If you were to catagorise the various types of FTL drive/transport by charicteristics not by pseudonym used in whatever setting, I can think of at least four types;
1. The drive that "WARPS" normal space, permitting interaction between ships and other objects wether moving at FTL speed or not. The speed of this is varriable by settings and the transit time is perceptable to the ocupants. Like Star Trek uses.
2. The "subspace" type where the ship must transition to subspace to access FTL speeds. The crew is aware of time spent in transit. The ship is blind to the "normal" space around it and may or not affect objects in normal space. The speed and range are set by the author. Like Star Wars? and Babylon-5.
3. The jump drive where the ship teleports itself from point "A" to point "B" instantainiously, at least to the crew's perceptions whether or not it takes real time. The ship may not affect other things durring transit and the speed and range of the unit is set by the author. Dune and several other popular settings, (that I can't seem to remember right now)
4. Teleportation device of some sort. Step threw a door here, out of a door there. Star Gate and many Sci-Fi books and "C" movies. The transit is usualy instantainious or nearly so to both the pasenger and observer. Nothing happens in between.
If you can think of any other type commonly used, please tell me. Also, please rank the four above as to their usefullness and your perception of their cost as it relates to each other given equal speed, range and bulk/mass, in your reply.
Sincerely, Frankenerd.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
What's the difference between (3) and (4), other than one using a ship and the other using any non-ship device?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Oh, and "elegant", by the way.
Posted by WizArtist (Member # 1095) on :
I believe Gregory Benford wrote a novel "Moving Mars" that incorporated rewriting a dimensional variable to relocate matter. By simply changing the "address" of an atom changes its actual position in time/space. Of course this could be the actual manner in which options 3 and 4 work too.
Posted by Hunter (Member # 611) on :
Technically, the Stargate doesn't involve instantaneous travel. They move through a wormhole on the way to the exit Gate.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
1) +2.5 USEFUL / +2.5 COST
2) +5 USEFUL / +5 COST
3) +7.5 USEFUL / +7.5 COST
4) +10 USEFUL / +10 COST
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I think normal Trek warp drive is a mixture between 1) and 2) and maybe "subspace" in 2) should be replaced with "hyperspace" or "higher dimension". On the other hand, this would blur the difference to 3) that assumes that a jump gate pushes the ships into such a higher dimension. I'd classify the jump gate in B5 as a similar device as the ones in Stargate, while maybe the Iconian gates belong into category 4) if this is supposed to be separate.