What do you think of this FTL/time travel engine?

[aslan227]

So, I have this idea for the FTL engine for artistic purposes and I wanted to ask if anybody could point out it's flaws. I would greatly appreciate if you were willing to discuss them further. It is just a rough summary, so if you want me to disclose more details, ask away.

The idea is as follows:
All the containers, vessel even the warp field are made from either photonic matter or oscillating electromagnetic field in which most of the particles in it would be at least from 97% photons and the rest electrons. I haven't given much thought to deciding on this one.
In the first container there would be degenerate fermionic matter that would be exposed to tachyons and after some time it would start to tachyonically condensate. One of the by-product of the condensation would be gravitational waves that would increase the gravity of the dark energy/vaccum in the second container next to it. The increase of gravity will make the dark energy/vaccum increase its imaginary mass.
I haven't really flashed out the final stage yet. I know that the dark energy/vacuum with increases imaginary mass will be led through the third chamber to some sort of warp field generator. The third chamber will also release the by-products of the tachyonic condensation.
Unfortunately I don't know how to describe the individual parts of the warp field generator. I'm still thinking through that one.
Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Bystander]

Just say what it does---detailed "hows" are not the stuff of even mediocre space operas.

 

[BWV]

Perhaps build a prototype?

Seriously, I read a fair amount of SF and no one seems to be writing about FTL travel, except maybe Peter Hamilton. Read Alistair Reynolds - great SF with no violations of relativity

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Just say what it does---detailed "hows" are not the stuff of even mediocre space operas.

I second this. Unless an author has an interesting set of made up physics whose consequences they are going to explore in a smart and entertaining way there’s no need to talk about how technobabble works. Set explicit capabilities and limits, then write the story given those.

 

[Drakkith]

The idea is as follows:
All the containers, vessel even the warp field are made from either photonic matter or oscillating electromagnetic field in which most of the particles in it would be at least from 97% photons and the rest electrons. I haven't given much thought to deciding on this one.
In the first container there would be degenerate fermionic matter that would be exposed to tachyons and after some time it would start to tachyonically condensate. One of the by-product of the condensation would be gravitational waves that would increase the gravity of the dark energy/vaccum in the second container next to it. The increase of gravity will make the dark energy/vaccum increase its imaginary mass.
I haven't really flashed out the final stage yet. I know that the dark energy/vacuum with increases imaginary mass will be led through the third chamber to some sort of warp field generator. The third chamber will also release the by-products of the tachyonic condensation.

Don't bother detailing this. It doesn't make any sense to those who know what all these terms mean and the people who don't know can't understand it anyways. So you haven't peaked anyone's interest in your device.

Instead, make your time travel device interesting in some manner. Perhaps invent one specific detail of how it works that you can work into your story to generate a problem for the characters to overcome. Perhaps you characters are lost in the past and have to somehow find uranium to power it. Maybe it's more mystical than technological. Maybe it's an alien device that the characters can barely operate, let alone understand. Heck, it could be so commonplace that every 11-year-old can have an hour's worth of time travel per week as an allowance.

Remember that it's not how it works in detail that matters, it's how it plays into your story.