Hyperdrive or Transporter

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-03-20 11:10am

You know, if the possible alternate uses of the underlying basis of transporter technology are counted as bonuses, why don't we do the same for the rather spectacular physics-bending abilities of the hyperdrive? No matter how you interpret hyperdrive operation, it requires the ability to do things we currently believe to be impossible.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-03-20 11:14am

Darth Wong wrote:You know, if the possible alternate uses of the underlying basis of transporter technology are counted as bonuses, why don't we do the same for the rather spectacular physics-bending abilities of the hyperdrive? No matter how you interpret hyperdrive operation, it requires the ability to do things we currently believe to be impossible.

You'd figure you could apply the power generation principles behind Hyperdrive to regular power generation on earth. Effectively take care of our energy crisis, likely doing away with the need for oil at the same time. Just for starters.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2007-03-20 12:44pm

SirNitram wrote: The pragmatic one would be the one that understands that FTL allows us to colonize distant stars. The vasty majority of every species to evolve on Earth is extinct.. And this holds true throughout the system. FTL allows us to escape just about every catastrophe this planet and this system has planned for us, and should even allow us to spread to the point where the periodic neutron flashes that scour the galaxy would not wipe us out.

The transporter carries with it far more dangers, capacity for error, and ethical questions than simply going forth and colonizing. To say nothing of the wealth of resources an FTL society can tap into.

Fair enough. The heat death will claim us all in the end anyway, but a few more millenia would probably be worth it.

Overall I think this is mora a matter of opinion than anything else. Transporters could pretty much solve all of the world's current problems and give us a huge leg-up to colonise our solar system and our neighbours wuite easily, but hyperdrive could, after we've already built lots of ospace infrastructure, give us the power to keep going on for eternity, in any direction, which I must admit, has quite a romantic appeal to it.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-03-20 12:54pm

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:
SirNitram wrote: The pragmatic one would be the one that understands that FTL allows us to colonize distant stars. The vasty majority of every species to evolve on Earth is extinct.. And this holds true throughout the system. FTL allows us to escape just about every catastrophe this planet and this system has planned for us, and should even allow us to spread to the point where the periodic neutron flashes that scour the galaxy would not wipe us out.

The transporter carries with it far more dangers, capacity for error, and ethical questions than simply going forth and colonizing. To say nothing of the wealth of resources an FTL society can tap into.
Fair enough. The heat death will claim us all in the end anyway, but a few more millenia would probably be worth it.

Overall I think this is mora a matter of opinion than anything else. Transporters could pretty much solve all of the world's current problems and give us a huge leg-up to colonise our solar system and our neighbours wuite easily, but hyperdrive could, after we've already built lots of ospace infrastructure, give us the power to keep going on for eternity, in any direction, which I must admit, has quite a romantic appeal to it.

Transporters have the problem of not being useful past a few thousand kilometers. Hyperdrive overcomes the range issue, and transporters frankly aren't all that useful.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-03-20 03:24pm

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:Fair enough. The heat death will claim us all in the end anyway, but a few more millenia would probably be worth it.

Overall I think this is mora a matter of opinion than anything else. Transporters could pretty much solve all of the world's current problems and give us a huge leg-up to colonise our solar system and our neighbours wuite easily, but hyperdrive could, after we've already built lots of ospace infrastructure, give us the power to keep going on for eternity, in any direction, which I must admit, has quite a romantic appeal to it.

Change 'Few more mileenia' to 'billions upon billions of years'. We're still in a relatively newborn universe; it will be billions of years before matter collapses under it's own expansion.

Transporters very rarely operate at the ranges needed; I can think of only a few incidents of them reaching Geosync, and I've never seen them haul something big enough to leave Geosync and colonize. Hyperdrive, on the other hand, must come equipped with it's phenomenal energy source, which would make acheiving orbit a snap, and solve our energy problems groundside.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2007-03-20 07:11pm

Considering the immense energy sources necessary for hyperdrive, there's a flipside to the coin: as well as allowing us to colonize the galaxy, it also permits us to build weapons that eventually will be able the Death Star-esque cracking of planets. In the short run, there seems to be the potential to weaponize the energy sources; if this happens before the fledgling interstellar society is resilient enough to handle a war, complete destruction could be a possibility.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-03-22 01:41am

Surlethe wrote:Considering the immense energy sources necessary for hyperdrive, there's a flipside to the coin: as well as allowing us to colonize the galaxy, it also permits us to build weapons that eventually will be able the Death Star-esque cracking of planets. In the short run, there seems to be the potential to weaponize the energy sources; if this happens before the fledgling interstellar society is resilient enough to handle a war, complete destruction could be a possibility.

