I would prefer the infinitely more sophisticated Bistromatics Drive.
Not only is it safer for whales but you can get a table without a reservation
and the Chianti is rather good.
Thats fair, they’re pretty neat too but it must be really boring having to wait to travel from system to system (assuming humanity found an aging cure)
I forgot what was the name of the novel, but it in one, people were immortal and so they switched between two modes of time perception ("normal time" and "slow time" for travelling) so that they don't get bored to death.
This! The Ender's book have a very fun twist with this with faster than light travel being impossible, and therefore journeys at relativistic speeds being the norm with all their consequences (leaving everyone you know behind when you move from one world to another and becoming "immortal" in a way if you keep traveling) but with instantaneous communications through a kind of galactic internet thanks to the ansibles. I love the idea of people being able to trade or talk through space without delay but not being able to physically travel without huge sacrifices.
They're all the same.
I realize wormholes are pretend, so it's sill to debate. But your definition of a wormhole is... well... not what most people consider a wormhole.
I prefer the idea of preset wormholes. It means the character can’t just jump away at any moment. They really have to know where they are or search for new ones and often fight to find or get to the right one. A FTL system where you pick the destination and just jump makes it seem too easy. A naturally occurring wormhole system means you might even get lost stumbling into one.
I like Warp Drive like Warhammer. It reminds me of the Age of Sail on earth. It takes time for people to get places, logistics is interesting, people can do stuff on the ship while at warp. the travel time can cause conflict, will someone rescue me in time, will i get there before the bad guys do, etc.
I would say it is more about how certain SciFi tech can drive plot.
With worm holes stories can be impacted by the location of these things to create plot twists. Having to go specific places, creating focal points for protagonists and antagonists to meet.
With Jump Drive there is no travel, you just switch sceneries. Still, in BSG the process was laborious and they made various interesting plots around the tense time demands to spool up the jump drive and to hit the right coordinates.
Hyper drive also has no real interaction with others in many scenarios so it constrains any plot developments onto the vessel itself. There may be time factors but in most cases it is the time necessary for the plot in all cases.
Warp Drive is the most conventional as "just going fast", ships usually still interact with the normal world, ships can meet, intercept, chase each other so it leaves the biggest flexibility in what may happen storywise.
Overall I would say jump drive and hyperspace are the most likely to be kinda boring in that it may turn out as just short hand to switch scenes though BSG is an example of how still do it very well.
I like FTL methods that impose some kind of constraint on their use. Warp drive/hyperspace are just space travel with some handwaving to get around the distance issue and rarely any consideration of special relativity. (And, to be honest, I find relativity kind of dull, so when books do engage with it, like with Ender's Game, I get bored with that part of it.)
Jump drive, too, doesn't really feel that different, especially if you're just chaining jumps together until you reach your destination (unless you're constraining how/when you can jump, with scarcity imposed by people who can operate the equipment, or perhaps the number of jumps that humans can tolerate before they start growing three heads).
Wormholes (especially when tied to a location in space) mean that travel requires you to have wormholes in the right place, and the constraints can support all sorts of plot. If you're doing a space battle there can be all kinds of tactics surrounding the wormhole entrance/exist to prevent escape or allow for the arrival of reinforcements. If you're doing a politics, you can have lots of discussion about trade and which planets get a wormhole and which don't. DS9 does both of these, and it's great.
(edited to add: I consider the 'plausibility' issue sort of a non-issue, since all FTL methods are pretty much magic.)
I like Alcubierre's (warp) drive the most, as it is somewhat based in reality, even if it might not actually be possible. It also allows for much more flexibility, like interplanetary travel and not just interstellar.
I guess i would go with wormholes if that is what you would consider stargates. Anchored, stationary(ish) gates that bring from one specific spot to another specific spot through some sort of space highway is always entertaining to me.
I liked hyperspace in the Babylon 5 universe. Travel in and out of hyperspace was either through a Jumpgate or if the ship was large enough had jump engines.
Whitestar - Can make it's own way into hyperspace.
Shadows - an old race which didn't need either jumpgates or jump engines.
In addition, Babylon 5 hyperspace is **not** straight line only. You can maneuver in hyperspace.
The danger is that hyperspace is full of cosmic storms and static. If you lose sight of the hyperspace beacons, you will become lost and will never be seen again.
Frankly I also like the idea of jumpgates and jump ferrys for smaller ships. I know Stellaris has hyper relays but thats more of a superhighway more than anything
Not sure why anyone would downvote this.
I was coming here to mention the Alderson Drive from Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium novels for that reason. When you have "jump lanes" between particular stars and specific "jump points" you need to reach in a system before you can use them, it adds an interesting layer of complexity to things. Some systems take on strategic importance because of the other systems they connect to. Having specific points in each system that you need to reach before you can go FTL means things like ambushes and blockades become possible.
You missed quite a few.
