Superluminal Travel: Science Fiction FTL Drives

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-11-04 10:01pm

StarCraft: Dimensional Recall, UED/UPL Warp, Zerg....Wormholes(?)

Star Trek: Transwarp, Warp, and Quantum Slipstream

Star Wars: Hyperdrive, Darkspace-propelling Dovin Basals (Vong)

Andromeda: Slipstream

B5: Dunno...never watched it.

Do we have rough psuedo-scientific ideas on how all of these work? Which shows more advantages over the other?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-11-04 10:08pm

B5 also has hyperspace, but it is much different from the SW version of it. In B5, hyperspace is another dimension, in which distances are smaller than in real space, but travelling through it presents its own problems. It can only be accessed by jump gates, produced by large ships or static positions, and if a ship is lost in hyperspace it is almost certain to be destroyed.

All of these universes' FTL drives have their own advantages and disadvantages. For B5 and ST, the advantages presented are largely tactical. In the other cases, the advantages are usually speed, but some of them are limited in terms of range. Obviously Andromeda's has the huge disadvantage of being dangerous, but none of the systems are devoid of some dangers.

Renewed_Valour1 · Post by **Renewed_Valour1** » 2002-11-04 10:18pm

As noted Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Star Wars have drives that have a larger tactical advantage. Slipstream really is a little too unreliable to use tactically unless you get close enough to open a slip portal on them. In terms of travel time slipstream in nearly all cases will be much faster than the other three. That and if you want you can screw up planets badly by opening portals near them.

Master of Ossus wrote:Obviously Andromeda's has the huge disadvantage of being dangerous, but none of the systems are devoid of some dangers.

How does everyone figure slipstream is dangerous?! The main problem with slipstream drives is they are rather delicate and the exotic matter lenses are prone to easy damage

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-11-04 10:23pm

Renewed_Valour1 wrote:
Master of Ossus wrote:Obviously Andromeda's has the huge disadvantage of being dangerous, but none of the systems are devoid of some dangers.
How does everyone figure slipstream is dangerous?! The main problem with slipstream drives is they are rather delicate and the exotic matter lenses are prone to easy damage

In several episodes it is noted that only the best pilots can navigate through difficult areas, and even then with apparent difficulty. This is greater than the dangers involved in most of the other FTL drives because navigating slipstreams appears to require human interaction with the starship to be successful. Most of the other systems work with computers to chart courses, or (in the case of ST), they are slow enough, with sensors that are quick enough, to actually drop out of warp or adjust course even after the initial move to FTL is made.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-11-04 10:37pm

StarCraft UED warp appears to be quite superior to Feddie Warp (assuming that the technology they used the ship the Confed colonists in the first place is what they still use, albeit a more advanced version) they were able to conduct an extended military campaign 60,000 light-years from home, but implied it'd take time for word to reach Earth after the defeat of the UED fleet.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-11-04 10:43pm

Geoffery Landis has already compiled a list of SF FTL drives.

http://people.netscape.com/treitel/rass ... html#sdcat

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2002-11-05 12:02am

I think the biggest advantage of Andromeda slipstream is that its entirely possible and even common to transit between galaxys in matters of minutes. Its well known that staying in slipstream is dangerous, and you cant transfer pilots while in slipstream because the ship cant navigate slipstream. So transit between galaxies must require very little time and only one pilot.

Andromeda Slipstream is arguably one of the fastest FTL drives in the history of popscifi. Andromeda and back in 60 minutes! (thats 6 mly / hour, or 50,000,000,000 c

)

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-11-05 01:09am

And slipstream has some pesky time travel problems. Anybody remember when Trance tried to learn how to drive?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2002-11-05 01:24am

My biggest problem with FTL systems is that we only ever get to see one kind. Apparantly, everyone in a galaxy, no matter how diverse, must develop the same FTL drive unit. It makes sense for SW, and in examining, B5, but for the rest.. Bah.