And a Transporter has the potential of depositing a nuclear weapon in every major city on the planet.

There's always risks.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2007-03-22 02:56am

SirNitram wrote: And a Transporter has the potential of depositing a nuclear weapon in every major city on the planet.

There's always risks.

Except that having alot of transformers around you will negate the bomb threat

glass · Post by **glass** » 2007-03-22 10:06am

Crossroads Inc. wrote:
Matt Huang wrote:Discovering the principles behind hyperdrive is nice and all, but without any hypermatter on hand, good luck trying to get one to work.
Yup! I would LOVE To say Hyperdrive as well, But a Hyperdrive without Hypermatter is bloody useless. And as far as I know, No one really knows how Hyper Matter is made.

Is that true? I was under the impression that only the really big ships (SDs and up) used hypermetter reactors. Was I mistaken? Need to get them ICS books...

Anyway, more of a concern I'd have thought would be hyperwave sensors...

glass.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-03-22 12:35pm

glass wrote:
Crossroads Inc. wrote:
Matt Huang wrote:Discovering the principles behind hyperdrive is nice and all, but without any hypermatter on hand, good luck trying to get one to work.
Yup! I would LOVE To say Hyperdrive as well, But a Hyperdrive without Hypermatter is bloody useless. And as far as I know, No one really knows how Hyper Matter is made.
Is that true? I was under the impression that only the really big ships (SDs and up) used hypermetter reactors. Was I mistaken? Need to get them ICS books...

Anyway, more of a concern I'd have thought would be hyperwave sensors...

glass.

Since there's no way to use hyperdrive without a hyperdrive reactor, and thus hypermatter, it's somewhat of a moot point.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2007-03-22 01:16pm

SirNitram wrote:And a Transporter has the potential of depositing a nuclear weapon in every major city on the planet.

There's always risks.

This is true. I'm just pointing out that hyperdrive has correspondingly greater risks since it inherently involves accelerating objects close to c.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2007-03-25 11:36pm

Connor MacLeod wrote:
SirNitram wrote: And a Transporter has the potential of depositing a nuclear weapon in every major city on the planet.

There's always risks.
Except that having alot of transformers around you will negate the bomb threat

Or just about any seemingly benign technobabble phenomena.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2007-03-26 01:20am

Hyperdrive, obviously.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2007-03-26 01:23am

Transporters (or transmats) give you the ability to move people and cargo up to a few thousand miles in a flash.

Hyperdrive gives you the galaxy.

No contest —hyperdrive.

B5B7 · Post by **B5B7** » 2007-03-31 02:04am

If want to be pedantic with OP, we have already discovered transporter (albeit it only sends a single photon 1m).
It is reasonable to assume that, as in SWvST forum, we are considering ST transporter and that it also includes Heisenberg Compensators, Pattern Buffers, etc otherwise it is just a nice artwork. Similarly HD has fuel, etc.

No Contest - Hyperdrive. Many SF space universes have FTL, few have transporters/teleporters [& those that do usually also have FTL].

A transporter has a very limited range, 10,000 kms, and how are you going to use it to send things into space unless already have a structure there eg ISS? It can't even get you to other planets in the Solar System [or even the Moon].

The Hyperdrive provides vast economic resources - initially from Solar System, then beyond, so can develop a cheap means of getting things into orbit. This is a process with positive feedback.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2007-03-31 10:57am

I don't know why there seems to be an argument that the hyperdrive will need infrastructure as if that's a con to the argument. A transporter would need infrastructure too, maintence and raw materials- as DW has pointed out many a time.

I would assume it's a given that we'd have both infrastructures in place in the senario. So...hyperdrive. Really it's a transporter on a galactic scale.