Hypothetical sci-fi question about wormholes and elapsed time

[Pmfr]

Hi there.
I'm writing a sci-fi story for a video game.
At some point in time an advanced civilization from the future, say 4010, creates a wormhole for a not so advanced civilization spacecraft in the past, say 2050, to travel through. The idea is for the not so advanced civilization spacecraft to meet the advanced one in its own time, 4010.
The question is (theoretically and sci-fi speaking): how many years would have passed for the advanced civilization in 4010 until the not so advanced civilization spacecraft arrived?
Its possible that I'm missing some pseudo-scientific data so feel free to complement my reasoning.
I hope I made it clear.
Any help is appreciated .
Thank you.

PR

 

[mfb]

As your wormholes allow time travel the answer is whatever you want. Or whatever that civilization wants.

 

[Pmfr]

Still browsing the net and found this article today - time passes faster inside the wormhole which means that the advanced civilization would have to wait years.
So all I need to do is to define the time passed inside the wormhole and the equivalent in years outside.
Sci-fi speaking, of course. :)

PR

 

[mfb]

which means that the advanced civilization would have to wait years.

It doesn't mean that and the article doesn't discuss years anywhere.
Your wormholes connect very distant times anyway. If a civilization in 4010 can make a wormhole that will have a spacecraft from 2050 appear in 4015 then certainly it can simply put the exit of the wormhole 5 years earlier to make it appear in 4010. Or 4009. Nothing stopping them from doing that.

Note that the article you linked is about very speculative models and such a wormhole would need the existence of things that are generally expected to not exist.

 

[some bloke]

As said above, if the 4010's can make a wormhole appear in the past, then there's no real concept of how long they would have to keep the wormhole open for someone from the past to travel through it to the present. They could reasonably arrive as soon as the wormhole opens, as it would have opened in 2050.

The real concern, I suppose, is how long they would have to keep the wormhole open in the past. Assuming the hole has to remain in existence for the duration of the journey, and they shorten the wormhole as they travel through it, then in theory the wormhole could function like a bungee cord and seemingly "pull" whatever's trapped inside it as the 2 ends are drawn together. It'd be like walking on a path, and finding that the path is disappearing behind you as you walk.

It's an abstract concept, the idea of traveling through time, would it have by necessity any requirements of time spent travelling? Assuming that the traveler is not moving in space, then their speed is 0, displacement is 0, so the time spent traveling is also 0. It wouldn't be like driving down a tube, I don't think. Where would they be whilst travelling? Inside the wormhole, but I believe that wormholes are generally hypothesized to be where space-time has folded so that 2 parts of it touch, which in turn means that they are also not traveling any distance. It could be just like stepping through a doorway.

 

[member 656954]

I'm writing a sci-fi story for a video game.

I'd work through the player consequences for the various scenarios to decide what to write:

• Takes time to traverse the wormhole - what happens during this, does the player have to navigate the wormhole? Otherwise, it just seems dead time in the game.
• Takes no time to traverse the wormhole - assumes the point to get players between the two time periods, the wormhole is merely a mechanism for this.

Don't worry too much about the math, it's all speculative physics, just make up whatever you think works for the visual perspective of the game.

 

[happyhacker]

Let's call it something other than Wormholes can we? Gastly term!

 

[member 656954]

Let's call it something other than Wormholes can we? Gastly term!

Why? What's ghastly about it?

 

[Pmfr]

I'd work through the player consequences for the various scenarios to decide what to write:

• Takes time to traverse the wormhole - what happens during this, does the player have to navigate the wormhole? Otherwise, it just seems dead time in the game.
• Takes no time to traverse the wormhole - assumes the point to get players between the two time periods, the wormhole is merely a mechanism for this.

Don't worry too much about the math, it's all speculative physics, just make up whatever you think works for the visual perspective of the game.

For the sake of simplicity:
Not so advanced civilization = Joes
Advanced civilization = Apollos

The wormhole travel is an analepsis in the game introductory narrative (not playable). The present is as follows:

"The Joes arrive at the Apollo's system and find them in cryogenic sleep.
The Apollos knew that they had to wait a few years until the Joes arrived, mostly due to the lack of food supplies (given it's peculiar context, can't say more ), going into cryogenic sleep.
When the Joes finally arrive at the Apollo's planet, they awake them. At the awake, the Apollos become shocked when they realize that they spent dozens of years in cryo sleep (50 or so, for dramatic purpose).
One may assume that the Apollos, being such an advanced civilization, were able to predict the amount of time spent in cryo sleep or even do things in such a way that the Joes would arrive while they were still awake (avoiding the cryo sleep in the first place) - but the idea is just that: the Apollos shock of the time lost and its consequences."

So, I know that in sci fi almost anything is permitted, but I want the closest-rational possible explanation, an "Interstellar"-type-of-approach if you will (but inevitably always in the sci fi realm).

 

[mfb]

You have wormholes and time travel. It doesn't really matter. It's like trying to get the color of a time machine "right".

 

[Vanadium 50]

It's like trying to get the color of a time machine "right".

They are blue. #003b6f

 

[member 656954]

I want the closest-rational possible explanation

There is no rational explanation for the situation you describe if by 'rational' you mean "as it pertains to the laws of physics"!

But as the Apollo's presumably know enough to create a wormhole to the past, and so surely know enough to calculate how long it will take for the Joes to arrive, you're merely just looking for an unexpected event to cause the delay and the list is as long as your imagination:

• The ship suffered a fault and had to stop for repairs
• Opening a wormhole to the past triggers a causality violation that slows down time within the Apollo's universe and they have only 'overslept' with regard the incoming Joes (from the Apollo perspective, their clocks wake them up right on time)
• The stability of a wormhole opened so far into the past is fragile and it becomes "untethered", whipping around the timelines and slowly evaporating which adds time - and lots of turbulence - the Joes trip
• The Joes have stowaways on their ship who add mass which slows down their wormhole transit
• A rogue Apollo, unhappy with the whole situation, sabotages the cryo cabinets, intending for everyone to sleep beyond the Joes ability to survive, only to mutter "Curses" when he/she wakes up and finds the Joes shuttling their population up the timeline and now suddenly annoyed that the Apollos are awake and looking to spoil their plan
• The mere act of opening the wormhole to the past cleaves off a new universe that does not quite operate as the Apollos understand it and their transit calculations are subsequently wrong
• The Joes, realizing the transit burned through more energy from their hyperquantum carbon batteries than expected, recharge from the cryo cabinets, which go into power saving mode until their surface cilia radiation suckers grow sufficiently to harvest more power from ambient radiation

Forget rational, go for narrative tension to establish whatever plot dynamics you subsequently need in the game.

 

[BillTre]

I only write kind of technical things, but this:

Forget rational, go for narrative tension to establish whatever plot dynamics you subsequently need in the game.

seems like the heart of interesting story telling.