Your favorite FTL methods in Science Fiction?

[SilentP]

Another interesting one, and I suppose it goes into the category of using another dimension, is the "black hole" drive in Event Horizon.

Just your ship comes out demon posessed, so I'd recommend against.

I must confess that I have an unhealthy fascination with the FTL drive of Warhammer 40K, where the hyper-sub-alterspace that allows FTL is something called the Immaterium, a kind of hellish dimension inhabited by the Gods of Chaos, where Mind and Matter are the same thing and every ship need psychics on board or the crew would go raving mad. I mean, dude. I'll rather stay home and play water polo.

As a fan of the W40K universe, I agree, there is something cool about creating such dangers in it

For a demonstration, watch Event Horizon to get an idea what happens to a ship in the 40K universe when it's Gellar Field (the device that generates a bubble of 'reality' around the ship to survive the warp) collapses. Now crank it up to 11.

 

[Mistral]

I always liked the mental drive put together by(Cordwainer Smith?) where a Human is telepathically tied into a cat to fight "dragons" and passing the enemy results in trans-stellar flight. Wish I could cite the story involved...

I have "The Best Of" I'll look through it...

Here we go:

[FONT=Arial]The Game Of Rat And Dragon[/FONT] [FONT=Arial]October 1955[/FONT]

 

[Peter the Younger]

As a kid, I always preferred warp drive or hyperdrive, because really, the coolest drive systems were the ones that offered the best odds of High Adventure! (TM) In my own projects (games and fiction), however, I tend toward wormholes and other jump points, if I bother with FTL at all. Wormholes/Jump Gates are at least barely plausible, and their fixed point to point nature makes it easier to avoid plot holes. Not to mention the fact they make it easier to create dramatic tension (get to the gate!)

 

[notwendium]

Kinda a toss up here.
I like B5's hyperspace...
Fixed points for slower ships to travel to, then have to hop out of hyperspace for a short time to get to another gate because the hyperspace area between points B and C (with A being your start point and D your destination) is too unstable for sublight-only ships to traverse (ships that make their own points can just go around).
With hyperspace being as free-form as real space it makes for a great plot device, even better then Warp Drive (sorry, Trek) especially for a game (I was hesitant at first how Star Trek Online handles interstellar travel, it's more B5-esque then Trek-ish).

Though the Adama maneuver gives credence to the instant point-to-point jump drive.
Not even the Cylons are crazy enough to even try to jump in an atmosphere. I give the Adama meneuver serious credit for A) being completely unexpected. B) being in-character for the Old Man and C) Being HELLA FRAKKING AWESOME!

 

[kipron]

Cool analysis! Though I have to take issue with one point:

I think that any of the above methods work as long as they have some kind of limitations and rules to make them a good plot device. For example, I didn't like that ships in BSG could jump into the atmosphere of a planet, or right next to a planet for that matter.

There were two reasons given for this. One was that capital ships are too simply massive to sustain ultra low orbits. The ONE time we saw a capital ship jump into an atmosphere, it felt like a huge event and it became instantly obvious why no sane person would ever do it.

The other reason is that FTL is, ironically, *not* a science. So you were just as likely to end up inside the planet.

I think 'Instantaneous FTL' is the most fun method btw, simply because it grants the writers the most license to drop characters into unexpected places. Farscape also used this to great effect, iirc.

I think the point is that if a jump into a gravity well is possible, it makes no sense that the humans even have a fleet. It would be useless. The Cylons could build a million Predator-drone type ships with nothing but a jump drive and a nuclear payload and just jump them into the atmosphere over every Colonial planet. Poof. Humanity is gone, and the fleet can't do anything about it.

Hence the annihilation of humanity in the Miniseries..

Really though, the limitation of FTL in nBSG is navigational error. A fighter can't just jump from the Cylon home world to the Colonies, it needs to make lots of little jumps. This takes both fuel and time, which creates the need for capital ships, which are too big for such acrobatics.

 

[Christopher]

^Except we were shown that Cylon jump technology was considerably more advanced than Colonial, allowing them to cover a distance in a single jump that would take Colonial ships dozens of jumps.

