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  #31 (permalink)  
Old 27-March-2008, 10:14 PM
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I'd never trust the multiple-worlds method, because with my luck I just know I'd be one of the poor saps on the ship that doesn't make it.
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Old 28-March-2008, 12:16 AM
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Originally Posted by HenrikOlsen View Post
Unfortunately in many more of those worlds, the autodestruct triggers but has a bad failure, leaving you a helpless (but conscious) cripple which is then what you live as forever after.
That's where the Many Worlds Medic comes in. In some timelines you'll heal quickly by chance, so the Medic unit finishes you off if you don't. From your point of view, it always heals you instantly.
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Old 28-March-2008, 09:51 AM
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You may want to take a look at traversable wormholes - in certain circumstances they could theoretically allow "faster than light" travel without breaking any laws of physics. Here's a link you may find useful: Link You need to get a traversable wormhole that doesn't violate causality, or the whole thing comes undone.
Another page from our site gives a somewhat better overview; Traversable Lorenzian Wormholes; an Overview (PDF)
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I'd also like to put in a good word for torchships. They are not FTL at all, but rather accelerate to the half-way point between the start- and end-points, turn around, and decelerate the rest of the way. This allows a ship with enough thrust to get up to a significant fraction of C. Not only would this be very fast, at relativistic speeds time dilation takes effect and the elapsed time for the travellers will appear shorter than it actually is. Again, no laws of physics are violated.
Link
As Winchell Chung points out on that page, torchships have a very low thrust, so would require vast amounts of power to accelerate to their theoretical maximum speed. You couldn't store that much energy on board in any usable form. But if energy could be beamed to the ship somehow, then very high speeds could perhaps be acheived.
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Old 28-March-2008, 11:18 AM
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Arrow This is an alternate way forward

Of course you could go for the scientifically unproven higher manifolds of space. That will get you into a big argument as there may be currently only one person looking at it.

Essentially time runs at much faster than perception. Perception being like the random movement of the electron in the wire and subject to loops and vortices. Time runs at the speed the current does and has the ability to rewrite matter for any change made in the past. Access to the past as in before the now of the start of the trip is not possible but the passage of time could be slowed for the crew so that in a near future for them their actions would rewrite the far future for others.

Similarly movement rapidly forward in time makes the crew subject to any changes the rest of society brings about ie they survive and arrive to a dead world. Access to the past as in before now is by crossing through a fold of space in the same way closing a book connects the full page and not just at the crease. Like a bookworm chewing from one end to the other passing through the pages and not reading them.

It assumes an energy universe with matter that is rewritable and memory constant to the now updated not to the past but to the perceived present unless caught in a field of collapsing energy caused by an event occurring at a time prior to the intervention of the observer. It means memory is not accurate but constantly updated as time continually corrects for small defects. And a large correction may cause the cessation of the participant altogether.

But I am just going on the personal experience of the demise of an observer in another iteration of this existence. For what it is worth that is about the best that I can give you and that the rewrite is very rapid, like the capture and closure of all that is within seconds into an entirely alternate existence.

As for FTL, it would not be as necessary as with the right access to the manifolds all times could be accessed but the distances would be problematic. Then there is the mirror symmetry to consider but that only occurs if you travel within the normal time frame and resolves itself when in local space (ie get close enough to the mirror and you do not see yourself).

But it gets weird, reflections, heat shadows and the moment of passing through a physical time turning point in a state of calm unmoving concentration on self. Physicality remains but perception requires time to reorient to the new direction. It is not playing the tape backwards as such but getting to the end or turn point an then playing it at right angles and having to relearn all the basics ... sight, speech, motor skills and experiencing cellular dynamics as parts of the body reverse age until the full adjustment is made. There may be some increase in cognitive ability where mind energy gains over physical ability which does not fall to zero I might add, so the difference may be small or varied for different individuals.

But if you do get that then I can say that makes two.
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Old 29-March-2008, 01:32 AM
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Hyperspace! The old pierce a point in space and reappear in another point whilst moving through hyperspace. As used in Elite and my favourite Frontier Elite 2!!
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Old 29-March-2008, 07:06 PM
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Wink faster-than-light in a "vacuum"...

By the well supported laws of Special Relativity...impossible. By the redundant airing of it, a little tiresome...or in the words of a teacher I knew.."You can't teach the unwilling." pete
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Old 31-March-2008, 02:03 PM
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Here are a few to think about, albeit more in the SciFi'ish realm

Chroniton Drive, (Time Drive) - Makes use of Time particles to alter the time flow around the ship, which gives the effect of FTL speeds.

Probibility Drive - Changes the Probable location of the particles making up the ship and contents at the quantum level.
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Old 01-April-2008, 07:04 PM
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Here's an idea, the Time Rewind Drive: reverses entropy to recollapse the Universe to a single point, then expand it again with your ship in a different part of it.
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Old 02-April-2008, 05:13 AM
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There is the concept of 'thought' connected space which was handled in an interesting way by Frank Herbert. Incidentally the Buddhists teach that this has already been done by one of their members in a full physical sense before astronauts and so they may be a good source of more information.
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Old 11-April-2008, 03:54 AM
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Originally Posted by Michael Noonan View Post
There is the concept of 'thought' connected space which was handled in an interesting way by Frank Herbert. Incidentally the Buddhists teach that this has already been done by one of their members in a full physical sense before astronauts and so they may be a good source of more information.
Like the Rowan series, with psychics who "think" ships to other star systems?
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Old 12-April-2008, 03:49 PM
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Like the Rowan series, with psychics who "think" ships to other star systems?
That sounds like a pretty fair description. I was talking with a friend who was considering becoming a monk at one stage. It is part of their beliefs but I don't know much more than that but they do believe it absolutely.
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Old 14-April-2008, 03:41 PM
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One way to achieve FTL travel is to slow light down:

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1....18/light.html

So, you can slow down light to 38 miles per hour. Once you've done that, even your average Toyota Yaris can travel FTL.
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Old 15-April-2008, 04:49 PM
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Stay still and move the Universe around you. (Yes, it's yet another Futurama reference.)
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"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort
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Old 15-April-2008, 09:37 PM
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I actually rather like that method, in a way, thats what the space bending methods are. Of course, how dark matter feces enter into this is anyones guess.
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Old 16-April-2008, 12:21 AM
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I actually rather like that method, in a way, thats what the space bending methods are.
Not exactly, the space-bending methods "move" only a small part of the Universe. The majority of space stays the same.
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Old 16-April-2008, 12:45 AM
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Not exactly, the space-bending methods "move" only a small part of the Universe. The majority of space stays the same.
True. Still, both are rather "move the mountain to Mohamed'-type methods.
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