test of your cojones to go that far out. At least if you're in system and get in over your head, someone will generally be willing to wander over and save your incompetent kiester, for gloating points if nothing else. But the number of people with interstellar communciations is smaller and the chances are very slim that anyone will be able to get to you in time to do more than divide up whatever of your stuff survives you.
And those few who might save you are not likely to be the ones you want to be saved by. If nothing else, due to the humiliation.
But that's not really the problem. No, while there are no hard figures on how many people go to warp or whatever, it's actually pretty hard to fuck up badly enough to come a cropper out there. There's not much out there to cause problems until you get to a system and anyone who can get past Cochrane's limit (no, the guy who named it wasn't called Cochrane, he was just a trekker, and most us drop the 'Cochrane') shouldn't have any problem they can't deal with if there's an actual star system to work with.
Unless they find someone. Which, thus far, no one has that I know of.
No the problem is The Limit. Captial T, capital L. It's a notional sphere centred on the Sun and roughly eighty AU in diameter. Thus far, no one has managed to build a faster-than-light drive that works. Outside, Einsteinian physics can fuck right off. There's serious bragging rights in who can go faster and further. I think some kid from New York has the top slot right now for getting a clear thousand light years, but it took him two weeks and some of his numbers are suspect.
Inside? Light's still the fastest thing outside of theoretical physics and most of us only scoot around at about half that. Which means that it takes around, hmm, ten hours to get from the Earth to the Limit. Granted that ten hours isn't _that_ long given that a good number of us are apparently living in modified automobiles these days.
But the thing is, you're probably not alone. You're going out to take someone maybe, some dirtsider willing to pay for the experience (good money in that, even these days), or someone with a cargo they don't trust you alone with, or just someone to stand up and swear up and down that you did or saw what you say you did or say.
Ten hours with someone else in somewhat confined quarters that one of you may very well consider the only home and sanctuary that you have?
And then however long interstellar (if you can hold it together that long, a four light year hop to Alpha Centauri is maybe an hour at most and there's a fair sprinking of Fen in near there), plus getting into whatever system you're headed for.
And then back.
Some day there will be the equivalent of sevice stations on The Limit, where you can stop to de-stress. But not yet.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.