But aside from that, you're right. The longer the jump, the less precise the targeting, at least for a given jump drive system. So making an interstellar jump right into a planet's atmosphere is extremely risky; the uncertainty might be great enough that you'd either end up in open space and give the planet's defenses time to respond, or end up materializing inside the planet itself and, to paraphrase my story "The Hub of the Matter," get an instant, no-fuss burial thrown in free with your death.

 

[FluffyUnbound]

Hence the annihilation of humanity in the Miniseries..

Really though, the limitation of FTL in nBSG is navigational error. A fighter can't just jump from the Cylon home world to the Colonies, it needs to make lots of little jumps. This takes both fuel and time, which creates the need for capital ships, which are too big for such acrobatics.

Humanity was annihilated by nuclear attacks launched from ships after the battlestar fleet had been destroyed. And that is the step that was unnecessary.

The Cylons also used espionage, and Baltar's libido, to gain access to the Colonial defense net, and act like they needed that access in order to be able to attack. And they really would not have needed it, given the tech we see.

^Except we were shown that Cylon jump technology was considerably more advanced than Colonial, allowing them to cover a distance in a single jump that would take Colonial ships dozens of jumps.

But aside from that, you're right. The longer the jump, the less precise the targeting, at least for a given jump drive system. So making an interstellar jump right into a planet's atmosphere is extremely risky; the uncertainty might be great enough that you'd either end up in open space and give the planet's defenses time to respond, or end up materializing inside the planet itself and, to paraphrase my story "The Hub of the Matter," get an instant, no-fuss burial thrown in free with your death.

This would help fix the problem - a little - but in the miniseries we see that the Cylons are in fact able to jump directly into the systems containing the 12 colonies. And Commander Cain provides us with an eyewitness account of Cylon base stars jumping into orbit above one of the Colonial planets with absolutely no warning and no detected intermediary jump.

So yeah, they could have - and should have - used the "targeting precision" method of limiting the technology. Because then they could have said that the "red line" was a sensor line far enough out that the Cylons would have to perform detectable intermediary jumps prior to launching any attack on the Colony planets. But they didn't do that.

 

[Stiletto]

I liked the FTL in David Weber's Honor Harrington books. It's really Hyperspace, but with interesting properties. First you have leave the solar system's gravity well. There are different levels of hyperspace, or "bands", that take different amounts of energy to get into. If your engines aren't tuned correctly you can bounce off the wall between two levels (and most likely blow up). Shields don't work, but neither do missles, so you have to get within energy range of an enemy in the same hyperspace band to engage them.

 

[stonester1]

The Traveller RPG features a jump drive, but at the common tec levels, it requires a week to get anywhere and course plots are very carefully calculated.

It's relatively "primitive" compared to most hypertravel depicted elsewhere.

But it's a GREAT rpg, y'all.

 

[Infyrnos]

I've always prefered the Cheddite projector as the best way to get FTL travel!

 

[Nerys Myk]

Running real fast.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

watch Event Horizon to get an idea what happens to a ship in the 40K universe when it's Gellar Field (the device that generates a bubble of 'reality' around the ship to survive the warp) collapses.

This sounds just like Roddenberry's Warp factors

Warp drive (also known as Hyperdrive) is a technology that allows space travel at faster-than-light speeds. This is accomplished by generating warp fields to form a subspace bubble that envelops the starship, distorting the local spacetime continuum and moving the starship at velocities that exceed the speed of light.These velocities are referred to as warp factors.

Since Roddenberry came up with Warp factors & Warp drive in 1964 and Warhammer 40,000 created in 1988 I'm gonna go with the original idea of a "subspace bubble" and warp fields enveloping the FTL ship.

Although the 'Event Horizon' ship in the film Event Horizon held within an artificial singularity (miniature black hole) and the "Graviton Drive" is not quite the same 'FTL method' like Warp drive.

 

[sojourner]

^not sure what you're trying to say? That because Roddenberry came up with his in 1964 it's better?

 

[jefferiestubes8]

^not sure what you're trying to say? That because Roddenberry came up with his in 1964 it's better?

