Instantaneous (well almost) travel about the galaxy

[TheEndIsNigh]

Hi folks,

I need my characters to be able to get about the galaxy quickly.

My initial thoughts are by use of mental ability - wormhole generation.

The question is, would that be believable without a detailed mechanism being outlined, or could it just be stated as fact?

 

[Colbey Frost]

Hi folks,

I need my characters to be able to get about the galaxy quickly.

My initial thoughts are by use of mental ability - wormhole generation.

The question is, would that be believable without a detailed mechanism being outlined, or could it just be stated as fact?

Can other people do simliar things or is it just this one man who has mental powers? If others have it (mental powers) but he has gone past that level... special and able to create wormholes instead of the lesser ones?

Then i would believe it.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Depends on the situation- is it future tech, in which case there could be portable devices and so on (and if you want only your character to be able to do it, perhaps he or she has modified his or her device). If it is mental, then he or she needs to be aware of what is on the other end. No point creating a wormhole into solid rock, etc.

Not sure what other methods are available without knowing the setting, physical parameters etc. There are other reasons for the wormhole, sure, but generally it will be the same thing. Unless it is teleporting, though even digital constructive tech will need some kind of transmission time, and you get into the whole replicator thing (and the argument that everyone in Star Trek is effectively a clone since they are recreated at an atomic level every time they beam, but that's a whole different argument over why the computer cannot simply recreate someone who 'dies', though I'd say that must have been covered in an episode somewhere)...

 

[Chaoticheart]

(and the argument that everyone in Star Trek is effectively a clone since they are recreated at an atomic level every time they beam,

Ah but in an episode of TNG it was demonstrated that awareness is retained within the transporter beam

 

[RJM Corbet]

...I need my characters to be able to get about the galaxy quickly ...

Ah ... ha ha ha haa ... HAA HAA HA

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Can other people do simliar things or is it just this one man who has mental powers? If others have it (mental powers) but he has gone past that level... special and able to create wormholes instead of the lesser ones?

Then i would believe it.

The idea is this is a fairly common ability. Although there would be different levels of ability.

Depends on the situation- is it future tech, in which case there could be portable devices and so on (and if you want only your character to be able to do it, perhaps he or she has modified his or her device). If it is mental, then he or she needs to be aware of what is on the other end. No point creating a wormhole into solid rock, etc.

Not sure what other methods are available without knowing the setting, physical parameters etc. There are other reasons for the wormhole, sure, but generally it will be the same thing. Unless it is teleporting, though even digital constructive tech will need some kind of transmission time, and you get into the whole replicator thing (and the argument that everyone in Star Trek is effectively a clone since they are recreated at an atomic level every time they beam, but that's a whole different argument over why the computer cannot simply recreate someone who 'dies', though I'd say that must have been covered in an episode somewhere)...

The plot doesn't work if it's technology based. It has to be based on individual ability. I have a method whereby arriving in solid rock isn't a problem.

The nearest thing I can refer to (and it was very worrying when it came out) was/is the film "Jumper"

 

[RJM Corbet]

The thousands of millions of citizens of the Seven Cities of Erlos are highly trained to attempt, for the first time, to concentrate their individual WILLS as a single powerful impulse, at close to light speed, to activate the lithos upon which their cities are built, to break through the light/time barrier of the fourth dimension, onto fifth dimensional vortexian innerspace roadways where, under the guidance of Cephanti, the Angel Chieftan of the Arc, they hope to travel millions of light years in a very short time in a desperate mission to destroy the planet Bueloess with their sonic weapon before Bueloess destroys them.

From Synopsis of ERLOS

Sorry TEIN, I just meant that you're not alone with this problem. This faster-than-light travel thing -- how to get around -- is the single issue that has most plagued Sci-fi writers since Einstein came out with relativity. But then, you know that. My concept is that although a single mind may not be powerful enough, millions of minds working together, focussed through some sort of lens ...?

 

[Nik]

IMHO, you first need to decide what to do about light-speed and nominal 'c' limit...

Tachyons ? Worm-holes ? Hyperspace(s) ?? Quantum entanglement ??

How do you 'move' the person ? Teleport is 'psi' or 'electronic' or some mix ?

In my short 'Headache', the protagonist eventually discovers his 'fugues' are inadvertent teleports, leaving open the issues of conservation of energy etc...

In a classic SF short called, IIRC, Gunninga Gap, travellers are, uh, destructively scanned and turned into a coded thread which is fed through a tiny black hole and they are re-constituted on the far side of the worm-hole...

In Asher's tales, IIRC, there are artificial wormholes through hyperspace: You walk through...

However, it takes a 'planetary' AI to keep all the tuning together, and much stuff interferes...

 

[RJM Corbet]

... everyone in Star Trek is effectively a clone since they are recreated at an atomic level every time they beam ...

Re: Teleportation
Have checked this out. It appears that the best shot at physical teleportation may look like this:

First they have to find a way to freeze a batch of 5000 Rubendium atoms to within a billionth of a billionth of a degree above absolute zero, to the temperature of the Bose Einstein Equivalent.

At this temperature, they hope that the wave peaks of the atoms will all match, so instead of 5000 atoms, they will behave like the equivalent of one giant atom. This is necessary to prevent 'quantum entanglement'. I don't know exactly what that is, but it doesn't sound too good.

Next they send in a pulse of more rubendium atoms. The sudden drop in temperature should cause the electrons in the pulse rubendium to drop down to the lowest possible energy levels -- emitting light.