One more reason why my universe has three distinct ones, like Starcraft. Humans have the Resetter, the Ameobids have Wormhole generators, and the Gods.. They have hyperdrive.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-11-05 01:28am

SirNitram wrote:My biggest problem with FTL systems is that we only ever get to see one kind. Apparantly, everyone in a galaxy, no matter how diverse, must develop the same FTL drive unit. It makes sense for SW, and in examining, B5, but for the rest.. Bah.

One more reason why my universe has three distinct ones, like Starcraft. Humans have the Resetter, the Ameobids have Wormhole generators, and the Gods.. They have hyperdrive.

It depends on the "physics" of the particular sci-fi universe. If there is only one way to go FTL, say slipstream, then everybody has to do it in pretty much the same way, as it's the only way. Of course, they may call it something else, or it may look a bit different, but the underlying mechanism will be the same.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-11-05 01:48am

Asguard FTL is really fast.

One Asguard ship picked up some people from Earth and took them to the Asguard's galaxy in 8 minutes, I believe.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-11-05 01:49am

Shinova wrote:Asguard FTL is really fast.

One Asguard ship picked up some people from Earth and took them to the Asguard's galaxy in 8 minutes, I believe.

And this is from Stargate SG-1

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2002-11-05 02:41am

Dune Holtzman Fold Drive almost instantaneous transit between two points

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-11-05 03:45am

The Necron FTL can cross the galaxy in under a second..

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2002-11-05 04:09am

Xeelee Hyperdrive is quite fast. 15 Billion light years in just a tad over 14 days...
And several 100,000 light years instantaneous is really not bad

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-11-05 07:27am

Typhonis 1 wrote:Dune Holtzman Fold Drive almost instantaneous transit between two points

Yup- but the guild liners are very vulnerable to attack.

Did I mention that while I love Dune the Dune conception of the very very very very distant future DEPRESSES the SHIT out of me?

Renewed_Valour1 · Post by **Renewed_Valour1** » 2002-11-05 07:42am

Master of Ossus wrote:In several episodes it is noted that only the best pilots can navigate through difficult areas, and even then with apparent difficulty. .

You must be thinking of Bunker Hill. That are was disrupted by multiple intentiona; slipcore detonations and part of slipstream and real space had been merged temporarily. Not much of anything could have navigated through there except a slip capable vessel with a very good pilot. The one other case would be when they were trying to reach Tarn Vedra and that was a case of multiple of the hardest types of jumps into an area that for all intents and purposes doesn't exist in our universe. A situation that doesn't happen everyday; other than that there is no other cases.

Master of Ossus wrote:This is greater than the dangers involved in most of the other FTL drives because navigating slipstreams appears to require human interaction with the starship to be successful. Most of the other systems work with computers to chart courses, or (in the case of ST), they are slow enough, with sensors that are quick enough, to actually drop out of warp or adjust course even after the initial move to FTL is made.

Hardly the great danger you make it about to be. It is more like a annoyance to them as they have said before "slipstream not the best way to travel FTL it's just the only way". We've never seen a ship destroyed or damaged in anything akin to normal slipping.

Jawawithagun · Post by **Jawawithagun** » 2002-11-05 08:06am

Dimetrans Drive in Perry Rhodan, Galaxy-to-Galaxy in a matter of seconds. Though, it only transports you from the centre of one galaxy to the centre of the other one - could become quite dangerous with lach of information about the target.
http://home.snafu.de/fschmidt/prlxng02.htm

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2002-11-06 09:48pm

Typhonis 1 wrote:Dune Holtzman Fold Drive almost instantaneous transit between two points

Didn't it also require Guild navigators to work it?

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2002-11-07 02:29am

SirNitram wrote:My biggest problem with FTL systems is that we only ever get to see one kind. Apparantly, everyone in a galaxy, no matter how diverse, must develop the same FTL drive unit. It makes sense for SW, and in examining, B5, but for the rest.. Bah.