No just that SilentP pointed out another scifi world that uses a technology concept just like what Roddenberry invented 24 years previous.
I'll go with the original idea or concept whichever you prefer to call it. It's not better, it is just the first, the original.
It's quite possible that Rick Priestley borrowed the idea from Roddenberry to create the Gellar Field in Warhammer 40,000.

 

[Christopher]

Since Roddenberry came up with Warp factors & Warp drive in 1964 and Warhammer 40,000 created in 1988 I'm gonna go with the original idea of a "subspace bubble" and warp fields enveloping the FTL ship.

Roddenberry didn't "come up with" warp drive. The concept of a "space warp" propulsion system was referenced in prose science fiction no later than 1930, and was based on the ramifications of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity published in 1915. It was already a well-established concept in theoretical physics and science fiction when the experts that Roddenberry consulted with suggested it to him in 1964.

Also, in TOS, the term "subspace" (which also predated Star Trek, going back at least as far as 1937 in the literature) was only used in the term "subspace radio," never actually connected with warp drive in the series itself. The first person to use the term "bubble of subspace" in connection with the Enterprise's warp drive was James Blish in his 1968 novelization of "Tomorrow is Yesterday." Blish was an accomplished science fiction author and was thus familiar with the broader usage of the term "subspace" in the literature. Later, during the development of ST:TMP, the film's technical advisor, Dr. Jesco von Puttkamer of NASA, wrote a memo explaining warp drive more fully in terms of the creation of a pocket of subspace which "surfed" on a distortion of the fabric of spacetime. Dr. von Puttkamer's description bore a striking resemblance to the formal mathematical presentation of warp drive developed by Dr. Miguel Alcubierre 16 years later, which led to warp drive becoming a subject of serious interest and discussion among theoretical physicists. It was probably due to the precedents of Blish and Puttkamer that the idea of subspace was integrated with the idea of warp drive in the later ST shows from TNG onward.

Gene Roddenberry was more a popularizer than an innovator. Every basic concept from Star Trek was something that already existed in science fiction literature for decades. What Roddenberry deserves credit for is not creating these ideas, but rather having the good sense to learn about what was already out there, to read up on science fiction literature and consult with scientists, engineers, and think tanks, and to incorporate other people's good ideas into the show he created. Not to mention hiring veteran SF authors to write for the show. He wasn't a lone visionary doing it all himself, but a manager who was good at hiring smart people to do things for him (and, unfortunately, good at stealing the credit).

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Roddenberry didn't "come up with" warp drive. The concept of a "space warp" propulsion system was referenced in prose science fiction no later than 1930

Which short story or novel(s) specifically Christopher?

I now realize from your other thread's post

FTL travel was seen in productions that predated TOS by many years, from Forbidden Planet to This Island Earth to The Outer Limits.

that these 3 other film/TV examples were pre-Star Trek.

during the development of ST:TMP, the film's technical advisor, Dr. Jesco von Puttkamer of NASA, wrote a memo explaining warp drive more fully in terms of the creation of a pocket of subspace which "surfed" on a distortion of the fabric of spacetime.

Very cool. Thanks for that anecdote.

Gene Roddenberry was more a popularizer than an innovator.

He wasn't a lone visionary doing it all himself, but a manager who was good at hiring smart people

I had no idea. Thanks for the insight Christopher.

 

[Christopher]

Roddenberry didn't "come up with" warp drive. The concept of a "space warp" propulsion system was referenced in prose science fiction no later than 1930

Which short story or novel(s) specifically Christopher?

The earliest citation I'm aware of is John W. Campbell's 1930 novel Islands of Space.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

'Islands of Space' eBook

The earliest citation I'm aware of is John W. Campbell's 1930 novel Islands of Space.

Good ol' Project Guttenberg...

Islands of Space by John Wood Campbell - Project Gutenberg

"Download the free ebook: Islands of Space by John Wood Campbell."
www.gutenberg.org/etext/20988

Copyright Status
Not copyrighted in the United States.
If you live elsewhere check the laws of your country before downloading this ebook.

available in HTML or plaintext.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Time Vortex - surely the only way to travel!

I like the sound it makes... When you leave the handbrake on.

 

[Skellington]

The Time Vortex - surely the only way to travel!

I like the sound it makes... When you leave the handbrake on.

Ah yes, handbrakegate. Great scene.