[Flipside]

FTL travel, the last time I checked, was more likely by using wormholes with exotic matter threaded through them than through physically going at vast speeds.

I would split this thread, but I'd have to split it into about 3 parts, and I'm tired tonight. I'll have a go at it tomorrow.

[TrashMan]

 

It's a magazine/journal. Magazine ALWAYS blow things out of proportions.

Major progress? That depends how you define "major progress". If you define it as "We just managed to construct a working bow and arrow. For our next project, we're gonna blow up the Sun!", then yes.

Wait for Herra. Let him explain to you to why teleporting people is never gonna happen.

[Droid803]

Yeah massive OT, but hey, that Teleportation thing is pretty neat, even if we'll never be able to teleport people...

[Colonol Dekker]

Relevant...in more ways than one.


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[Stormkeeper]

To be honest, I've always felt that teleportation, while undoubtedly cool, is infinitely less feasible and safe compared to FTL travel. I mean, if the reciever or transporter unit is screwed up, you could end up like the Fly. Or something.

Not to mention the massive amounts of money that teleportation would ostensibly require. I mean, in Uprising, you were mining power in the millions, and 700 million watts was only enough to teleport in a single Tier 1 tank. HL: Blue Shift's teleporter also needed of power, and just to teleport people outside Black Mesa, not to mention aligning the Xen signals.

[Polpolion]

It's a magazine/journal. Magazine ALWAYS blow things out of proportions.

Major progress? That depends how you define "major progress". If you define it as "We just managed to construct a working bow and arrow. For our next project, we're gonna blow up the Sun!", then yes.

Wait for Herra. Let him explain to you to why teleporting people is never gonna happen.

[General Battuta]

That 'clever twist' has been in common use since the 1940s in science fiction.

I meant to say, it not present in recent works. At least not any I've seen or read.

Akalabeth Angel mentioned the superb Conqueror's Trilogy. It's also present in the wildly popular Honorverse (if I recall correctly) and dozens of other SF works in the past eight years alone.

Furthermore, no interstellar empire requires FTL. FTL is magic, and it's not at all necessary for a science fiction story. Refer to Alastair Reynold's 'Revelation Space' setting for a plausible space opera without FTL, and an interstellar society that works fine without it.

FTL is not magic. Our understanding of physics is primitive at best, there may very well be ways around that apparent barrier.
Conservation of energy. Action an reaction. - those are the laws to watch about. Not to mention breaking logic on a fundamental level.

As it stands, all FTL requires handwavium of one kind or another. Einstein-Rosen bridges require negative energy density, as do warp drives -- the two plausible methods of FTL currently theorized. This is magic, though to a lesser degree than the One Ring or, dare I say, a Portkey.

In essence, we're quibbling over word choice here. Perhaps you'd prefer 'handwavium' to 'magic', though one is really a subset of the other -- magic with marginal justification and some quick talk around the sticky points.

I don't understand what you say breaks logic on a fundamental level, and whatever point you tried to make by introducing 'conservation of energy' and 'action and reaction' is lost on me.

And a interstealar empire without FTL would be pretty much impossible. There would be no way for a central government to control all of it. It would be a collection of independent planet-states at best. That's no empire.

The situation would be similar to that of the farflung colonies of the British Empire -- remote, but at least temporarily governable. It might not be stable in the long term, but if the empire's social structures were good, and there were other factors (like enhanced longevity or really good social engineering), it's quite plausible.

The Revelation Space universe presents a number of possible social models for trans-system governments without FTL travel, particularly the Conjoiners, who share radical neural restructuring and cybernetic augmentation.

Lastly, teleportation is much easier than FTL. You seem to be thinking that it requires the transmission of actual atoms, where in fact all that's required is the transmission of information. A functioning teleport would be more like an excellent fax machine than any kind of 'dematerializer'.

It would also serve as a perfect duplicator, interestingly (and frighteningly) enough.

[Flipside]

But if there's no way of creating FTL communication, then it's really not going to help, because you'd still have to transmit that data at light speed, which isn't fast enough.

Also, the amount of data would be vast, imagine how many atoms there are in a human, about 12g of Carbon has 6.02 x 10²³ atoms in it.

[Mars]

We, right now, at this distance do have a means of FTL communication (see the link about teleportation.)

Right now it's pretty raw, but even if we don't yield full blown teleportation, the ability to exactly copy a photon from any distance away, instantly, is a form of instant communication in and of itself.

[Flipside]

I seem to remember something about being able to 'link' atoms, making them behave in exactly the same manner when they are miles away from each other, but I'll admit to being pretty hazy on the subject.

[General Battuta]

We, right now, at this distance do have a means of FTL communication (see the link about teleportation.)

Right now it's pretty raw, but even if we don't yield full blown teleportation, the ability to exactly copy a photon from any distance away, instantly, is a form of instant communication in and of itself.

No we don't. You can't send information faster than lightspeed.

