Sci-Fi writers: How do you explain FTL speeds?

[Thaluikhain]

Who cares? FTL is a plot device, to get people from Plot Point A, to Plot Point B. How fast it is, and how it works, is quite literally, irrelevant to the story.

Not necessarily. The method of travel for works set in the real world may sometimes be important, the same could be true of purely fictional stuff. Doesn't have to be, of course.

Believe it or not, this is actually a real life thing. The military is actually experimenting with this

Those two sentences don't necessarily go together. "The military" is, or has, experimented with all sorts of things, some which turned out to be useful, and some which were completely rubbish. And they've claimed to be doing a lot more. The US military has been *this close* to making invisibility fields for decades, they were able to detect human heartbeats through walls in the 80s, they could have lasers on satellites to protect from missiles, etc. The USSR may have been fooled at the time, but there's no truth in such claims.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I think, primarily, what people have to keep in mind is that, even if a piece of fiction is trying to ground itself in some sort of scientific basis, it's still fiction.

Or in other words: if space fantasy or space opera has FTL travel go at the speed of plot, all "hard" science fiction has to do is have the plot need to interact with the speed of FTL.

For example, in Star Wars, hyperspace travel tends to end when the protagonists reach the next plot point. In Star Trek, they have a travel time that they have to make a point of modifying if they want to reach the next plot point, and delays are their own plot point.

Anything past that an the distinction becomes how consistent and believable your brand of technobabble is.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Magic!

...no, really, magic. I'm one of those sick, disgusting heretics who stirs far too much fantasy into his sci-fi, so wizards, long-range teleportation, magi-tech engines, mythical elements, the power of the gods themselves... all that tasty stuff tends to be how I throw ships around at the speed of soundlight. Leave the hard stuff for the other writers, I like my science softer than a bucket of ice-cream in the Australian Summer.

As for the harder kinds of FTL travel... well, to be perfectly honest, until we have actual functioning FTL travel, it's all theoretical and/or fictional, even the hard stuff. What you're working with really depends on what kind of plot you're going for and just how 'hard' you want your science to be; and, since it's all fictional, you can even work with some of the more impossible methods by introducing something that makes them probable (i.e. a new element that provides the energy for FTL; oddly stable wormholes that allow starship travel ala. Star Trek Deep Space 9 or Farscape; cryo-pods and long-term travel with generational ships; pioneer work with space-folding tech; straight up inter-dimensional travel through alien tech and new elements; aliens did it; the list goes on and on...), still explaining them in a 'hard' way by essentially going 'while we don't have this yet, here's how it would work if we did'. So long as it works for your story and you can explain it well enough that the reader doesn't go 'hang on, that doesn't make any sense', it's all good.

 

[KaraFang]

Can we stop saying FTL is impossible?

We're STILL finding new particles every day and the arguements are still lively if it is or is not possible.

I do like ST's ideas: ie: Warp drive, powered by a matter/antimatter detonation inside a directing magnetic bottle to provide the energy equivalent to plasma generated by a star into coils formed of material we currently have not discovered to warp space in front and behind, with a field projecting "deflector" dish and other non propulsion warp fields projected in in front to ensure material is swept out in front of the vessel pushing it along at FTL speed.

I also liked their idea of Quantum slipstream drive as well, one direction, VERY hard to turn but nippy in relative terms.


Event Horizon was a pretty "meh"movie on DVD (it's better on VHS as the way they did the "horror" scenes was almost subliminal as you only caught a few of them..) but the drive was clever (despite it apparently opening a hole to hell, a la doom)

 

[happyninja42]

Who cares? FTL is a plot device, to get people from Plot Point A, to Plot Point B. How fast it is, and how it works, is quite literally, irrelevant to the story.

Not necessarily. The method of travel for works set in the real world may sometimes be important, the same could be true of purely fictional stuff. Doesn't have to be, of course.

