Mass Effect 2 Time Traveling ?
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I once watched a show on the science channel i don't know what it was called but Morgan Freeman was narrating it they where talking about the speed of light, so when your going the speed of light that's the fastest nature will allow you to go. So lets say your on a train going the speed of light then you run from the back of the train to the front of it nature will slow you down so you don't break the speed of light. So 100 years pass outside the train the people in side are being slowed down so to them it's like two weeks. (sorry if i got it wrong i watched the show about a year ago so imam a little fuzzy) also UNKOWNINGCOGNITO that's a really good point. if they have the technology to hit the speed of light why can't they time travel?
According to Special Relativity, apparently yes. I've never quite understood why myself, but yes, Einstein's equations say so.
A bit off topic but maybe the original reapers were originally humans who went back in time but then they only could if the reapers built the mass relays but they could only do that if humans went back in time.... ::brain explodes::
The general Sci Fi trick is that faster-than-light travel need not involve actually traveling faster than light, in a physical sense. For example, the Warp Drive involves slightly shrinking space in front of the ship and expanding it behind the ship. So the ship is in fact stationary, but an observer outside would see it zing along at impossible speeds-- nothing can go faster than light, the exception being nothing-- space itself. Theres no problem because the ship itself is not actually traveling faster than light.
I don't remember the mumbo jumbo the Mass Effect folks dreamed up to explain the mass effect described in the game.
I don't remember the mumbo jumbo the Mass Effect folks dreamed up to explain the mass effect described in the game.
...okay. First of all, humans did not invent FTL. They copied it from the Protheans (who copied it from the Reapers), an extinct species that left a massive data cache on Mars. They weren't the first to do so, as evidenced by every other species in the Mass Effect universe. They most certainly invent the Mass Relays. Hell, they don't even know how they actually work, aside from "ships from one relay transfer to another".
With that out of the way. Yes, they are going faster than light and are probably utilizing some form of time travel. That's sci-fi. Might as well pick apart that detail with every other franchise with FTL communication. Like EVE or Star Wars or whatever. They can't travel back in time, because plot.
Either way, If I recall correctly, Mass Relays work by creating a "corridor" in time and space between the two relays which the ship travels through.
With that out of the way. Yes, they are going faster than light and are probably utilizing some form of time travel. That's sci-fi. Might as well pick apart that detail with every other franchise with FTL communication. Like EVE or Star Wars or whatever. They can't travel back in time, because plot.
Either way, If I recall correctly, Mass Relays work by creating a "corridor" in time and space between the two relays which the ship travels through.
1. If you are not moving [in relation to X], time flows normally [exactly the same as for X].
2. If you move [relative to X] at a speed less than the speed of light, time [for you, relative to X] slows down as you approach c.
3. If you move at the speed of light, time does not pass for you.
4. If you move faster than the speed of light, it's implied that you will move backwards through time [relative to X, of course].
It's fairly hard to test 3 and 4, though. It's also unclear how the Relays factor in this - perhaps you're not moving at all and there is no time weirdness.
2. If you move [relative to X] at a speed less than the speed of light, time [for you, relative to X] slows down as you approach c.
3. If you move at the speed of light, time does not pass for you.
4. If you move faster than the speed of light, it's implied that you will move backwards through time [relative to X, of course].
It's fairly hard to test 3 and 4, though. It's also unclear how the Relays factor in this - perhaps you're not moving at all and there is no time weirdness.
The Mass Effect codex says that the mass effect field that allows FTL travel also cancels out the relativistic time dilation effects
It doesn't matter if you're not moving at all. According to Einstein if you reach one place sooner than light could have traveled there from your original location, you screw up causality.Coldie said:
But that's the thing you can't go as fast as the speed of light. there are theoretical ways to bypass that rule, by moving the conventional way it's impossible to reach the speed of light.
Well, naturally, there are always going to be issues when you start breaking the laws of physics. But if the relays are the sole source of transportation in the galaxy, the problems will be at least be consistent. Waiting hundreds and thousands of years for the light to catch up probably doesn't concern anyone (except Greenpeace), so there is no immediate effect.lithium.jelly said:
And according to Farnsworth, choke on that, causality!