As TrashMan said -- very correctly -- quantum mechanics is fuzzy and hard to understand. It may seem like a process is occurring faster than light, but, in practice, you can't transmit any information through it.

Quantum entanglement, for instance, implies 'spooky action at a distance', yet it's still not possible to transmit information FTL even though particles are affecting each other instantaneously.

I can try to provide a comprehensive technical explanation of why that is, but I'd have to dust off some really rusty skills.

[eliex]

Teleportation is a nice dream, but probably in the beta-testing, people would be so scared to try it out that the whole project will be dead.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Teleportation is a nice dream, but probably in the beta-testing, people would be so scared to try it out that the whole project will be dead.

      I'm sure flying was scary too, especially since most of the first planes slammed straight into the ground. But it certainly made it past the "beta-testing".

[Droid803]

They'd probably do the same things they did with space flight...except they'd take idiots, not smart people.

[Ghostavo]

It's a magazine/journal. Magazine ALWAYS blow things out of proportions.

Major progress? That depends how you define "major progress". If you define it as "We just managed to construct a working bow and arrow. For our next project, we're gonna blow up the Sun!", then yes.

Wait for Herra. Let him explain to you to why teleporting people is never gonna happen.

Is that your comeback? They blew out of proportion? What did they blew out of proportion? The fact that we can teleport photons, electrons and atoms at present time? That it's been proven that even complex molecules can be teleported even if we currently do not have the technological ability to do so? How did they blew these facts out of proportions.

It is major progress just as the Kitty Hawk was major progress in aviation (or indeed orbital space flight). Just because it seems remote doesn't mean it isn't major. By your standards then, FTL travel would be even more ridiculous. It would be on the level of "I drolled on the sand. Next, I'll create another universe!".

[S-99]

It was said somewhere by V that fighters are anti-grav capable.

       Why does the Hapshetsut used a thruster-controlled launch pad to bring fighters up to the launch port though?
       Which imo is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in Freespace, but some people differ on that.

Well since a whole bunch of freespace really is ludicrous. The fact it says ships are capable of atmospheric flight in the game, and people want to say no (what happened to canon being godly?). While these ships may not be anti-grav capable, they obviously have gravity creating systems for the internals of the ships for crew. And really when you think about it, the way fighters in a hatshetsup take off and land is very similar to what happens on a terran destroyer where a huge crane comes out of no where and sits a fighter down.

Anyway the landing sequence for fighters what little is seen of it on a destroyer is that it's heavily automated. And that's great for how many fighters destroyers hold. In other words, using a thruster controlled launch pad for fighters taking off and landing is a  hell of a lot more efficient and orderly and less dangerous when compared to all of the pilots flying in navigating all the ships corridors until they land, or navigating all of the corridors to take off (many accidents would happen). It's not necessarily that fs has anti-grav technology, but that they do at least have obvious ways to counter gravity, such as with thrust.

So while having assisted take offs and landings is considered dumb for you. I guess using a steam powered tow cable for fighters landing and taking off on modern day air carriers is the equivalent.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Anyway the landing sequence for fighters what little is seen of it on a destroyer is that it's heavily automated. And that's great for how many fighters destroyers hold. In other words, using a thruster controlled launch pad for fighters taking off and landing is a  hell of a lot more efficient and orderly and less dangerous when compared to all of the pilots flying in navigating all the ships corridors until they land, or navigating all of the corridors to take off (many accidents would happen). It's not necessarily that fs has anti-grav technology, but that they do at least have obvious ways to counter gravity, such as with thrust.

So while having assisted take offs and landings is considered dumb for you. I guess using a steam powered tow cable for fighters landing and taking off on modern day air carriers is the equivalent.

      It's not the pad itself that's dumb, it's the ability to launch only one fighter at a time which is dumb. Using elevators to transfer fighters from the holding area to the launch/recovery area is fine. But when you're limited to launching one fighter with what seems  like a minimum 10-20 second delay between it's a little goofy. Modern aircraft carriers even are a little better, with the capacity to launch at least two in quick succession with many more on the flight deck ready to be manoeuvred into position.
      If the launching area had at least room for 2-4 fighters to launch in the Hatshepsut, I'd like it a lot more. But one at a time?? No thanks

[eliex]

Yes. It's always interesting when Command tells a fighter to return back to base, with the destroyer's fighter-bay sitting less than 1/2 a kilometre away from the fighter, the fighter enters subspace - is there a jump node inside the destroyer?

[Stormkeeper]

I'd have thought by now all of you have a general level of Command's intelligence.

Yes. It's always interesting when Command tells a fighter to return back to base, with the destroyer's fighter-bay sitting less than 1/2 a kilometre away from the fighter, the fighter enters subspace - is there a jump node inside the destroyer?

Perhaps the destroyer isn't the fighter's mothership.

[S-99]

A good deal of the time when you're told to go back to base, the destroyer your stationed on is not in the level, meaning yuo actually warp out to wherever the destroyer is in the system before you land.