Method of travel is never important to a story, not in the sense you are implying. Please name one story/show where the nuts and bolts explanation of how the transportation system works, was a regular, integral part to the story. I'm not talking about that one episode, where the drive stopped working, I'm talking about an everyday issue to the plot. I doubt you can find one, because even in hard scifi, where they "show their work", it still boils down to just being the method by which the protagonists are moved from Plot Point A to Plot Point B. It doesn't matter how warp speed actually functions, and if it's realistic or not. It also doesn't matter precisely how fast each level of warp speed is, in astronomical terms. If the writer needs them to show up "in the nick of time", they do, and it doesn't matter how fast they have to go to get there. If the writer needs them to show up "just too late", then they will.

No story in the history of ever has ever hinged on the combustion rate of fuel to energy provided, unless it's some engineers masturbatorial fan fiction. It's just not an issue.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Method of travel is never important to a story, not in the sense you are implying. Please name one story/show where the nuts and bolts explanation of how the transportation system works, was a regular, integral part to the story.

40k, where interstellar travel (for humans) requires navigators, and runs the risk of warp thingies. The Spelljammer setting, where things work differently inside or outside of the Crystal Spheres. Stargate, where having a fancy alien thing only allows you to go certain places, you still need a plane to go to Russia. For that matter, any show where people own a car but can't fly it to Russia because it's established that cars don't work that way.

That's magic A is magic A [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA], often a big part of internal consistency and retaining suspension of disbelief.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Who cares? FTL is a plot device, to get people from Plot Point A, to Plot Point B. How fast it is, and how it works, is quite literally, irrelevant to the story.

Not necessarily. The method of travel for works set in the real world may sometimes be important, the same could be true of purely fictional stuff. Doesn't have to be, of course.

Method of travel is never important to a story, not in the sense you are implying. Please name one story/show where the nuts and bolts explanation of how the transportation system works, was a regular, integral part to the story. I'm not talking about that one episode, where the drive stopped working, I'm talking about an everyday issue to the plot. I doubt you can find one, because even in hard scifi, where they "show their work", it still boils down to just being the method by which the protagonists are moved from Plot Point A to Plot Point B. It doesn't matter how warp speed actually functions, and if it's realistic or not. It also doesn't matter precisely how fast each level of warp speed is, in astronomical terms. If the writer needs them to show up "in the nick of time", they do, and it doesn't matter how fast they have to go to get there. If the writer needs them to show up "just too late", then they will.

No story in the history of ever has ever hinged on the combustion rate of fuel to energy provided, unless it's some engineers masturbatorial fan fiction. It's just not an issue.

What about The Martian? I don't recall the exact techno-jargon and whatnot, but...

Spoiler: Plot details

... basically the whole story was about how to get Matt Damon back from Mars after his crewmates, thinking him dead, left him and began their 2-year journey back to Earth. It basically ends up with the crew crunching the numbers and determining they could afford to turn the ship around still have enough "juice" to make it home.

 

[happyninja42]

Method of travel is never important to a story, not in the sense you are implying. Please name one story/show where the nuts and bolts explanation of how the transportation system works, was a regular, integral part to the story.

40k, where interstellar travel (for humans) requires navigators, and runs the risk of warp thingies. The Spelljammer setting, where things work differently inside or outside of the Crystal Spheres. Stargate, where having a fancy alien thing only allows you to go certain places, you still need a plane to go to Russia. For that matter, any show where people own a car but can't fly it to Russia because it's established that cars don't work that way.

That's magic A is magic A [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA], often a big part of internal consistency and retaining suspension of disbelief.

But they don't explain how it works in the technical sense, the Stargate I mean. Never messed with 40K so I can't speak to it, but I'm betting they don't go into the intricate details of how their propulsion works, and make it make sense, which is what the OP is asking about.

What about The Martian? I don't recall the exact techno-jargon and whatnot, but...