The light pulse is sent along an optic cable and, in theory, will take the single-state rubendium atoms with it.

You could only 'unscramble' the atoms once, so cloning would not be a prospect with this method.

Once that's working the next step would be to organise the light into a laser pulse, in order to do away with the cable.

From there on to more complex atoms, and then finding a way to 'beam' living beings without first freezing the life out of them.

And even then it's limited to light speed which is incidentally 300 thousand Km/sec -- a light year being 95 000 000 million Km. Our Milky Way is 100 000 light years, or a little less than 30 000 'parsecs' across -- a parsec being 3.5 light years. Andromeda, the nearest galaxy to Earth, is 2.5 million light years away (all approx) ...

 

[Vertigo]

It's not clear to me if you are talking about SciFi or fantasy here. If we are talking SF and starships then I could probably live with it in much the same way that the pilots/navigators (I can't remember their proper name) control star travel in Dune. They used the spice to let them see into the future as I recall, but I don't think that would be necessary for a different plot. If you are talking fantasy then I would drop all the wormhole stuff and avoid getting techie about it.

 

[Nik]

There's one Einsteinian option for light-speed limit: In a globular cluster, stars are quite close together...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster
http://www.iac.es/gabinete/iacnoticias/winter98/xplaneta.htm
http://www.fippy.net/activities/sao/HET603Essay.html

And, IIRC, multiple star groupings are common. There could be many stars separated by 'hops' of 12~~18 hrs at light-speed...

A couple of gotchas: How the settlers got to their cluster with light-speed limit may require multi-generational, stasis or near-c travel. Such clusters are generally Population II stars, so low in metals, so iron-cored planets will be few. They will have light alloys and ceramics in abundance. Outer planets' orbits are destabilised by cluster neighbours, so solar systems may not extend beyond eg Saturn equivalent. No Oort Cloud, minimal Kuiper Belt...

 

[Arkose]

So this can't be done by just simply saying "Beam me up Scotty?"

Oh well, space travel never been my strong suit.

Note: Oh I forgot space gates, but if I remember correctly it is a type of wormhole.

 

[MstrTal]

I do not remember the author and series of books but this reminds me of something similar. Granted there where some big differences but that author approuched it from the angle of augmenting a group of Psi's abilities with mechanical generators of some sort tuned to their mental harmonics to achieve a gestalt. The series ends with the company of Psi's successfully colonizing a M class planet in another galaxy. The kicker was they did not have to wait the X amount of years for the radio signal to travel back to earth to prove it to the Non-Psi's. Since they where using telemetry data attained "recently" they sent themselves to the point they where able to envision from that data. This point happened to be millions/billions of light years away, owing to the nature of how long it took for the "recent" telemetry data to reach earth they traveled back in time as well as space to reach their destination. Granted I read this 15 something years ago and I do not know how old the series was then but it was a cool concept.

 

[RJM Corbet]

I do not remember the author and series of books but this reminds me of something similar. Granted there where some big differences but that author approuched it from the angle of augmenting a group of Psi's abilities with mechanical generators of some sort tuned to their mental harmonics to achieve a gestalt. The series ends with the company of Psi's successfully colonizing a M class planet in another galaxy. The kicker was they did not have to wait the X amount of years for the radio signal to travel back to earth to prove it to the Non-Psi's. Since they where using telemetry data attained "recently" they sent themselves to the point they where able to envision from that data. This point happened to be millions/billions of light years away, owing to the nature of how long it took for the "recent" telemetry data to reach earth they traveled back in time as well as space to reach their destination. Granted I read this 15 something years ago and I do not know how old the series was then but it was a cool concept.

That is the concept: that the speed of MIND is not limited to the speed of light ...

 

[Colbey Frost]

All this science boggles... if your traveling at light speed (say on light?) can you not hop onto some more light infront of it? Like when you go down an escalator but walk at the same time, going faster than those around you?

Maybe he could be like other people but do this but with that... oh my now im confused... need to find some trees and an axe (nice and simple).

 

[Pyan]

Just apply Clarke's Third Law, and call it "magic"...

 

[RJM Corbet]

All this science boggles... if your traveling at light speed (say on light?) can you not hop onto some more light infront of it? Like when you go down an escalator but walk at the same time, going faster than those around you?

No ....

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Thanks for all the input folks.

It's at least refreshing that if I can come up with enough semi scientific gibber jabber (I already have an idea that would probably bamboozle the average SF fan) then the idea is at least acceptable.

I was concerned that it would be ridiculed (still could be of course) and E=MC2 would be bandied about.

From what you have all said the idea wouldn't necessarily be laughed out of court. I can continue to develop my faster than light techniques - Patent applied for

 

[mosaix]

Hi folks,

I need my characters to be able to get about the galaxy quickly.

My initial thoughts are by use of mental ability - wormhole generation.

The question is, would that be believable without a detailed mechanism being outlined, or could it just be stated as fact?

Providing the mechanism for time travel isn't important to the story then just state is as fact.

Don't explain if you don't have to.

 

[chrispenycate]

Effectively, the two ends of a wormhole are in the same place; even if that place happens to be several thousand light years apart. So technically something travelling by this manner never travels faster than light, it just gets there sooner by taking a shortcut.

But the idea of mind over spacetime has always annoyed me (well since I read the world of null A, at least). It smacks too much of magic, too much "effort is not related to results". And I certainly would make sure departure and arrival were in empty space, not on the surface of a planet or even too close to one; the energy requirements in making up velocity differences just aren't available in biological systems.