What are the potential consequences of using FTL technology in a sci-fi story?

[bp_psy]

Oh Doctor Who is amazing. And not a bit of science in it.

There is more science on the inside.

 

[Digitalism]

I dislike hokey spiritual references as ways of solving dilemmas in science fiction. The ending of battlestar galatica didn't do it for me. The same could be said for ds9, babylon 5's wrap up of the vorlon/shadow conflict, wrap up of lost, wrap up of Hyperion series, etc

 

[scifiscript]

A few scenes come to mind as far as being highly realistic in a sci-fi space drama.

Supernova(2000) Robin Tunney's character is blown out the hatch. The remaining oxygen in her lungs is expelled and instantly freezes propelling her deeper into space.

Aliens(1986) Sigourney Weaver's character hooking her arm on the ladder inside the airlock. The rest of the scene requires her to have the strength of She-Hulk. I still give the movie two thumbs up!

2001: A Space Odyssey(1968) When Hal 9000 pushed the doctor off into space. That has to be a very horrifying potential risk for any astronaut.

 

[scifiscript]

Guessing you mean FTL in terms of star-travel... it requires overcoming some specific problems that suggest that it is implausible ever... but SF is inherently speculative so one can speculate that the laws we know are a subset and some super-law will allow it in special circumstances.

Have you read through:
FTL Travel and relativity FAQ
... part IV deals with the specifics of what FTL will mean while the earlier parts provide a crash course on the physics. Most SF gets around the problems by making sure the circumstances never comes up.

FTL in general terms is possible already - just not useful for SF ... and there are suggestions that large amounts of negative energy via the Casimir effect will allow slightly FTL signals ... at least if some hyped proposals work. This is still fringe stuff but you can build a what-if story around it. If it does work, then 500 years is plenty of time for the technology to develop to exploit it.

FTL travel gets you lots of uber-tech - ftl communication, time travel etc.
The challenge for an author is to figure what role travel to different Worlds plays in the story.

Very dense information. The example of the life time of a muon was easier to understand than the moving train example.

 

[scifiscript]

In the movie Battleship, my suspension of disbelief was destroyed right out of the gate when the main male character won over the token hot girl by stealing a chicken burrito for her. Who gets won over by a chicken burrito?!

The rest of the movie seemed believable by comparison.

It must be the same irresistible quality as the $5 milkshake in Pulp Fiction.

 

[dkotschessaa]

I dislike hokey spiritual references as ways of solving dilemmas in science fiction. The ending of battlestar galatica didn't do it for me. The same could be said for ds9, babylon 5's wrap up of the vorlon/shadow conflict, wrap up of lost, wrap up of Hyperion series, etc

Avatar. Supposedly spiritual beings on an alien planet who are really just plugged into the tree internet all day.ugh

 

[Simon Bridge]

A few scenes come to mind as far as being highly realistic in a sci-fi space drama.

This should be useful to see what you would consider an acceptable level of unreality ;)

Supernova(2000) Robin Tunney's character is blown out the hatch. The remaining oxygen in her lungs is expelled and instantly freezes propelling her deeper into space.

The effect of exposure to hard vacuum is something movies almost always get wrong - but, to be fair, it is very difficult to do.

You seem to have been struck by the final exhalation (a) freezing, and (b) showing a noticable effect on Tunney's motion. Have you checked these - like, how fast would the air have to be expelled in order to produce that extra speed?

Aliens(1986) Sigourney Weaver's character hooking her arm on the ladder inside the airlock. The rest of the scene requires her to have the strength of She-Hulk. I still give the movie two thumbs up!

Hanging onto something was probably a reasonable thing to expect Ripley to do - but would it really have required super-strength to avoid being sucked out? The decompression occurred of an extended time so it didn't even count as "rapid decompression".

Real life: Flight Attendant C.B. Lansing was blown from Aloha Airlines Flight 243 when a large section of cabin roof (about 18 by 25 feet (5.5 m × 7.6 m)) detached; the report states she was swept overboard rather than sucked through the hole. She was unfortunate enough to be standing right below the initial rupture - other unsecured attendants were not affected. iirc: that was a "rapid decompression".

2001: A Space Odyssey(1968) When Hal 9000 pushed the doctor off into space. That has to be a very horrifying potential risk for any astronaut.

So it was the horror of the scene that struck you as the particularly realistic bit?

It's tricky to judge - astronauts talk about EVAs quite a lot - it's something of a highlight in a mission. They do not seem to particularly think about becoming untethered and floating freely and there are usually lots of safeguards.

By comparison with shuttle missions, the Discovery (2001:ASO) mission seems to have been characterized by a relaxed attitude to safety. (Though the day-to-day mission profile did kinda rely on the Hal 9000 system to work as expected.)

Astronaughts come from a group of people who are attracted to extremely dangerous jobs. If they were the sort of people prone to being overcome by horror at a developing situation, they would not be much use as astronauts.

Probably the best RL example of how astronauts act in hopeless situations of certain death would be on the Apollo 13 mission - the tension levels went up but everyone got on with the next thing on the list.

Most space accidents are very quick though and crew barely have time to realize that something is wrong. You can get a glimpse of the mentality, though, from cockpit recordings of test/stunt pilots - i.e. Art Scholl (died shooting a stunt sequence for "Top Gun"), caught in an inverted flat spin at 3000ft said "I've got a problem" and when he was still in that spin at 1500ft said "I've really got a problem".
http://www.skygod.com/quotes/lastwords.html

But it's an interesting question - I have not found a record of anyone putting it to an astronaught.

However - just a cursory examination of these examples suggests you are not all that worried about real science in your SF ... that's no biggie - the point is to tell a story not teach physics.

 

[Simon Bridge]

Very dense information. [FTL and relativity faq] The example of the life time of a muon was easier to understand than the moving train example.