Fair enough, that is a good example, but they still don't explain it, which again, is what the OP is talking about. They say "it's Ion engine tech." and basically leave it at that. And it's possible that the math doesn't actually add up properly for the time they took to get back to Mars, based on actual Ion theory for propulsion. My point though, is sort of what James Cameron's response was to the Mythbusters "debunking" of the wooden door that Rose floated on in Titanic. He basically said "the prop we used might've been big enough, but in the story it would've been smaller. The "reality" of the tale is that the door wouldn't hold them both out of water, and Jack was doomed to die. The end."

In the end, writers (most at least, I will conceded that the guy who wrote the Martian went to insane lengths to make his stuff be as accurate as possible), simply don't give a shit about the details of that kind of stuff, and just use it as a plot device to literally move the story along.

 

[maninahat]

I tend to keep the science in my science fiction as vague and hand wavy as possible. For instance in a story I am writing now, I have to justify why a giant space hauler should dip into the atmosphere of a gas giant en route to somewhere, rather than simply pass by at a distance and avoid the massive gravity well/air resistance/heat build up/inevitable FUBAR. The "science" justification is that the ship gets a tremendous amount of power from atmospheric flying as the engines work on a kind of cushion of static electricity, repulsing the ship along the planet's unique atmosphere. Then there is a quip about how this is the most economical way to shift thousands of tons of material from one moon to another. In reality, I just thought it would be an interesting setting for a space story, and that the different gas clouds/radiation/fuzz/gravity could all add peril and twists to action scenes.

As for faster than light travel? I would make something about "piggybacking" on tachyon particles (which is I think how K-PAX justifies it).

 

[ckriley]

I tend to keep the science in my science fiction as vague and hand wavy as possible. For instance in a story I am writing now, I have to justify why a giant space hauler should dip into the atmosphere of a gas giant en route to somewhere, rather than simply pass by at a distance and avoid the massive gravity well/air resistance/heat build up/inevitable FUBAR. The "science" justification is that the ship gets a tremendous amount of power from atmospheric flying as the engines work on a kind of cushion of static electricity, repulsing the ship along the planet's unique atmosphere. Then there is a quip about how this is the most economical way to shift thousands of tons of material from one moon to another. In reality, I just thought it would be an interesting setting for a space story, and that the different gas clouds/radiation/fuzz/gravity could all add peril and twists to action scenes.

As for faster than light travel? I would make something about "piggybacking" on tachyon particles (which is I think how K-PAX justifies it).

Good science fiction is based on good science. Period. That's why movies like The Martian and Gravity, both of which went to GREAT LENGTHS to explain how stuff works, were critically acclaimed and commercially successful even if most of us don't know half the stuff they were saying.

Bad science fiction is fluff. Where things happen just because the script calls for it. And by the way, The Martian did explain exactly how they had enough juice to turn the ship around and pick up Matt Damon. They even explained how Matt's character had to get that rocket ready for launch and the multitude of systems he had to get rid of to make the craft light enough to hit a specific orbit so that the crew could intercept.

The entirety of the movie was explaining how stuff works. That's why I loved it.

 

[happyninja42]

Good science fiction is based on good science. Period. That's why movies like The Martian and Gravity, both of which went to GREAT LENGTHS to explain how stuff works, were critically acclaimed and commercially successful even if most of us don't know half the stuff they were saying.

Bad science fiction is fluff. Where things happen just because the script calls for it. And by the way, The Martian did explain exactly how they had enough juice to turn the ship around and pick up Matt Damon. They even explained how Matt's character had to get that rocket ready for launch and the multitude of systems he had to get rid of to make the craft light enough to hit a specific orbit so that the crew could intercept.

The entirety of the movie was explaining how stuff works. That's why I loved it.

Are you seriously stating that any science fiction story that doesn't explain, in excruciating detail, how it's shit works, is bad? Are you REALLY going there? So you basically don't like what, ANY of science fiction at all? Maybe like 1% of what's actually produced suits your tastes? I feel sad for you if that's the case. To get so hung up on how it works, that you forgoe enjoying countless stories that have been told over the years? Tragic.

