#Faster than light

[joehills]

None of our spaceships have floors like the cars on the Flintstones.

Some spacecraft already have gloveboxes for handling scientific experiments, but none of them have a place where pilots can slip their legs into sleeves that extend below the craft so they can run really fast while the craft moves forward.

It's going to be really embarrassing for humanity when we learn that every other spacefaring species figured out centuries ago that legs extending below the craft are essential for FTL travel.

[shpepyao]

do you remember FTL?

[toothpastecanyon]

You don't understand how happy this image makes me. I've been playing 5 years waiting to unlock the Rock B Cruiser so I can unlock the Rock C Cruiser so I can finally have a decent shot at unlocking the secret Crystal Cruiser without the stupid chain of 3 random events that have to go exactly right.

I know no one I know plays this game but I've literally been waiting to get this achievement for 5 years!!!

Maybe later I'll do a rant explain about how hard it is to get but for now I'm just so happy and also I should go to sleep lol

[gameraboy2]

Faster Than Light, art by Ron Miller, 1977

[mimicschest]

The overuse of FTL in scifi

I think that in a lot of space-settings, ftl is overused.

It is just taken as a given that it has ftl if it is in space.

I think that is sad. There is so much potential for stories in non-ftl space settings. All of those stories are missed just to have this trope. Its even in otherwise hard sci-fi stories. It makes me sad.

How do you get around?

This is a GOOD question, and one that should be actually explored, rather than handwaved. Nuclear torch drives, solar sails, Laser Highways. You can get around very fast using just these technologies. It will still take years to get to a neighboring star system - but not generations.

What about planets? Alien empires?

Admittedly, you cant simply go from one life-baring planet to another halfway across the galaxy. However, this is a good thing. Planets are often depicted as sparsely inhabited copies of earth with some kind of gimmick. By focusing on Major Planets, you are forgetting all the other *stuff* out there. Each kilometer sized rock could support a city-state of a million people in comfort. There are *millions* of those just in the inner system.

As for aliens? We are dealing with a no-ftl space civilization. You have thousands of years, advanced technology, and people living in a huge variety of environments. That means speciation. Wait long enough, and any given star system will have dozens of culturally and biologically distinct groups with bodies and minds vastly different than most depicted aliens.

Deep Time

With ftl, you generally avoid questions like, "what will this society look like after ten thousand years and a population that numbers in the quintillions?" - This is an interesting question. Like, you could have a society dedicated just to maintaining a interstellar highway, which also safeguards and updates the Encyclopedia Galactica. People take thousand year pilgrimages through the dark of interstellar space, learning the ways of the reclusive Librarians, in order to gain their support for the governorship of their home system.

As mentioned above, over time, you can expect speciation. How would humans living in zero-gravity in hollowed out asteroids look after twenty thousand years? What about those living in a high-gravity world? Or the group that cybernetically changed themselves to live in a vacuum? How does culture, society, and politics change?

Like, I get it. Explore new worlds, meet aliens. Its cool. Its been done to death. You know how much modern space fiction doesn't have ftl? Almost none of it. Even the expanse eventually got ftl.

[drnikolatesla]

Happy π Day!!!

By J.J.J.

While experimenting in Colorado Springs in 1899, Nikola Tesla discovered that the earth as a whole had certain periods of vibrations, and by using his large oscillator, he could impress electrical vibrations at the same periods upon it creating more energy within the earth. This process is referred to as constructive interference (the interference of two or more waves of equal frequency and phase, resulting in their mutual reinforcement and producing a single amplitude equal to the sum of the amplitudes of the individual waves). By doing this repeatedly using massive amounts of energy previously unheard of, Tesla was able to transmit energy from his transmitter around earth and back to his receiver traveling at a mean velocity of 292,815 miles per second (over 100,000 miles per second faster than the speed of light). This velocity can be confirmed in his patent No. 787,412, filed May 16, 1900, titled "Art of Transmitting Electrical Energy Through the Natural Mediums." Many electrical experimenters have proven this velocity, including Jonathan Zenneck and Arnold Sommerfeld. The mathematical equation to this speed was developed by English scientist and inventor Charles Wheatstone, who experimented and calculated that the velocity of electrostatic induction through a wire was v=π/2( c ). If we compare Wheatstone's equation with Tesla's measurements, it looks like this:

v = average velocity of Tesla’s electrical current round earth (miles per second)

(You can plug in any metric and get the same results)

c = speed of light (miles per second)

v = π / 2 (186,300)

v = 1.57 (186,300)

v = 292,491

I know most may question the ability to transmit anything faster than the speed of light; however, the speed of light is a constant, not a limit. The velocity of light is an expression of the ratio of energy to mass; Tesla’s waves functioned on different dimensions. The electromagnetic waves we use in today’s technology travel at the speed of light, but due to the nature of these waves, they diminish with distance. This phenomenon is because the electromagnetic lines of force and the magnetic lines of force intercept at right angles to one other, causing resistance (radiation resistance). This is also why the waves eventually lose energy. Tesla, on the other hand, used an oscillating wave (or a longitudinal wave), in which the electromagnetic and magnetic lines of force run parallel with each other (hence there is no friction or loss of energy). As a result, the more power he used, the faster and further these waves could travel.