Well it's a crash course - the information in there would normally be delivered to students over a year.
Curious though - most people prefer the moving train one: they find "muons" just too exotic and suffer brain-freeze.

You need to be able to get space-time diagrams and then read the last part for the main issues with FTL - but you see the nitty gritty of what needs to be overcome to have FTL travel and what else it gives you?

You can also see why so many movie producers will pay for a science consultant ;)
It's not trivial.

 

[scifiscript]

However - just a cursory examination of these examples suggests you are not all that worried about real science in your SF ... that's no biggie - the point is to tell a story not teach physics.

I'm into a realistic approximation of what I believe could reasonably occur.

I mentioned Ripley in Aliens needed the strength of She Hulk not because of rapid decompression. The ship she was on had artificial gravity. The queen alien grabbed Ripley with her tail. The airlock slowly opened.

A) Do the occupants in an airlock exposed to outer space experience weightlessness?

OR

B) Are you only exposed to weightlessness outside the confines of the artificial gravity?


This isn't a direct analogous situation but similar enough. In reference to being untethered in outer space.

I have over a decade experience working in a integrated steel mill. You can become dangerously comfortable working around molten metal. But soon as SHTF you're reminded the danger is always present. I'll try and paint a description for those unfamiliar with the steel industry. The BOP making a HEAT at night would be similar to watching a volcano erupt at night. Impressive and lethal all at once. If you can imagine a steel warehouse an 1/8 of a mile long during the coldest winter feeling like a warm spring breeze after a HEAT. Did I mention molten metal and water don't mix. The reason that people are able to do that level of work isn't because they're cut out for it. Its because they traded their personal health and happiness for $20hr.

 

[scifiscript]

Well it's a crash course - the information in there would normally be delivered to students over a year.
Curious though - most people prefer the moving train one: they find "muons" just too exotic and suffer brain-freeze.

You need to be able to get space-time diagrams and then read the last part for the main issues with FTL - but you see the nitty gritty of what needs to be overcome to have FTL travel and what else it gives you?

You can also see why so many movie producers will pay for a science consultant ;)
It's not trivial.

This might be a copout or a layman's perspective concerning FTL. If you believe in GOD with no further explanation simply that HE/SHE exists. Then how much of a stretch is FTL with no extensive explanation.

Scientist
Using the inverse of Lenz's law. I'm able to create single polarity spheres in a meta-stable configuration. Cosmic rays are channeled through a aerogel waveguide. This super saturation of nuclei allows me to strip mine the valence shell electrons as a means of FTL propagation.

Red Shirt Ensign
I don't doubt anything that you say. I'm just trying to make it through the end of the episode.​

 

[Simon Bridge]

I'm into a realistic approximation of what I believe could reasonably occur.

That's pretty much what I said.
So long as you realize that what you think is a realistic approximation of what you believe could reasonably occur is very unrealistic and unreasonable in terms of what actually happens in the Real Universe. I think it is important for you to realize this because you are on the record (above) seeking input about exactly this.

I mentioned Ripley in Aliens needed the strength of She Hulk not because of rapid decompression. The ship she was on had artificial gravity. The queen alien grabbed Ripley with her tail. The airlock slowly opened.

OH I was thinking of the final scene in Alien for some reason.

The scene you relate unrealistically portrays events and you have included it as an example, except for the strength, of something that fits the standard of verisimilitude you are after. The point of the analysis is to establish what standard you are prepared to accept. Your explanation cements in place that the standard in question is very low indeed.

A) Do the occupants in an airlock exposed to outer space experience weightlessness?

OR

B) Are you only exposed to weightlessness outside the confines of the artificial gravity?

The matter is not addressed in the film is it - the logic of the scene appears to be that the artificial gravity is not "switched on" inside the large airlock during the action. Whatever, it was the inertia and drag that were the issues rather than weight.

This isn't a direct analogous situation but similar enough. In reference to being untethered in outer space.

I have over a decade experience working in a integrated steel mill. You can become dangerously comfortable working around molten metal. But soon as SHTF you're reminded the danger is always present. I'll try and paint a description for those unfamiliar with the steel industry. The BOP making a HEAT at night would be similar to watching a volcano erupt at night. Impressive and lethal all at once.

I would be more dangerous next to the molten steele than next to an erupting volcano (depending on the volcano and the mill of course)

This might be a copout or a layman's perspective concerning FTL. If you believe in GOD with no further explanation simply that HE/SHE exists. Then how much of a stretch is FTL with no extensive explanation.

I have run an RPG where FTL space-travel used gods ... the jump-drive worked by the priest/engineer making the right kind of blood sacrifice over the engines at the right time.

Even with that sort of thing - I still had to deal with the consequences of having FTL in the story.
What happens to causality? If FTL is commonplace, then why isn't time-travel commonplace as well? Stuff like that may not get explained on-screen, but the writer having thought about it will show. IF I don't want characters to wonder about these things, then why not? The answers I come up with to these questions will flavor the story I am telling.

Having used a bit of technobabble you are faced with having to keep things consistent with it later, like if you have to write a sequal. In Star Trek, the Redshirt may worry that the big-boys keep inverting the polarity of the tachyon flux to the primary shield array and saving the day after his mates got killed. He would legitimately wonder why they don't just fly around with the tachyon flux polarity inverted all the time.

... and if the redshirts don't wonder about it, the audience will wonder why they are not wondering. OTOH: but show a short scene where prospective crew are given IQ/Personality tests with results like: "You are thick but obedient and unquestioning - welcome aboard, here's your red shirt... NEXT!" then everything is explained.Anyway - you are the one setting the standard for verisimilitude here. If you are really happy just having stuff work "just because" then what are you having this conversation for?