32 réponses à ce sujet

[Addictress]

It's a real world theory and would foster interest in and attention to it. Please.

The only thing missing from the real life theory is the special substance. Eezo. Pleaase

[Hanako Ikezawa]

It would certainly be interesting to see the Alcubierre Drive used. I loved how it was used in the Star Ocean franchise.

[Laughing_Man]

Isn't the ME FTL close in theory anyway? I thought that the difference was mostly in the use of Eezo to achieve the "bubble".

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Isn't the ME FTL close in theory anyway? I thought that the difference was mostly in the use of Eezo to achieve the "bubble".

FTL in the Mass Effect franchise is kind of a mix between the Warp Drive kind of FTL travel(which is what the OP wants) and the Hyperdrive kind of FTL travel. It creates the front half of the space bubble like a Warp Drive route would do, but after that it goes the Hyperdrive route. Which makes sense since Bioware took inspiration from both Star Trek and Star Wars. 

[Laughing_Man]

FTL in the Mass Effect franchise is kind of a mix between the Warp Drive kind of FTL travel(which is what the OP wants) and the Hyperdrive kind of FTL travel. It creates the front half of the space bubble like a Warp Drive route would do, but after that it goes the Hyperdrive route. Which makes sense since Bioware took inspiration from both Star Trek and Star Wars. 

 

I am unclear on that point, would you care to elaborate?

(What is the Hyperdrive route, and how is it different than the OP's suggestion)

[Arcian]

Isn't the ME FTL close in theory anyway? I thought that the difference was mostly in the use of Eezo to achieve the "bubble".

Not exactly. Mass Effect FTL doesn't warp space, it uses eezo to manipulate mass. The thing is, if you manipulate mass while energy stays the same, the speed of light changes. That's the only way the change in mass can be mathematically reconciled with the energy level according to e=mc^2.

 

So what Mass Effect FTL does is to reduce mass inside the bubble, causing the speed of light inside the bubble to go up, allowing the starships inside the bubble to travel faster than the speed of light outside the bubble. Inside the bubble, it never even approaches 1% of the local speed of light, which is why there is no time dilation.

[Kabooooom]

Arcian is 100% correct in that explanation. There is basically no functional similarity between the mass effect and an alcubierre drive.

The concept behind the mass effect is extremely clever from a SciFi perspective, but would ultimately break the laws of physics in real life as energy would not actually be conserved (which is the entire premise behind it raising the speed of light within the bubble). It wouldn't work. But it is fun to think about.

The Alcubierre drive is interesting as it uses solutions to general relativity to get around the problem imposed by special relativity, and they are absolutely consistent...except for the fact that it requires exotic matter that probably doesn't exist. But that's a minor detail...

[Addictress]

Arcian is 100% correct in that explanation. There is basically no functional similarity between the mass effect and an alcubierre drive.

The concept behind the mass effect is extremely clever from a SciFi perspective, but would ultimately break the laws of physics in real life as energy would not actually be conserved (which is the entire premise behind it raising the speed of light within the bubble). It wouldn't work. But it is fun to think about.

The Alcubierre drive is interesting as it uses solutions to general relativity to get around the problem imposed by special relativity, and they are absolutely consistent...except for the fact that it requires exotic matter that probably doesn't exist. But that's a minor detail...

Yes, in this case, the exotic matter would be eezo. And it could be their new method for traveling between galaxies, faster than the previous FTL drives.

They could even reference the actual scientist who brought it up as actual earth history is referred to in the Mass Effect series. It would be awesome.

They'd be like "it seemed to make sense a couple centuries ago but it was too advanced, and we've been working on it all this time. We finally figured it out."

[smallfrogge]

Arcian is 100% correct in that explanation. There is basically no functional similarity between the mass effect and an alcubierre drive.

The concept behind the mass effect is extremely clever from a SciFi perspective, but would ultimately break the laws of physics in real life as energy would not actually be conserved (which is the entire premise behind it raising the speed of light within the bubble). It wouldn't work. But it is fun to think about.

