Need some help with establishing a FTL scale

[KoihimeNakamura]

True. On a side note: really thinking about just using Mass Effect's FTL system.

[KoihimeNakamura]

Annnd not. Aside from learning some new terms, I'd have to go spend a lot of time piecing it together.

Still...

[KoihimeNakamura]

So, apparently there's something called a Weir shift? That makes masses imaginary in relativistic equations?

[geni]

Originally Posted by HansMustermann

Well, pretty much because the trope of space battle is to brake and have a jolly good fleet fight

If you don't want to do that, the simpler solution is to just fill a ship with sand, put it on auto-pilot, accelerate to some 0.9c and make sure it hits the planet. At that speed, every single ton of inert ship packs energy equivalent to a 29 GIGA-ton thermonuke. In fact, every single ton of hull or crap you pack into it, hits like about 600 Tsar-bombas. You know, only 600 times the biggest nuke we ever detonated, per ton of ship.

That's a mass extinction event right there.

I know but assume that I want the planet largely intact. You get wacked by my attack fleet before you see the breaking of my slower occupation fleet. Which doesn't really matter since your practical abbility to resist has been largely removed.

[KoihimeNakamura]

Incidently, I wanted to thank everyone for their help. It's pretty useful.

[HansMustermann]

Originally Posted by KoihimeNakamura

So, apparently there's something called a Weir shift? That makes masses imaginary in relativistic equations?

Well, pretty much any mechanics around us are relativistic, just for low speeds the difference between calculating things the Newton way and the Einstein way is infinitesimal. So mass doesn't become imaginary every time, at least.

What you're probably thinking of is that most things in special relativity depend on a thing called the Lorentz factor, which is 1 / square_root(1 - v²/c²). If v > c, you're taking a square root of a negative number, so things get imaginary. If v < c, they don't. And at v = c, you're dividing by zero, which is probably the best known hurdle for why you can't get above c: you'd gave to pass through c on the way there.

The relativistic mass is indeed the rest mass times the Lorentz factor, though apparently in the meantime most go by total energy instead.

HOWEVER, it's one of the things I wouldn't get into, unless you want to give a facepalm moment to everyone who knows enough physics. Although, admittedly, we're talking about relativity, so that wouldn't be a majority of your readers or anything.

The problem is that before you can worry about what happens above c, you'd have to worry about how to even get at c in the first place. Getting into what happens above c, implies that basically you're not working in a hyperspace kind of scenario, but in normal space, and that's where basically there isn't enough energy in the whole universe to accelerate anything to c unless it has a rest mass of zero. (E.g., it's a photon.)

What is usually used is some excuse for how you travel above c without actually travelling above c. Typical and good enough excuses include:

- a warp bubble. Basically the bubble travels faster than light, but inside it, you're not.

- a warp conduit, basically, where space is compressed between two gates. You seem to go, say, 1 light year through it, although the distance outside it is, say, 10 light years.

- hyper-space. Basically you move into a different space, which either is compressed itself, or has a much higher value for c, so you can do very high speeds without even getting relativistic. Or things like that. Or you may want to leave it unexplained if unsure, since that's what almost everyone does and it works just fine.

- wormholes. It's kinda like a natural warp conduit, pretty much.

- multi-dimensional shortcuts

And so on.

[KoihimeNakamura]

Someone was trying to handwave how mass effects ftl worked, wasn't planning on using it.

[HansMustermann]

Well, pretty much if you managed to flip the rest mass to imaginary, yes, then the resulting object could ONLY exist above the speed of light. But basically there's a reason why it's called imaginary.

[TragicMonkey]

Just call it magic.

Captain Explodey: "More power to the drive engines!"
Wizard Bloompy: "I'm sorcerizing as fast as I can, captain!"
Captain Explodey: "Throw more enchantments into the tank! We need fifty hexes a second to break the warp barrier!"
Ensign Victim: "I can't wait to go on the away mission once we arrive!"
Bishop O'Flannigan: "All this speed is wiltin' me shillelaugh, begorrah!"
Captain Explodey: "Why did the Confederation of Worlds take out such a hefty insurance policy on this vessel?"

[KoihimeNakamura]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

Just call it magic.

Captain Explodey: "More power to the drive engines!"
Wizard Bloompy: "I'm sorcerizing as fast as I can, captain!"
Captain Explodey: "Throw more enchantments into the tank! We need fifty hexes a second to break the warp barrier!"
Ensign Victim: "I can't wait to go on the away mission once we arrive!"
Bishop O'Flannigan: "All this speed is wiltin' me shillelaugh, begorrah!"
Captain Explodey: "Why did the Confederation of Worlds take out such a hefty insurance policy on this vessel?"

I only deal in effects for most of my drive.

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by KoihimeNakamura

I only deal in effects for most of my drive.

They're golfing? In space? I suppose if you could get that idiot bishop to carry the clubs...hmmm. It's workable. But, would a drive off a ship moving faster than light wind up being faster than faster than light? Or would it travel backwards in time, arriving long before the ship does? That could be very handy, because everybody would know to avoid standing near golf balls because they meant a ship was going to land there soon!

[KoihimeNakamura]

(Anything in blue I am unsure about)

The Altspace Drive
(Or: A hyperdrive that is probably too detailed)

Developed first by the ancient Lux Aeternal race it is the only known way to travel at apparent faster than light speeds.

The drive work by enabling transportation in another universe with different physical properties including a different speed of light. This includes a smaller size then our universe.

Required Fuel: Gravicite/Element #121 (Extraterrestial element)

Quote:

Design intent: To require a rarer element. Also drives the economy.

Effects:

• Travel speeds measured in dc (decacee) and distance in dlh (deca light hours)
• People ‘dive’ into Altspace, and ‘surface’ into realspace
• Active gravitic shields or (later) active althulls are required for safe travel
• Altspace looks like you are just under the surface of an ocean at first dive, and more like an ocean the deeper you go (although simular dynamics apply if you go above the ecliptic plane.)
  
• Altspace has regions where the space density is lower or higher, impacting speeds. Some of these regions are used for trade routes.
• By going up or down, you can increase your speed. However, to do so increases the pressure on your ship. Generally speaking, the pressure increases by an atmosphere every million kilometers, and most ships do not go more than thirty million kilometers in either direction. However, as there lurks mechanical remaments of a lost war in many places, most ships stay within a million kilometers of the entry plane in order to emergency surface.
  
• Altspace has several features reminiscient of an ocean - such as currents, whirlpools and rip currents. Whirlpools are typically caused by black holes, but there exist several whirlpools only in altspace with no corrosponding singularity.
• A major element of altspace are reefs - where the speed of ships attemptign to traverse it sharply drops. A notorious example is the Great Orion Reef, bordering several regions for close to a thousand light years, and at least 40 light years across. Precise mapping has yet to be done, but measurements prove that it's dense enough that the apparent speed is very barely over 1c, and too difficult for automatic probes or ships to traverse. There is some evidence that they can be artificially generated, but the technology is unknown to all current societies.

Coming soon, when I'm not so tired, the relays.

[KoihimeNakamura]

The rest is up:
http://twilightshards.wordpress.com/...of-ftl-part-2/

and

http://twilightshards.wordpress.com/...inuing-part-2/