Current Events > The problem with space science fiction

(+) Yeah! (+)

FTL travel is impossible. No matter how writers attempt to do FTL (hyperspace, warp, wormholes, etc.), getting from one place to another faster than it would take light violates Causality.

If you teleport from Earth to Proxima Centauri, from the perspective of someone in Sirius looking with a very powerful telescope, it might seem like you arrive to Proxima Centauri BEFORE you actually left Earth. General Relativity states that there are no privileged frames of reference, so you can't say your frame of reference as a FTL traveller is more true than that of the person observing from Sirius. They are both equally true. Hence the violation of Causality.

But what sci fi writers forget is that you don't NEED FTL for a space opera. Our very own Solar System will likely remain the upper limit of what we will be able to comfortably explore within the next few millenia, and that's great, because the Solar System is incredibly vast and diverse. Four inner planets, four planet-sized objects in the Asteroid Belt, seventy-nine Jupiter moons of which four are planet-sized, eighty-three Saturn moons of which eight are planet-sized, etc.

And that's not even counting areas in space such as the Lagrange points, where we can theoretically build hundreds or thousands of space habitats to house millions of people. Just the Earth-Moon System could house a few thousand of space habitats of various size and shapes.

All in all, you could probably have more colonies within the Solar System than there are named planets in Star Wars. That's quadrillions just in this tiny tiny fraction of the universe. Normalize non-FTL space opera!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ugebzq3juE

BlackOmnimon posted...

FTL travel is impossible

Says who?

Its fiction, you can include elements that don't exist in real life if it makes for a fun or interesting story.

Crimsoness posted...

Says who?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/7/AAY1BxAADh2V.jpg

Crimsoness posted...

Says who?

Quitters.

I know that the Gundam shows use Lagrange points in space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series)

What you explained doesn't violate causality (if, how? all you did was say it does) and to be honest we might know more about the speed of light and ftl than causality...

apparent FTL is definitely not out of bounds as to our current standing, though obviously it is probably not exactly what most sci fi is thinking about

Okay NERD

Hence the fiction part. Though this is amusing to me while playing mass effect

wouldn't a matter transporter like in star trek make the user very hot?

heh heh that's why you travel through space

sabin017 posted...

I know that the Gundam shows use Lagrange points in space.

This, at least in the UC timeline

MedeaLysistrata posted...

What you explained doesn't violate causality (if, how? all you did was say it does) and to be honest we might know more about the speed of light and ftl than causality...

Because the no privileged frame of reference thing, it means that if anyone anywhere can see effect precede cause, it's not an optical illusion, it's 100% real and thus a time paradox.

Its almost like science fiction isnt real

Fantasy should stop using dragons. Dragons do not exist and never have.

specialkid8 posted...

Fantasy should stop using dragons. Dragons do not exist and never have.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/4/1/AAXm8_AADiAt.jpg

BlackOmnimon posted...

Because the no privileged frame of reference thing, it means that if anyone anywhere can see effect precede cause, it's not an optical illusion, it's 100% real and thus a time paradox.

teleporting is not a cause effect relationship though. starting at point A doesn't cause me to end up at point B, unless I am using some kind of catapult or something similar. disassembling my particles and using quantum superposition (?) or whatever to end up somewhere else, that's the superposition causing the movement, or whatever method you think of. and in every possible world that is the case. and there is no reason i can't imagine a telescope that detects quantum superposition as well, lol, making it standardized for every frame of reference the instrument works in

can you elaborate?