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I am working on a world (see this question) which I currently plan to have FTL via Alcubierre warp drive. I want to avoid the possibility of FTL sneak attacks so I plan on having something that prevents them from being successful in general.

My current plan is that FTL causes particles (such as thermal radiation from the spacecraft) to accumulate in front of the ship, with an energy that increases exponentially with time. Eventually, the amount of power required exceeds what the ship’s reactors can generate, and the ship must drop out of FTL to release these particles.

Additionally, incoming radiation is highly blueshifted to dangerous energy levels. Inside a system, the amount of particles (space dust, etc) is too high.

My evidence for these effects is The Alcubierre Warp Drive: On the Matter of Matter. Would those effects work as I am describing them?

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    $\begingroup$ It does sound consistent with what I've read previously, but that's hardly a hard-science answer. You just might be interested in my old question Does the Alcubierre drive have a theoretical upper speed limit? over on Physics. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Apr 30, 2017 at 20:43
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    $\begingroup$ Please don't tag questions asking about scientific theories using hard-science - I suggest science-based instead, as the majority of scientific theories are not founded in empirical evidence; even if there are papers written on the topic, there would likely be conflicting papers, and it would be impossible to answer correctly since there would be no empirical way to find out which paper was correct. Even the theoretical check could be wrong. $\endgroup$
    – Aify
    Apr 30, 2017 at 21:08
  • $\begingroup$ @Aify Retagged. $\endgroup$
    – Demi
    May 1, 2017 at 21:19

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One thing that has been hypothesized about the alcubierre drive, is that while travelling, small particles will get caught before and after the distortion field. So when you stop and release the field, those particles will shoot out all over the place causing unimaginable damage to a ships surrounding. Although that might be what would instigate FTL attacks since it can be so easily used as a mass destruction weapon. Here's a full article if I was unclear: https://www.universetoday.com/93882/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside/

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