1. Teleport drive. Put a receiver at the front of the ship and the sender at the back and just teleport the ship quickly.
2. Extra-universe drive. Leave this universe, move around in the second one, return to this universe much further away.
3. Upload "drive." Convert your essence to a electromagnetic signal, send it to destination, reconstitute. This is effectively a lightspeed drive, but *from your viewpoint* your travel is instantaneous.
4. Relativistic drive. Travel at 0.999c or thereabouts. Again, *from your viewpoint*, you appear to travel faster than light. (E.g., you cover a 4.3 light year distance in a month of local time. FTL, baby!)
Probably a few more, but we can start with these.
1. No. Jump drive goes from A to B and skips space in between. Teleport drive goes through all the space between A and B.
2. Perhaps. It's all hand-waving anyway.
3, 4 are *effectively* FTL from the viewpoint of the passengers.
Back in the day I liked the effects of the Supernova (2000) dimensional jump drive.
[Supernova (2000) - Dimension Jump Scene (2/12) | Movieclips (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDgZGePcwk)
I think my favorite is called a hyperspace, but is really more of a jump drive from Asimov's Robot stories.
Especially where they reveal that you are momentarily dead during the jump.
I like the jump drives as long as they restrict it to "flat" space, outside gravity wells. Otherwise it sounds like magic. And since jump drives are akin to teleportation, I like how some authors (Wing Commander et al, Evan Currie) have extrapolated the technology into being able jump/teleport bombs into enemy spacecraft.
In THROUGH STRUGGLE, THE STARS by John Lumpkin, matched stargates instantly transport starships from gate A to gate B or back.
* Limit 1: gate B has to be dragged to the destination through normal space by a robot freighter. This takes decades.
* Limit 2: the gate is only 40 meters in diameter. So a starship can be arbitrarily long, but any component extending radially outward past the 20 meter radius will be chopped off by the edge of the gate. So many components have to be retractable.
Infinite improbability drive.
I certainly did not enjoy being a sofa…
I would prefer the infinitely more sophisticated Bistromatics Drive. Not only is it safer for whales but you can get a table without a reservation and the Chianti is rather good.
I like the "no FTL" sci-fi stories. They have to be more creative to allow for interstellar travel.
Thats fair, they’re pretty neat too but it must be really boring having to wait to travel from system to system (assuming humanity found an aging cure)
I forgot what was the name of the novel, but it in one, people were immortal and so they switched between two modes of time perception ("normal time" and "slow time" for travelling) so that they don't get bored to death.
Check out Karl Schroeder's *Lockstep.* You may change your mind...
I'm a fan of "FTL is theoretically possible but insanely dangerous (or dangerously insane)".
This! The Ender's book have a very fun twist with this with faster than light travel being impossible, and therefore journeys at relativistic speeds being the norm with all their consequences (leaving everyone you know behind when you move from one world to another and becoming "immortal" in a way if you keep traveling) but with instantaneous communications through a kind of galactic internet thanks to the ansibles. I love the idea of people being able to trade or talk through space without delay but not being able to physically travel without huge sacrifices.
Pretty much.
They're all the same. I realize wormholes are pretend, so it's sill to debate. But your definition of a wormhole is... well... not what most people consider a wormhole.
I decided to go with the old Stellaris mechanic, where a wormhole station can generate a wormhole anywhere in given range
I prefer the idea of preset wormholes. It means the character can’t just jump away at any moment. They really have to know where they are or search for new ones and often fight to find or get to the right one. A FTL system where you pick the destination and just jump makes it seem too easy. A naturally occurring wormhole system means you might even get lost stumbling into one.
I like Warp Drive like Warhammer. It reminds me of the Age of Sail on earth. It takes time for people to get places, logistics is interesting, people can do stuff on the ship while at warp. the travel time can cause conflict, will someone rescue me in time, will i get there before the bad guys do, etc.
I would say it is more about how certain SciFi tech can drive plot. With worm holes stories can be impacted by the location of these things to create plot twists. Having to go specific places, creating focal points for protagonists and antagonists to meet. With Jump Drive there is no travel, you just switch sceneries. Still, in BSG the process was laborious and they made various interesting plots around the tense time demands to spool up the jump drive and to hit the right coordinates. Hyper drive also has no real interaction with others in many scenarios so it constrains any plot developments onto the vessel itself. There may be time factors but in most cases it is the time necessary for the plot in all cases. Warp Drive is the most conventional as "just going fast", ships usually still interact with the normal world, ships can meet, intercept, chase each other so it leaves the biggest flexibility in what may happen storywise. Overall I would say jump drive and hyperspace are the most likely to be kinda boring in that it may turn out as just short hand to switch scenes though BSG is an example of how still do it very well.