“What will be achieved by waves which do not diminish with distance, baffles comprehension.“ –Nikola Tesla

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity indicating that "nothing can travel faster than light" is now generally accepted as scientific fact and currently taught in most academic books. However, Tesla’s work challenging this theory certainly warrants further study into this area. First, Tesla’s experiments were far more in-depth than his colleagues’ work, as well as utilizing more advanced equipment to conduct the experiments themselves. Secondly, he provided solid and sufficient empirical evidence concretely refuting Einstein’s theory. Based on this, Tesla’s groundbreaking work should, at a minimum, be acknowledged in today’s world and certainly further explored.

[cold-black-and-infinite]

Trent Reznor in Lead Into Gold - "Faster than Light" (1990)

[comrade-blog-edition]

There is something really satisfying about setting an entire enemy ship on fire.

[staswalle]

We only have ONE SHOT.

a funkly lil OneShot x FTL piece

[monody-monody]

This run came to a very dramatic end.

[vgtrackbracket]

Video Game Track Bracket Round 2

Dead Voxel from Minecraft

vs.

Last Stand from FTL: Faster Than Light

Propaganda under the cut. If you want your propaganda reblogged and added to future polls, please tag it as propaganda or otherwise indicate this!

Dead Voxel:

don't let the ambience at the beginning fool you. listen to it, all the way through. this song is peaceful sorrow and desolation.

[jam-does-audio]

IT ONLY TOOK 5 YEARS (and multiple depressive episodes) TO BEAT THAT STUBID FLAGSHIP

[bethanythebogwitch]

Star Wars: we travel faster than light by moving through hyperspace.

Star Trek: we travel faster than light by forming a bubble around the ship that distorts local spacetime.

Warhammer 40,000: we travel faster than light by using technology so ancient that nobody has any idea how it works, maintained by the rituals of machine-worshipping tech-priests. These machines allow us to enter the Warp, a realm composed of every thought and emotion of ever being in the galaxy twisted to the absolute extremes of madness and corruption. Our trip is guided by a three-eyed navigator whose usefulness is the only reason he hasn't been killed for the sin of being born a mutant. The ship is manned by thousands of slaves and conscripts, many of whom have sent their entire lives aboard and will never be allowed to set foot beyond their quarters and workspaces. We all pray to the holy God-Emperor that the navigator isn't driven mad by his experiences, we don't fly into an unexpected current, and that the ancient shields around the ship don't fail for even an instant or daemons made of the worst thoughts and experiences of mortalkind will spew forth into our reality to drag the crew off to an eternal fate so horrific that none alive can even imagine it. As we travel, walls may start to bleed, arcane runes can appear by themselves, and the crew will be tempted into the grasp of the Chaos Gods by whispers in their heads. When we arrive, we may find that only weeks passed for the rest of the galaxy while the crew experienced months or years. We may even arrive to our destination before we lift. Hundreds of thousands if these trips happen every day across the galaxy and the trillions who die on the crews are a mere footnote in bureaucratic notes that nobody will ever read.

Star Wars and Star Trek:

[natalie-alkaline-6]

TLDR FTL

[whereserpentswalk]

When I was a kid I thought ftl existed but had just very recently been invented so that's why nobody was utilizing it yet. And now I'm imagining an alternate history where ftl started existed in the 2000s.

[chaotic-would-you-rathers]

Would You Rather...

A: Become leader of a small, newly terraformed swamp planet colonization team of an interstellar (human, with FTL, lets say around 1000 star systems) civilization in the far future (where aliens have not been encountered), you will be in charge of a small team of 12 other people and millions of robots to prepare the planet for inhabitation (and will be fairly compensated based on your work, the civilization in question is whatever you personally consider closest to a utopia) you will have to live on the planet afterwards, you have 5 years before the first batch of 10,000 colonists arrive. B: Become a low ranking noble in an interstellar feudal human civilization in the far future (with FTL, lets say 10,000 star systems) (where aliens have not been encountered) in charge of a single recently colonised gas giant (where a layer of atmosphere has been made breathable, and people live on floating cities extracting gas from lower layers) you are obligated to live on your planet, manage its government, military and finances independantley, pay taxes to your liege, and produce heirs. Your planet has a population of 500 million.