One more reason why my universe has three distinct ones, like Starcraft. Humans have the Resetter, the Ameobids have Wormhole generators, and the Gods.. They have hyperdrive.

I say it makes a certain amount of sense to have only one kind of FTL available. Or different mutations of the same FTL technology. Example:

Assertion
The only way to travel FTL is to apply enough energy into a strong EM/vacuum inertia field. With sufficiently potent computers, one can calculate the exact energy intensity and the timing necessary to cause the ship to "translocate" instantaneously without occupying the intervening space. Subatomic particles do it all the time (See quantum tunnelling,) but this is only because it doesn't take a whole lot of effort (comparatively speaking) to get a subatomic particle to translocate, whereas it takes a mind-boggling amount of effort to get several quadrillion quadrillion of them to do it at the same time, and wind up in the same place with the same net energy they had going into it.

With this base, different civilizations in the galaxy could come up with different types of travel:

A) The Assister: Finely control EM and gravity and you can "cheat" your way closer to c. Of course, it's horrifically energy intensive, and you have to be going pretty fast to begin with, but 0.75c is much better than 0.25c.

B) The Advanced Assister: Like the Assister from A, except you can breach the speed of light. Granted you can't go too much further.

C) The Jump Drive: Much, much better than A or B. Imagine Alpha Centauri in a week. The drive from B would have done it in six months at best.

D) The Hyperdrive/Warp Drive: You've gotten so good that your stuttering start looks almost like you're zooming around at really quick FTL speeds.

E) The Gate: Sure you need a transmitter and reciever, and sure you need the energy output of a galaxy to do this, but to send your ships across the galaxy in a matter of minutes when your hyperdrive would've taken a month . . . priceless.

F) The Instant-Elsewhere Device: You're so advanced, you don't need to stinking transmitter to go somewhere instantly. In fact, you can go anywhere in the universe instantly. Granted you don't want to go too far, since the error in your calculations goes up really fucking fast the farther you try to go, but hey, there's no such thing as a free lunch, even to someone as godlike as yourself.

See, even though you see six different types of FTL travel, they all operate on the same principle.

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2002-11-07 02:40am

Yes ir required a Guild navigator to work but still it is one of the fastest drives available

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2002-11-07 05:16am

I like the two in 'Forge of the Elders'

One used by a race of sentient, communist trilobites. Anywhere instantly.

Then the one used by the Eldest, a sentient slime mold and the oldest being in existance on any of the multitude of parallel Earths.. anywhere, any dimension, instantly.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2002-11-07 12:10pm

The Bistromatic Drive beats them all. It's based on the mathematical concept of the recipriversexcluson, a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. In other words, the amount of people the table in the restaurant was reserved for is never constant, and doesn't reflect in any way the actual amount of people that shows up. And the given time of arrival is the one moment of time at which it is impossible that any member of the party will arrive. Plus, some other funky crap about the numbers in the bill:

Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe.

This makes space travel possible, with any arbitrary duration and/or distances.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-11-10 08:27pm

Slartibartfast wrote:The Bistromatic Drive beats them all. It's based on the mathematical concept of the recipriversexcluson, a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. In other words, the amount of people the table in the restaurant was reserved for is never constant, and doesn't reflect in any way the actual amount of people that shows up. And the given time of arrival is the one moment of time at which it is impossible that any member of the party will arrive. Plus, some other funky crap about the numbers in the bill:

Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe.

This makes space travel possible, with any arbitrary duration and/or distances.

Just toy with your chicken, have a row with the robot waiter, and in a flash, you're at Sagittarius-B.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2002-11-10 08:52pm

Typhonis 1 wrote:Yes ir required a Guild navigator to work but still it is one of the fastest drives available

I thought in the later books they had machines controlling the ships because the two sources of melange had been obliberated (Honored Matres BDZed Arrakis, Tleilax?)