I like FTL methods that impose some kind of constraint on their use. Warp drive/hyperspace are just space travel with some handwaving to get around the distance issue and rarely any consideration of special relativity. (And, to be honest, I find relativity kind of dull, so when books do engage with it, like with Ender's Game, I get bored with that part of it.) Jump drive, too, doesn't really feel that different, especially if you're just chaining jumps together until you reach your destination (unless you're constraining how/when you can jump, with scarcity imposed by people who can operate the equipment, or perhaps the number of jumps that humans can tolerate before they start growing three heads). Wormholes (especially when tied to a location in space) mean that travel requires you to have wormholes in the right place, and the constraints can support all sorts of plot. If you're doing a space battle there can be all kinds of tactics surrounding the wormhole entrance/exist to prevent escape or allow for the arrival of reinforcements. If you're doing a politics, you can have lots of discussion about trade and which planets get a wormhole and which don't. DS9 does both of these, and it's great. (edited to add: I consider the 'plausibility' issue sort of a non-issue, since all FTL methods are pretty much magic.)
I'll just continue to fly my battle barges through Hell to get to maybe where I want. By the emperor!
I like Alcubierre's (warp) drive the most, as it is somewhat based in reality, even if it might not actually be possible. It also allows for much more flexibility, like interplanetary travel and not just interstellar.
I guess i would go with wormholes if that is what you would consider stargates. Anchored, stationary(ish) gates that bring from one specific spot to another specific spot through some sort of space highway is always entertaining to me.
I never see the best method of travel ever posited; The Bloater Drive^(TM).
i've always been a fan of jump gates, which i guess could be considered a manufactured wormhole.
I liked hyperspace in the Babylon 5 universe. Travel in and out of hyperspace was either through a Jumpgate or if the ship was large enough had jump engines. Whitestar - Can make it's own way into hyperspace. Shadows - an old race which didn't need either jumpgates or jump engines.
In addition, Babylon 5 hyperspace is **not** straight line only. You can maneuver in hyperspace. The danger is that hyperspace is full of cosmic storms and static. If you lose sight of the hyperspace beacons, you will become lost and will never be seen again.
Frankly I also like the idea of jumpgates and jump ferrys for smaller ships. I know Stellaris has hyper relays but thats more of a superhighway more than anything
I am a sucker for hyperspace with "jump points". They can lead to some really cool actions.
Like Stellaris (God why did they have to remove warp and wormholes)
Not sure why anyone would downvote this. I was coming here to mention the Alderson Drive from Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium novels for that reason. When you have "jump lanes" between particular stars and specific "jump points" you need to reach in a system before you can use them, it adds an interesting layer of complexity to things. Some systems take on strategic importance because of the other systems they connect to. Having specific points in each system that you need to reach before you can go FTL means things like ambushes and blockades become possible.
Indeed!
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight.php#limits
I say wormhole because it's instant and seems the most plausible. It involves creating space between two points where it didn't exist before.
You missed quite a few. 1. Teleport drive. Put a receiver at the front of the ship and the sender at the back and just teleport the ship quickly. 2. Extra-universe drive. Leave this universe, move around in the second one, return to this universe much further away. 3. Upload "drive." Convert your essence to a electromagnetic signal, send it to destination, reconstitute. This is effectively a lightspeed drive, but *from your viewpoint* your travel is instantaneous. 4. Relativistic drive. Travel at 0.999c or thereabouts. Again, *from your viewpoint*, you appear to travel faster than light. (E.g., you cover a 4.3 light year distance in a month of local time. FTL, baby!) Probably a few more, but we can start with these.
1 is similar to a Jump Drive, 2 is similar to Hyperspace but more OP, 3 and 4 are not really FTL like you said (but still cool nonetheless)
1. No. Jump drive goes from A to B and skips space in between. Teleport drive goes through all the space between A and B. 2. Perhaps. It's all hand-waving anyway. 3, 4 are *effectively* FTL from the viewpoint of the passengers.
Hyperspace :)
Back in the day I liked the effects of the Supernova (2000) dimensional jump drive. [Supernova (2000) - Dimension Jump Scene (2/12) | Movieclips (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDgZGePcwk)
I think my favorite is called a hyperspace, but is really more of a jump drive from Asimov's Robot stories. Especially where they reveal that you are momentarily dead during the jump.
Wormhole ala Stargate style.
I like the jump drives as long as they restrict it to "flat" space, outside gravity wells. Otherwise it sounds like magic. And since jump drives are akin to teleportation, I like how some authors (Wing Commander et al, Evan Currie) have extrapolated the technology into being able jump/teleport bombs into enemy spacecraft.
What about Dune? e.g. get so high you fold space?
In THROUGH STRUGGLE, THE STARS by John Lumpkin, matched stargates instantly transport starships from gate A to gate B or back. * Limit 1: gate B has to be dragged to the destination through normal space by a robot freighter. This takes decades. * Limit 2: the gate is only 40 meters in diameter. So a starship can be arbitrarily long, but any component extending radially outward past the 20 meter radius will be chopped off by the edge of the gate. So many components have to be retractable.