✅ 🦊 CheckFoxSep 5, 2018

Thinking about FTL travel in my universe:

Warp: basically only good for travel within star systems

Hyperspace: preferred mode of travel, but has limited bands of empty universes where it's viable, and gets crowded in busy areas.

Wormholes: only for the bold (pirates/smugglers!). Leftover from an ancient civilization, mostly unstable or unpredictable.

Jump drives: the nuclear weapons of the far future. Highly regulated, and only big ships can produce enough power to handle it. #AmWriting

Show threadOntploffing BoerSep 5, 2018
@checkfox What's the difference between warp and jump? Is it just distance traversed and power requirements?
Show thread✅ 🦊 CheckFoxSep 5, 2018
@ontploffing Jump is instant and takes a lot more power. Warp is slow, but safe and efficient.
Show threadOntploffing BoerSep 5, 2018
@checkfox Oh, interesting. I'd've thought they were both instant, but warp was limited by power curves to only be feasible within gravity wells, where traversing the boundary between adjacent wells would require power proportionate to delta-V, while jump somehow avoided that power requirement in order to go between low points of wells. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/681:_Gravity_Wells
681: Gravity Wells - explain xkcd

explain xkcd is a wiki dedicated to explaining the webcomic xkcd. Go figure.

Show thread✅ 🦊 CheckFoxSep 5, 2018
@ontploffing I'm carefully avoiding thinking too hard about the science and mechanics of it aside from keeping usage consistent. I don't want to get into a technobabble MacGuffin of the week kind of thing that always seems to happen with soft scifi.
Show threadOntploffing Boer
@checkfox We're different writers, but I think thinking about the mechanics of it is rewarding even the mechanics don't make it into the story, because the mechanics help shape the worldbuilding that narrows the scope of what's possible in a setting, and that affects your characters. Maybe the iceberg never surfaces in the story, but your characters travel on a ship that has been designed to take icebergs into account, and the threat of icebergs raises a character's anxiety.
Sep 5, 2018 at 6:12pmWeb
Show thread✅ 🦊 CheckFoxSep 5, 2018
@ontploffing Makes sense. I’ll at least have a hidden logic to it to avoid holes.