The Alcubierre drive is interesting as it uses solutions to general relativity to get around the problem imposed by special relativity, and they are absolutely consistent...except for the fact that it requires exotic matter that probably doesn't exist. But that's a minor detail...

 

Also something of a detail is the fact that when you reach your destination and the bubble collapses at super-light speeds you'll annihilate everything in your path in a wave of hard radiation...

[Cyonan]

I don't really get the point of changing the established lore or coming up with some BS reason about it being "significantly more powerful" than standard Mass Effect FTL drives just for the sake of making a nod to a real life theory.

[Laughing_Man]

I don't really get the point of changing the established lore or coming up with some BS reason about it being "significantly more powerful" than standard Mass Effect FTL drives just for the sake of making a nod to a real life theory.

 

Because, maybe, just maybe, a teenager will play this game, see this concept, and make it his life's mission to bring humanity closer to the option of

not being annihilated when the Earth is finally unable to support life / explodes / etc.

[Fortlowe]

Didn't a group in Germany use quantum entanglement to "teleport" photons from one place to another a few years back? It's always been strange to me how Star Trek has scaled that tech up for means of conveyance, but not transportation.

Why not just "beam" the ship where you want to go? It's not just fast, it's instantaneous.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Science tells us that it is impossible for an object to travel at light speed, let alone faster than that. But so many of our favorite science-fiction movies, games, and TV shows rely on faster-than-light travel to craft their interplanetary adventures. Let's take a look at five means of FTL found in sci-fi that don't break the rules of relativity and examine how plausible they are based on the science behind them.

 

Hyperdrive

Popularized by Star Wars and used extensively in fiction, a hyperdrive enables a spaceship to travel at FTL speeds by entering another dimension known as "hyperspace." The spaceship isn't actually traveling faster than the speed of light, but rather is making use of hyperspace as a shortcut, and the hyperdrive is the mechanism that shunts the spaceship into and out of this parallel dimension. Specific coordinates within hyperspace have corresponding coordinates in normal space, but the distance between those two points will be shorter in hyperspace, allowing for a faster journey. Before making a "hyperspace jump," calculations must be made to find the matching coordinates between hyperspace and normal space in order to know when and where to exit hyperspace at the desired normal space destination. Physicist Bukrhard Heim proposed a theory in 1977 that FTL travel may be possible by using magnetic fields to enter higher-dimensional space. The theory uses a mathematical model that calls upon six or more dimensions in an attempt to resolve incompatibilities between quantum mechanics and general relativity, but Heim's ideas have not been accepted in mainstream science. Still, the fact that a theoretical physicist devoted a large portion of his life in pursuit of a theory that could lead to a means of space travel lends the concept of hyperspace a little more credibility than if it were simply the fancy of a sci-fi writer.

 

Jump Drive

Seen in such works as Battlestar Galactica, a jump drive allows for instantaneous teleportation between two points. Similar to a hyperdrive, coordinates must be calculated to ensure a safe jump; the longer the desired travel distance, the more complex the calculation. In theory, there is no limit to how far a jump can take a ship, but an incorrect calculation may result in a catastrophic collision with a planet or space debris. The Dune universe's FTL, based on the fictional "Holtzman effect," can also be considered a jump drive. Master of hard sci-fi Isaac Asimov was the first to suggest the idea of a jump drive in the Foundation series, which lends some credibility to the idea. However, most fiction doesn't clearly explain the principles of physics that allow for this teleportation, making it impossible to claim a jump drive as plausible. However, if it functions by opening a wormhole...