And, I would point out, that Gravity got a lot of shit wrong. Neil Degrasse Tyson even did a video with Cinemasins, breaking down all the shit they did "just for the story". So I wouldn't hold it up to any high standard.

As did The Martian. The storm that stranded Watney on Mars? Couldn't happen. The atmosphere is too thin for a storm of that ferocity to blow equipment over and knock him back like a hurricane. But hey, it helped the plot, so that's ok.

 

[ckriley]

Good science fiction is based on good science. Period. That's why movies like The Martian and Gravity, both of which went to GREAT LENGTHS to explain how stuff works, were critically acclaimed and commercially successful even if most of us don't know half the stuff they were saying.

Bad science fiction is fluff. Where things happen just because the script calls for it. And by the way, The Martian did explain exactly how they had enough juice to turn the ship around and pick up Matt Damon. They even explained how Matt's character had to get that rocket ready for launch and the multitude of systems he had to get rid of to make the craft light enough to hit a specific orbit so that the crew could intercept.

The entirety of the movie was explaining how stuff works. That's why I loved it.

Are you seriously stating that any science fiction story that doesn't explain, in excruciating detail, how it's shit works, is bad? Are you REALLY going there? So you basically don't like what, ANY of science fiction at all? Maybe like 1% of what's actually produced suits your tastes? I feel sad for you if that's the case. To get so hung up on how it works, that you forgoe enjoying countless stories that have been told over the years? Tragic.

And, I would point out, that Gravity got a lot of shit wrong. Neil Degrasse Tyson even did a video with Cinemasins, breaking down all the shit they did "just for the story". So I wouldn't hold it up to any high standard.

As did The Martian. The storm that stranded Watney on Mars? Couldn't happen. The atmosphere is too thin for a storm of that ferocity to blow equipment over and knock him back like a hurricane. But hey, it helped the plot, so that's ok.

Not at all. I'm a huge fan of Star Wars and Star Trek. Loved Battlestar Galactica and the Mass Effect games. Just saying that science fiction is based on good science.

If it's not it's fluff. And some fluff is still good to watch.

 

[maninahat]

I tend to keep the science in my science fiction as vague and hand wavy as possible. For instance in a story I am writing now, I have to justify why a giant space hauler should dip into the atmosphere of a gas giant en route to somewhere, rather than simply pass by at a distance and avoid the massive gravity well/air resistance/heat build up/inevitable FUBAR. The "science" justification is that the ship gets a tremendous amount of power from atmospheric flying as the engines work on a kind of cushion of static electricity, repulsing the ship along the planet's unique atmosphere. Then there is a quip about how this is the most economical way to shift thousands of tons of material from one moon to another. In reality, I just thought it would be an interesting setting for a space story, and that the different gas clouds/radiation/fuzz/gravity could all add peril and twists to action scenes.

As for faster than light travel? I would make something about "piggybacking" on tachyon particles (which is I think how K-PAX justifies it).

Good science fiction is based on good science. Period. That's why movies like The Martian and Gravity, both of which went to GREAT LENGTHS to explain how stuff works, were critically acclaimed and commercially successful even if most of us don't know half the stuff they were saying.

Bad science fiction is fluff. Where things happen just because the script calls for it. And by the way, The Martian did explain exactly how they had enough juice to turn the ship around and pick up Matt Damon. They even explained how Matt's character had to get that rocket ready for launch and the multitude of systems he had to get rid of to make the craft light enough to hit a specific orbit so that the crew could intercept.

The entirety of the movie was explaining how stuff works. That's why I loved it.

Pfui! There is hard science fiction and soft science fiction, and I guess you prefer the former. But many of the greatest works of science fiction involve blatant bullshit, hand wavy science. The realism of the science usually isn't the determining factor for what makes sci-fi good sci-fi, though The Martian benefits from its attention to detail.