Implications of small scale wide spread FTL travel.

[Steelinghades]

The thread is quite simple, the year is 2105--random year chosen--faster then light travel, in the classical warp style, is discovered, however the FTL drives have a quirk to them. They are small enough you can fit them in the family's Subaru and cheap enough a middle class family can afford one or two. What are the implications of such technology, especially as far as the military is concerned.

[Tribble]

Does the warp field lower the vehicle’s mass? If not a Subaru slamming into a city at FTL speeds would probably cause a lot of damage.

[Elheru Aran]

Quick thought off the top of my head: prompt regulation, probably overly excessive, will happen. As far as the military goes, they'll be extremely unhappy about it, and will be researching counters very quickly. This basically means space exploration is now going to happen. Expect corporate exploitation in short order since they'll be able to buy up the entire market.

Question: What are the limitations on this? For example, do you have to be a certain distance out of gravity wells, or can you warp directly out of a backyard all the way to Alpha Centauri in a few seconds? Does traveling a light-year take a millisecond or a month?

[Steelinghades]

Does the warp field lower the vehicle’s mass? If not a Subaru slamming into a city at FTL speeds would probably cause a lot of damage.

No it doesn't, but to exit warp you have to slow down to a few kilometers a second.

Question: What are the limitations on this? For example, do you have to be a certain distance out of gravity wells, or can you warp directly out of a backyard all the way to Alpha Centauri in a few seconds? Does traveling a light-year take a millisecond or a month?

As long as your pilot is skilled, you have a good navigation system and you have accurate coordinates, you can warp anywhere.

As for speed, depending on how much power the warp drive has, you can travel anywhere from two to ten parsecs per day.

[Broomstick]

So... Alpha Centauri hours (high power) to a day (low power). Huh. So going to the next nearest star system would be similar time-wise to travel between continents is now.

Of course, space is BIG. If I've done the math correctly it would still take 8.5 years to cross the Milky Way from one end to the other. Over two centuries to get to the Andromeda galaxy one-way.

But intra-solar system travel is going to be really easy.

[FireNexus]

That actually makes it an order of magnitude faster than Star Trek warp drives, almost exactly. 75 years for Voyager to get 75000 light years, at a speed they’re practically unable to sustain for more than a few hours.

[Solauren]

First - Discovery does not mean quick widespread implication.
The second it's confirmed, the military and government will lock the tech down quickly.

Second - What about launching from a gravity well? Just because you can FTL cheap once in space, doesn't mean you can do it from the ground. if it still costs millions to launch, cheap FTL means nothing for the average person.

[Batman]

VOY was a 'keep this up freaking forever' situation. 10 parsecs a day is easily in line with TNG+ 'sprint' speeds. 2 is upper half 'cruise' speed

[Steelinghades]

First - Discovery does not mean quick widespread implication.
The second it's confirmed, the military and government will lock the tech down quickly.

Second - What about launching from a gravity well? Just because you can FTL cheap once in space, doesn't mean you can do it from the ground. if it still costs millions to launch, cheap FTL means nothing for the average person.

If you have the proper coordinates you can FTL from space into your garage and Vis versa.

[Batman]

What about fuel?

[Steelinghades]

What about fuel?

Assuming a craft of Subaru size, one tonne of fuel will last around four days, FTL drives increase fuel expenditure by a facture of three to seven, depending on the size of the craft.

[Broomstick]

But will one ton of fuel fit inside something the size of a Subaru?

[Solauren]

And what IS the fuel? Something like anti-matter would be regulated. Nuclear material would be regulated.

[Solauren]

First - Discovery does not mean quick widespread implication.
The second it's confirmed, the military and government will lock the tech down quickly.

Second - What about launching from a gravity well? Just because you can FTL cheap once in space, doesn't mean you can do it from the ground. if it still costs millions to launch, cheap FTL means nothing for the average person.

If you have the proper coordinates you can FTL from space into your garage and Vis versa.

FTL in an atmosphere? Yeah, that is going to be regulated and controlled so fucking fast, the new drive will seem slow.

[Broomstick]

It would be folded into current air traffic control which even now has speed limits below a certain altitude and regulations regarding supersonic travel over inhabited areas. Just so people wouldn't be having FTL collisions in their backyards. If you want to FTL from ground level you'll probably have to do it in an orderly manner from designated areas - we could call them "spaceports".

[Solauren]

Well, let's think about this.

Someone goes and proves "Hey, I've created SUPERCHEAP FTL"

The government would immediately move to seize it. Because of all the hazards it represents.

Like say -
#1 Biological contamination.
This isn't Sci-Fi. Your weekend trip to another world could end up introducing Earth diseases to it, and vice versa, and causing environmental disasters.

#2 Where are the habitable worlds?
Your weekend trip just added the problem of where do you go?

#3 Who else is out there?
Your weekend trip might end up triggering another race with FTL deciding we taste good in milk.

#4 Military applications
Sounds like your FTL Car could be used for someone to load it with explosives, FTL to Mars, pull a U Turn, then FTL back into the Whitehouse to explode.
Or Into a bank vault, nuclear missile silo, etc.

Sorry, this tech is going to be locked up by the government until it's reverse engineered, improved upon, and there are defenses and interdictions against it.

[bilateralrope]

How much would it cost to seal your car enough so that you don't lose all your air if you hit a vacuum ?

[Solauren]

Radiation shielding comes to mind as another problem.

Not having destination co-ordinates is another. 99.999+% of space is just that, space.

Without ALOT of mapping first, the odds of an FTL jump to a safe locale are so fucking low.....

And, what are EARTH's co-ordinates?

[bilateralrope]

Then there is the issue of precision. Are we limited to how precisely we can point our ship and set the length of the trip ?

Or is there something that increases or decreases the precision ?

[Solauren]

Yeah, unless the society in question already had FTL travel, with alot of this stuff already in place, just this is a sudden leap in miniaturization of the FTL tech, this is such a shit-storm waiting to happen.


Hell, imagine the computational power needed to calculate a FTL jump, and the data needed. You need to know where everything in the galaxy is to start, and where it will be as you travel, and where it will be when you exit FTL.

[Batman]

Also since Warp is a 'flight' drive, not a 'jump' drive, you have to go either around or through everything that is between your starting point and the target coordinates

[Solauren]

What are the side effects of exposure to the fields that allow FTL?
What are thier effects on the environment when activated in an atmosphere? On living creatures? On nearby electronics outside the field?

[Steelinghades]

What are the side effects of exposure to the fields that allow FTL?
What are thier effects on the environment when activated in an atmosphere? On living creatures? On nearby electronics outside the field?

If you're in a vehicle properly shielded against radiation, the effects are minimal.

As for the secondry question, leaving Warp tends to generate moderate quantities of Warp radiation, it's very short lived but lethal over repeated exposure if not treated, luckily however as mentioned, it's half-life is very short and it doesn't spread very far from the warp emergence point. It has similar effects on unhardened electronics as normal radiation.

[Solauren]

What about the other points raised?

[Steelinghades]

What about the other points raised?

Which ones?