 

Wormholes

A wormhole, as seen in the Stargate franchise, allows for near-instantaneous travel across vast distances. Wormholes may be naturally-occurring or man-made, but are almost always temporary and serve as tunnels through spacetime. Imagine our universe as a piece of paper, and an ant walking on that piece of paper as a spaceship. If the ant wants to walk from one end of that piece of paper to the other, the fastest way to do so would be to travel in a straight line. But paper, like space, bends. If you bend the paper into a U shape, the ant's journey goes largely undisturbed - it still has to traverse the same distance along that line. However, in 3D space, the two ends of the paper are very close to each other now. Cut off a piece of a drinking straw and let the ant use it as a bridge or tunnel between the two ends of the paper, and the journey is suddenly much shorter. While we have never directly observed any evidence for one, wormholes are theoretically possible. Albert Einstein and his colleague Nathan Rosen first discovered wormholes in 1935 as solutions to equations within Einstein's general theory of relativity - the math says they can exist. Since then, other scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have argued that it may be possible to traverse a wormhole, under the right circumstances. The debate surrounding wormholes isn't about their plausibility, but rather how they may be created and sustained.

 

Slipstream

The concept of slipstream can be found in such works as Star Trek, Doctor Who, and the Halo video game franchise, but there is no widely-agreed upon definition of what slipstream is or how it works beyond it being a means of FTL. We'll consider the slipstream seen in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, where it is "not the best way to travel faster than light, it's just the only way," as per the show's protagonist. Slipstream is a form of interdimensional highway in which ships ride a series of slipstream "strings" - the unseen connections between all objects in the universe. These strings are in constant flux and form a tangled mess of intersections and divergent paths. Any time a pilot reaches a fork in the road, he has to guess which is the correct path to take to continue along toward his desired destination. Before the pilot makes that decision, both paths are simultaneously the correct and incorrect route, and it is the act of choosing a path that forces one to be correct and the other to be incorrect - if this made you think of Shrödinger's cat, that does seem to be the basis for this concept. A computer selects the "correct" path 50% of the time, but due to intuition, a human picks the correct path 99.9% of the time. There are no mainstream scientific theories that support this idea of slipstream. Reading the "lore" of this means of FTL evokes fantastical interpretations of string theory, quantum entanglement, and other concepts in modern physics, but the ideas are supported only through their internal consistency rather than actual fact, much like a well-explained magic system that allows fictional wizards to cast spells.

 

Warp Drive

Popularized by Star Trek, a warp drive distorts space around a ship while leaving the ship itself inside a "bubble" of normal space. The space in front of the ship is contracted, while the space behind it is expanded, and the ship "rides" the distortion wave at FTL speeds. Technically, it is not the ship that is moving, but rather space itself, which is how we avoid breaking any laws of physics. Imagine a surfer slowly paddling back to shore. When a wave comes, it will lower the water level in front of him and raise the water level behind him, and he can ride the downward slope all the way to shore. Relative to the wave, the surfer isn't moving - he's staying between the crest and the trough, and it is instead the wave that is moving. Surfing doesn't quite work like that, but it's a simplification that we can all visualize. In a similar manner to how a wave will distort water to propel a surfer, a warp drive will distort space to propel a ship. In 1994, the Alcubierre drive was proposed as a theoretical means of FTL travel and is based on a mathematical solution to equations within Einstein's general theory of relativity. Just like a warp drive, the Alcubierre drive would contract space in front of a spaceship and expand space behind it. NASA has been actively researching this technology since 2012, and the lead researcher even worked with a 3D artist to develop a model of what a warp-capable ship might look like. As far as real-life FTL goes, warp is the current front-runner to becoming reality.

 

As far as real-life FTL travel goes, the fictional favorites can be found in Star Trek and Stargate: the warp drive, and wormholes. Both are theoretically possible; however, both require further scientific breakthroughs before practical testing can begin. In either case, we need to discover "exotic matter" - hypothetical particles with negative mass - to get these mechanisms to work. "Element zero" from the Mass Effect series, the rare material that is essential to FTL travel in that universe, doesn't quite fit the description, but the lore is at least scientifically sound in suggesting that some new, rare form of matter is required to make this technological leap. The good news is that scientists don't believe this is a matter of if, but rather when. There will be a time in the future when a stately, bald man in uniform will sit back in a command chair and relay the order, "Engage."

