Timeline for A plausible explanation for the "ansible?" - FTL communications
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 28, 2020 at 18:36 | comment | added | jdunlop | @MajorTom - if you want interstellar space opera, you have to ignore it. Causality does a lot to kill drama if your ships have to travel for centuries. Star Trek would be very dull. | |
| Jul 28, 2020 at 18:33 | comment | added | MajorTom | Ah! That makes sense. It seems like universes like Star Wars simply ignore that fact then. | |
| Jul 28, 2020 at 18:29 | comment | added | The Square-Cube Law | @MajorTom it depends. Hyperspace is an umbrella term for all sorts of FTL travel in sci-fi. In physics there is a proposed mechanism called Alcubierre Drive, which does allow for actual FTL by compressing space - the ship never goes faster than the local speed of light. But this is a detail that does not matter - if you reach some place faster than light would, the means don't matter - wormhole, hyperspace, space stone etc. - you've already violated causality. | |
| Jul 28, 2020 at 18:26 | comment | added | MajorTom | Are the ships moving FTL via hyperspace? I've always been fuzzy on that. I thought essentially what is happening is space is really folding or compressing together, the ship itself isn't really moving. In any event, waiting for a ship to take it seems pointless when I could just shoot the darn USB drive itself into hyperspace. If it's a "probe" it can do its own communications. | |
| Jul 28, 2020 at 18:09 | comment | added | Matthew | This is essentially the approach in Honorverse; ships can travel FTL, but (initially) communications can't, so you get "space mailmen" running around doing exactly this (well, you usually transmit electronically to and from orbit; exclusive hand-carrying of physical media is only used for really secure stuff; the sort of messages that come in a briefcase handcuffed to a courier). (They do later develop FTL comms, but they are limited to intrasystem range.) | |
| Jul 28, 2020 at 18:03 | history | answered | The Square-Cube Law | CC BY-SA 4.0 |