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Topic: How do they cram 12 ships onto the Vindicator? (Read 9298 times)
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Froborr
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The way I always imagined Hyperspace working was that it was another, much younger universe -- still red-hot and much smaller than ours because it wasn't that long after the Big Bang. You don't really travel any faster there, but space is much smaller, so a few meters in HyperSpace can translate into a million meters in TrueSpace. QuasiSpace is even faster, and green, because it's even younger and therefore smaller and hotter. And that's why HyperSpace is full of all those weird bursts and whirly bits: it's chunks of matter forming and breaking apart in a high-energy environment. Anyway, that's why you have drag in HyperSpace: all the matter in the universe is crammed into a fairly small space, and therefore relatively dense.
All of that is, of course, completely made up by yours truly.
Anyway, I always thought the twelve ships were because it's a Precursor tug, and it's pulling them along with some kind of tractor-beamy thing (much weaker than the Chmmr beam, so it's not useful in combat). There's a limit of 12 because it only has twelve beams, and you need one per ship, no matter what size the ship is.
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rgtm202006
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also its possible that the tug has 12 zero point space generators. basically the ship is turned into a null state in which it only exist as data or exist elsewhere until retreaved. It would be a variation and in some sense the inverse of zero point energy.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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In astrophysics, it is often useful to use the Lagrangian formalism. And the fundamental principle of Lagrangian mechanics is that you should minimise bS.
Oh, wait, that was dS.
The point stands.
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Deus Siddis
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You really hate zero point energy, don't you?
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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I don't like people making up stuff and cloaking it in technobabble. I don't mind people asking questions about these things.
ZPE just happened to be convenient to these people. As have Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the Pauli exclusion principle, the classically forbidden region, and others.
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Culture20
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But you can't have science-fiction magic without techno-babble. Naming magic with completely new words doesn't work well because they're unfamiliar. SF is rife with people using "wormholes" to transport items whole sans adverse effects, using hyper or sub space for travel (psuedo scientific uses of higher dimensional theory), grey goo (nanites run-amok), and time machines that allow disruption of causality.
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MasterGrazzt
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There's a difference between clear, understandable (at least relatively) explanations for elements of a hard sci-fi story, and just using five dollar words to confuse people so they don't ask questions.
That is, of course, for hard science fiction. I wish people would stop assuming all sf is "based on reality", and thus it's some kind of crime to use fantastical technology. It's not. Please stop calling Star Trek on warp technology. PLEASE.
That wasn't really to anyone in this thread. I agree, ZPE is the latest magical buzzword so people can have their characters fly across the universe in two seconds and still pretend they're writing a hard sf story.
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« Last Edit: June 08, 2006, 01:08:20 am by MasterGrazzt »
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"The premise, basically, a modern tragedy! Disdained senility, gore-tempered novelty, an inability, for cold reality!" - The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, "House of Clocks"
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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My earlier statement was incorrectly phrased. I said, "I don't like people making up stuff and cloaking it in technobabble"
I meant, "I don't like people making up stuff and trying to explain it with things that we already know perfectly well how they work, and it doesn't do that; as opposed to trying to explain it with things about which we do not have knowledge."
It'd be like someone trying to explain a science-fiction-y propulsion system by using an analogy with the way a kid moves the shopping cart he's stuck in. The kid is exploiting the rolling friction of the wheels. No such effect exists in space.
The other option is, of course, not to say how it works. That is the route that SC took, and it works fine.
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Draxas
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Well, fine until someone asks a question about it. Then you get all kinds of wild speculation, see: This thread.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Get geeky. Don't get geeky badly.
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Deus Siddis
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meant, "I don't like people making up stuff and trying to explain it with things that we already know perfectly well how they work, and it doesn't do that; as opposed to trying to explain it with things about which we do not have knowledge." Trouble is, with theoretical science, there is often few people who understand it well, and understandings are often temporary. You might base a book, game, movie or series off of one technology, only to find that quantum physicists later decide that it is no longer a viable possibility. Space warping to the nearest star requires as much energy as the sun will burns in its lifetime, worm-holes cannot exist, zero point energy is not harvestable, dark energy is just a property of space/gravity, etc. Soon nothing will be possible!
The other option is, of course, not to say how it works. That's actually an excellent solution, and one of my favorites.
That is the route that SC took, and it works fine. Actually, the Star Control series, like its Starflight predecessor, says that interstellar travel is made possible by passage through "Hyperspace."
Is Hyperspace travel a viable possibility in modern theoretical physics (I really do not know, I am just asking?)
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Holocat
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Explanation attempt 1: Let's assume the reason there is drag is that there is some opposing force to the MASS of your fleet. In this, I would say fuel economy is conserved because your twelve escorts have much less mass than the Vindicator.
Of course, this may not be true, and you can adjust the modules (and therefore mass) of your ship and not get differing fuel econ (other than additional thrusters).
Explanation attempt 2: If mass varies and fuel econ doesn't change, but changes when thrust does, what's the other factor? The only thing I can currently think of is the size of your hyperspace 'bubble.'
Let's assume that when you push into hyperspace, you have a sort of 'hyperspace field' around your ship, like Star Trek's warp field. If this is what causes fuel to be expended, then you can excuse the 12 ships by assuming the bubble you project is large enough to contain them all.
This is the more sensible explanation, as your thrusters (appear to) give identical thrust in realspace or hyperspace. At the very least, they are useable in both spaces and have similar effect; So, the fuel expended is to power some sort of hyperspace generator.
Of course, you don't exit hyperspace when you stop expending fuel, but this is not exclusive of the idea above. One could use a 'hyperspace generator' to 'push' or 'move' or both. The idea here is that it is required for both.
Edit: I just started a new game and there's something pertinent to this thread in what Hayes has to tell you about fuel. To probably misquote but hopefully carry the meaning of the message through, he says that since your ship is so big, the Vindicator requires massive amounts of fuel. This implies that a 'normal' ship that isn't capable of carrying hundreds of people has far, far greater fuel efficency, and this in turn gives a reason as to why one's escorts don't require additional fuel; They truly are small fry. Though deadly, majestic small fry.
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« Last Edit: June 16, 2006, 06:28:00 am by Holocat »
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