 

http://www.escapistm...ir-Plausibility

[Helios969]

Hanako: Thanks for posting.  My personal favorite is the "jump" drive.  Dune is probably my all time favorite series of books.  The whole idea of folding space-time is mind blowing.  Of course, they all have the same fundamental problem...ridiculous energy requirements.  Like supermassive blackhole level energy.  That's what makes eezo and the whole mass effect thing a neat little plot device.  Being able to control mass is very useful in this regard.

[Chealec]

Hanako: The "jumpdrive" in Dune works like a controlled wormhole AIUI, space is folded around the Highliner - the Guild Navigators use a form of limited prescience to make sure that the other end of your "straw" (to continue the analogy) isn't in the heart of a star or something equally unpleasant

[Arcian]

Also something of a detail is the fact that when you reach your destination and the bubble collapses at super-light speeds you'll annihilate everything in your path in a wave of hard radiation...

I think the easy workaround to this is to make brief "dump stops", shedding accumulated energetic particles deep in interstellar space before they reach destructive levels. Considering the distances involved (~4-5 light years on average between each star) it may also be wise to utilize these "dump stops" to make course corrections with XNAV.

[Addictress]

I don't really get the point of changing the established lore or coming up with some BS reason about it being "significantly more powerful" than standard Mass Effect FTL drives just for the sake of making a nod to a real life theory.

It's not changing any lore. It would be the tech for intergalactic travel in the new game.

[Addictress]

Also something of a detail is the fact that when you reach your destination and the bubble collapses at super-light speeds you'll annihilate everything in your path in a wave of hard radiation...

Yeah but once they get to the new galaxy they can make their stop in a safe dead zone between solar clusters and then switch over to standard Mass Effect FTL drives to cruise about within the galaxy.

[Addictress]

@Hanako Ikezawa .. Great post:)

[Arcian]

Yeah but once they get to the new galaxy they can make their stop in a safe dead zone between solar clusters and then switch over to standard Mass Effect FTL drives to cruise about within the galaxy.

Mass Effect FTL is faster than the Alcubierre drive, though. A standard, civilian-class Mass Effect drive can reach speeds up to 4380 times the speed of light. That's 43800% faster than the most generous estimate of the Alcubierre drive's capacity.

[Lumix19]

Didn't a group in Germany use quantum entanglement to "teleport" photons from one place to another a few years back? It's always been strange to me how Star Trek has scaled that tech up for means of conveyance, but not transportation.

Why not just "beam" the ship where you want to go? It's not just fast, it's instantaneous.

From what I understand quantum entanglement can't actually move anything other than information since nothing is physically transported, so ME may have been relatively accurate relegating quantum teleportation to "mere" communication rather than physical teleportation.

[Iakus]

Also something of a detail is the fact that when you reach your destination and the bubble collapses at super-light speeds you'll annihilate everything in your path in a wave of hard radiation...

Be an interesting way to set up the conflict for the next game:

 

New Alien Race:  Your arrival destroyed one of our colonies!

Pathfinder: So, you're saying there's some real estate available?

 

 

As for the idea.  It's interesting.  Especially if the technology could be built upon as an advancement of current mass effect cores.  Perhaps the cores are actually one piece of a greater technology?  Rather than just affecting the ship itself, something more is needed to warp space around the ship.  Could potentially explain Reaper range, speeds, etc.  A toy the Reapers don't let civilizations allow to advance to the point of figuring out on their own.

 

Still doesn't explain no Reapers in other galaxies though.  But that's another issue.

[Laughing_Man]

Anyone has any idea how the "Shock Drive" of Dead Space is supposed to work?

Is it one of the FTL versions mentioned above?

[Arcian]

Anyone has any idea how the "Shock Drive" of Dead Space is supposed to work?
Is it one of the FTL versions mentioned above?

A quick read on the Dead Space wikia seems to indicate that the "ShockPoint Drive" is a form of Alcubierre drive.

[iM3GTR]

Anyone suggested the Infinite Improbability drive yet?