Mass Relays don't make ships go faster than Light. Mass Relays create a column of "low mass space", where a very slight acceleration launches you out at speeds that, to anyone outside the column, will seem relativistic.
Think of it like a hypothetical airplane traveling through a sustained column of air underwater. It's not touching the water, so it doesn't feel that resistive force, and hence can continue flying. The Mass Effect universe essentially treats space (As we know it) as the water medium, with Mass effect fields being able to create a medium that is literally less dense than space itself.
Is that utter garbage, according to the science we already know? Yes, yes it is. But that's the point of Sci-fi: The acknowledgement that we DON'T know everything there is to know about the universe.
Think of it like a hypothetical airplane traveling through a sustained column of air underwater. It's not touching the water, so it doesn't feel that resistive force, and hence can continue flying. The Mass Effect universe essentially treats space (As we know it) as the water medium, with Mass effect fields being able to create a medium that is literally less dense than space itself.
Is that utter garbage, according to the science we already know? Yes, yes it is. But that's the point of Sci-fi: The acknowledgement that we DON'T know everything there is to know about the universe.
So we're just accepting that there are reapers, massive organic-based machines, the nature of whose existence we cannot begin to comprehend, farming an entire galaxy once every 50,000 years by utilizing a galaxy-wide network of technology so advanced that only one of the farmed species has ever even begun to understand how it works on the small scale....
but we doubt their ability to deal with the physical effects of the use of said technology.
but we doubt their ability to deal with the physical effects of the use of said technology.
Maybe they aren't traveling faster than light, perhaps they are just traveling at say, .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 feet per second below the speed of light, at that speed it wouldn't make much of a difference really
in the real world, perhaps. More correctly, it couldn't happen. The laws of physics dictate that nothing can break the light speed barrier. You move through time and space at a combined speed exactly the speed of light. If you move through space at the speed of light, you move at no speed through time. The logic is if you go faster then you'll end up going negative velocity through time, which doesn't make any sense - that light speed barrier will always block you because it's literally all we have moving us through time.
In science fiction though, faster then light travel is a widely accepted trope, even by the nerdiest among us because it makes for much more interesting stories if we can reach other solar systems in days or hours instead of years.
We just sort of let that slide in Sci-Fi, because, like I said, it's much better that way.
In science fiction though, faster then light travel is a widely accepted trope, even by the nerdiest among us because it makes for much more interesting stories if we can reach other solar systems in days or hours instead of years.
no, the distance traveled over the time it takes to reach the destination is clearly Faster then Light Speed.Swny Nerdgasm said:
We just sort of let that slide in Sci-Fi, because, like I said, it's much better that way.
As long as relative speeds of the mass relays are similar, the observable effects of time travel would be negligible because even though you pass into earth's past when you go through a relay, you're so damn far away that it really makes no observable difference. The result is that you have a bunch of relays hooked together which plop you down into different points on the galactic timeline (assuming similar reference frames between the relays).
What really matters, though, is that the time in each of the relays' zones continues linearly and similarly to all other zones.
Example: If going into a basement transports you back in time, and you have no way to do anything which has effects outside the basement, then when you leave the basement, how can you perceive that you traveled in time at all?
What really matters, though, is that the time in each of the relays' zones continues linearly and similarly to all other zones.
Example: If going into a basement transports you back in time, and you have no way to do anything which has effects outside the basement, then when you leave the basement, how can you perceive that you traveled in time at all?
Well, mass relays aren't the only way one can travel at FTL speeds - they travel regularly at FTL speeds to get from one system to another, and it was used to escape the collector ship after syncing EDI to it. I believe it's the same way Star Trek and Futurama did it - move space, not the vessel, only this time using Mass Effect fields. this means that time dilation is a non-issue. With Mass Relays, I always thought as them as sort of like wormholes, like space is a piece of paper; to get from one end to another, folding the paper and then going directly from one point to another is faster than traversing the entire piece of paper.
Mass Effect is a Sci-Fi game series, Sci-Fi extrapolating modern-day science to explain the science of the area which the story takes place, be it another planet, or the future, or both. Everything else they explain in this way, so it's valid to question this. And they do explain it.midshipman01 said:
the Quantum Entanglement communication device the Illusive Man and Shepard use would cause issues in your theory.randomsix said: