Aft engines blazed pure fire, pushing the vessels to accelerations that would have crushed mere
biological passengers.
(Bulterian Jihad)
Work crews assembled merchant vessels and warships, most with safe conventional engines, though some were outfitted with the remarkable space-folding
(Battle of Corrin)
During the tedious month-long journey across space to visit her daughter on Poritrin, Zufa Cenva...
(Butlerian Jihad)
Once he escaped from Corrin, it took him almost two months in transit to get to the vulnerable heart of the League of Nobles.
(Battle of Corrin)
On the bridge of the Armada flagship, proud and stony Segundo Xavier Harkonnen stood in full dress uniform, studying thepeaceful-looking planet.
(Butlerian Jihad)
Held in place by the craft's gravity system, which rapidly increased, like a heavy boot crushing her body, Norma could barely breathe.
(Machine Crusade)
arnoldo wrote:
Does anyone know how far the planet Arrakis is from Earth(in light years) and how humanity arrived there in the first place without fold space technology
arnoldo wrote:
Does anyone know how far the planet Arrakis is from Earth(in light years) and how humanity arrived there in the first place without fold space technology
zeropoint wrote:
But that quote from the appendix doesnt explain how space travel was achieved. I assumed, maybe they used some kind of cryogenic unit which would thaw the travelers out some three- to four-thousand years later when they reached their stated destination (thats pretty slow travel). But thats not practical. In the 1920s and 30s, T.T. Brown published many articles about his experiments in Gravational warp drives. Perhaps FH, being the avid reader he was, was inspired by Brown's work.
In theory, GW drives would induce subjective gravity toward its positive-charged end, propelling the craft in that direction (note- the stealth bomber uses this method of propulsion). With enough energy (electrical output) the craft can accellerate toward light speed. Experiments conducted by Brown showed that any object within the field was pulled at the same speed (a person inside a rigged craft would not feel any acceleration).
This is most like the Alcubierre drive ToE mentions.
Edit: It was also mentioned by several board members that early humans having foldspace technology is a good posibility. The Guild just made travel safer.
zeropoint wrote:
In theory, GW drives would induce subjective gravity toward its positive-charged end, propelling the craft in that direction (note- the stealth bomber uses this method of propulsion).
With enough energy (electrical output) the craft can accellerate toward light speed. Experiments conducted by Brown showed that any object within the field was pulled at the same speed (a person inside a rigged craft would not feel any acceleration).
This is most like the Alcubierre drive ToE mentions.
Edit: It was also mentioned by several board members that early humans having foldspace technology is a good posibility. The Guild just made travel safer.
Freakzilla wrote:arnoldo wrote:
Does anyone know how far the planet Arrakis is from Earth(in light years) and how humanity arrived there in the first place without fold space technology
Canopus is 310 light years (96 parsecs) from our solar system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopus
Mankind's movement through deep space placed a unique stamp on religion
during the one hundred and ten centuries that preceded the Butlerian Jihad. To
begin with, early space travel, although widespread, was largely unregulated,
slow, and uncertain, and, before the Guild monopoly, was accomplished by a
hodgepodge of methods. The first space experiences, poorly communicated and
subject to extreme distortion, were a wild inducement to mystical speculation.
~Dune, Appendix II: The Religion of Dune
boardadmin wrote:Freakzilla wrote: ~edited~
I truly believe Frank didn't know how to get around this math problem and put out this definition in order to staunch the problem ("leave it to the readers' imaginations").
oneeyedunicornhunter wrote:
yeah, i'm reasonably sure einstein wouldn't be rolling in his grave because some people disagree with the universality of his theories.
wasn't it einstein himself who proved that newtons laws weren't universal?
oneeyedunicornhunter wrote:
wasn't it einstein himself who proved that newtons laws weren't universal?
electrohydrodynamics is of no use whatsoever in vacuum; and it has nothing to do with anti-gravity.
Folding space is a way of cheating Nature and getting around the lightspeed barrier.... Something else misunderstood?
Freakzilla wrote:
You can imagine it however you want. I think that was the point of FH leaving such a vague explaination in the appendix. Something the new authors do not get.
boardadmin wrote:Freakzilla wrote:
You can imagine it however you want. I think that was the point of FH leaving such a vague explaination in the appendix. Something the new authors do not get.
Didn't I mention on another thread how Frank was exceptionally vague when it came to this, too? And how he "left it to the readers' imaginations"? Hmmm.
Freakzilla wrote:boardadmin wrote:Freakzilla wrote:
You can imagine it however you want. I think that was the point of FH leaving such a vague explaination in the appendix. Something the new authors do not get.
Didn't I mention on another thread how Frank was exceptionally vague when it came to this, too? And how he "left it to the readers' imaginations"? Hmmm.
And I said that whatever you imagine should be consistant with what is already published [as well as science]. That goes for authors too.
boardadmin wrote:Freakzilla wrote:boardadmin wrote:Freakzilla wrote:
You can imagine it however you want. I think that was the point of FH leaving such a vague explaination in the appendix. Something the new authors do not get.
Didn't I mention on another thread how Frank was exceptionally vague when it came to this, too? And how he "left it to the readers' imaginations"? Hmmm.
And I said that whatever you imagine should be consistant with what is already published [as well as science]. That goes for authors too.
But if you leave something so vague, is that scientifically fair? Or simply a way around a problem? I'm not bashing Frank for doing this, just saying that if you're going to criticize BH and KJA for not spelling out everything, you'd have to do the same to Frank, right?
boardadmin wrote:Freakzilla wrote:boardadmin wrote:Freakzilla wrote:
You can imagine it however you want. I think that was the point of FH leaving such a vague explaination in the appendix. Something the new authors do not get.
Didn't I mention on another thread how Frank was exceptionally vague when it came to this, too? And how he "left it to the readers' imaginations"? Hmmm.
And I said that whatever you imagine should be consistant with what is already published [as well as science]. That goes for authors too.
But if you leave something so vague, is that scientifically fair? Or simply a way around a problem? I'm not bashing Frank for doing this, just saying that if you're going to criticize BH and KJA for not spelling out everything, you'd have to do the same to Frank, right?
zeropoint wrote:
In defense of the new books, "conventional" engines are specific to the time period. 200 years ago, conventional travel was horse and buggy. Rocketry doesnt have to be the typical engine type 10,000 years from now. On the otherhand, I remember something from the BJ and MC books about ships spewing flames out the back. *shrug*
I'm pretty sure Frank was aware of the physical problems surrounding early interplanetary travel and left it vague purposefully, as was previously stated. The phrase "...a hodgepodge of methods" seems he intentionally left it up to the reader's imagination and any and every method (within reason) is accurate.
Freakzilla wrote:zeropoint wrote:
In defense of the new books, "conventional" engines are specific to the time period. 200 years ago, conventional travel was horse and buggy. Rocketry doesnt have to be the typical engine type 10,000 years from now. On the otherhand, I remember something from the BJ and MC books about ships spewing flames out the back. *shrug*
I'm pretty sure Frank was aware of the physical problems surrounding early interplanetary travel and left it vague purposefully, as was previously stated. The phrase "...a hodgepodge of methods" seems he intentionally left it up to the reader's imagination and any and every method (within reason) is accurate.
But they feel acceleration with their "conventional" engines. It would take as much time to accelerate to the speeds they used as it did to get there, not to mention time to decelerate, without crushing themselves.
Are the engines mentioned by the characters as conventional or is it the omniscient narrator?
oneeyedunicornhunter wrote:
that's true, freak. the machines wouldn't have had this problem, obviously, but for humans it would have greatly limited travel. however long it would take to get almost to the speed of light, plus however long it would take to deccelerate(sp?) safely before arriving at the destination leaves not very much time of sustained almost-speed-of-light travel. unless they found some way to counteract extreme g-forces, the majority of space travel would be much slower than the speed of light, whether or not they had uber-engines.
Freakzilla wrote:
They use rockets for propulsion but have artificial gravity?
![]()
Why not just project a gravity well in front of the ship in the direction you want to go?
Again I say:![]()
Freakzilla wrote:
Are the engines mentioned by the characters as conventional or is it the omniscient narrator?
A Thing Of Eternity wrote:
So is no one going to poke at my original post? I'm sorely dissapointed, I really expected some kind of explanation about why the authors did this, or at least some hypotheticals.
A Thing Of Eternity wrote:
A lot of people like to discuss the inconsistencies between the new books and the originals. I haven’t been reading Dune for nearly as long as some of the heavyweights around here, so I don’t think there is much I could point out that they haven’t already on this topic. I have however been taking fiction seriously for quite some time, and in the interest of constructive criticism (not that the inconsistency discussions are not constructive, I just feel that we are neglecting to constructively criticize these books in ways not relating to the originals) I would like to start a thread discussing the writing of the new authors in comparison with all Fiction. This thread is also to discuss passages where these new novels contradict themselves. I would like to start with what I feel are a couple of weak points.
This is something that’s bothered me for a while now, since I first read the Legends Series. I am a bit perplexed by the way space travel is portrayed in these books. In these three books the Starships used by both the Humans and the Machines appear to use conventional drive systems (systems which burn fuel to achieve acceleration)
Quote:
Aft engines blazed pure fire, pushing the vessels to accelerations that would have crushed mere
biological passengers.
(Bulterian Jihad)
Quote:
Work crews assembled merchant vessels and warships, most with safe conventional engines, though some were outfitted with the remarkable space-folding
(Battle of Corrin)
and yet they are able to travel from star system to star system in weeks or months.
Quote:
During the tedious month-long journey across space to visit her daughter on Poritrin, Zufa Cenva...
(Butlerian Jihad)
Quote:
Once he escaped from Corrin, it took him almost two months in transit to get to the vulnerable heart of the League of Nobles.
(Battle of Corrin)
This is obviously faster than light can travel, (one of the destinations in the books is Earth, whose closest neighboring start is Alpha Centauri which lies 4.35 light-years away) - this is completely impossible and bad Sci-fi. For those of you who don’t know what a light year is (I know this seems ridiculous, but I’ve been told that you are out there), it is the distance that light will travel in a vacuum (space) in one year – to traverse that same distance in less time is to move faster than light. Under the Laws of Physics (special theory of relativity), a particle (that has mass) with subluminal velocity (is currently moving slower than light) needs infinite energy to accelerate to the speed of light. Thus, to even get up to the speed of light you would need more energy than the entire universe contains, surpassing that speed isn’t even an option. If you want to argue this - fine, but Einstein will be rolling over in his grave. This is a widely agreed upon topic in Science Fiction, if your ships must go faster than light they must use an FTL drive of some kind which allows the current laws of physics to be circumvented.
Do the authors have an explanation for their magic-faster-than-light-but-conventionally-propelled-space-craft?
One of the arguments I expect to hear is that they also utilize some sort of FTL drive or other space-time altering technology to break light speed. I don’t believe that there is anything in the novels to support this (please - quote away if I’m wrong), and the fact that the authors mention the g-forces acting upon the passengers during acceleration proves that they are not using FTL (see below under warp for the logic behind this).
The way that g-force is used is another huge issue with these novels (again I discuss this more below) because the ships obviously have artificial gravity.
Quote:
On the bridge of the Armada flagship, proud and stony Segundo Xavier Harkonnen stood in full dress uniform, studying thepeaceful-looking planet.
(Butlerian Jihad)
Quote:
Held in place by the craft's gravity system, which rapidly increased, like a heavy boot crushing her body, Norma could barely breathe.
(Machine Crusade)
This same technology would easily be used to nullify the g-forces acting upon the passengers. That the reader is expected to believe that these societies (man and machine) could invent something as advanced as artificial gravity, but not think to use it to counteract g-force is weak writing and shows a lack of depth in world building. The authors obviously thought that the g-forces were a necessary plot device to show machine dominance (the machines, being able to withstand higher g-forces than the humans could reach destinations faster); this was in my opinion completely unnecessary, as they could have just used the higher numbers and more advanced weaponry of the enemy to the same effect. There was no need for the machines to have speed as another advantage.
Why I think these are weakness in writing and cannot be defended as “style”:
One of the most important elements of fiction is creating an environment that the reader can believe in, and if that environment must be somewhat outside the realm of reality, then the writer must take care to do it in such a way that the reader is able to suspend his or her disbelief. The methods used to do this are a large part of what separates genres of fiction, such as Mystery, Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi. As an example: if an author is writing a Mystery novel and feels compelled to include an imaginary item like, say, an antigravity device (maybe the detective has to find it), this is no longer a pure Mystery novel; it is now Sci-fi. If in the same story the protagonist could cast spells that worked, it is now Fantasy, and so forth. In any given genre, even those outside of the ‘real world’ there some standards put in place to help the reader suspend his/her disbelief.
In all true Science Fiction there are some standards concerning space travel. To be fair, some of these are outside of conventional physics (example hyperdrive / foldspace), in all cases however the reader is told that there is a new technology which has solved this problem. Disbelief is suspended. For example, one can believe in a ship with a hyperspace engine making a hyperspace jump, but a reader cannot believe in an un-modified bicycle doing the same. Agreed? Moving on. Here are those standards, and they are not ‘rules’ that can be broken for artistic purposes, they are simply the methods which work in maintaining the reader’s belief, whilst other methods leave holes for readers to poke.
Option 1: STL (slower than light) This can use any of many engine designs, most of which are still far beyond modern technological capabilities. The main rules: the ship will not get up to or surpass 100% of light speed, and the occupants will be subjected to acceleration/deceleration g-forces. (Unless the ships utilize some kind of artificial gravity or anti gravity device, in which case this could be easily used to counteract the g-force by simply applying some artificial gravity to the subjects pulling in the opposite direction of the g-force.) It is completely impossible for a ship using a conventional drive system to accelerate to the speed of light. Even using some kind of field drive would not allow this, unless that field drive is used to alter space-time (see warp).
Option 2: FTL (faster than light and instantaneous) This can also utilize many systems, and while outside conventional physics, there are some standards. Ships can use wormholes and hyperspace drives for instantaneous travel, or they can use some variation of the ‘warp’ drive to travel faster than light, but not instantaneously.
2.1 Instantaneous This can have a wide variety of descriptions, and as this is the furthest from real science there are fewer theories about what effect it would have on the passenger. For example, in Asimov’s Foundation series there are no effects on the passenger whatsoever. If that passenger wasn’t looking at the star field when the jump occurred to see the star patterns change, they would have no idea that they had jumped at all. In this universe the ship only has to be a safe distance from a large gravitational field to make a jump. In Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series the passengers experience extreme disorientation after making a jump and they can only entire and exit hyperspace at certain very specific locations which are based on the luminosity of nearby stars. Some stories use wormholes, Dune uses foldspace, the point is that these systems are so far advanced from what we know about physics that we really cannot predict what it would be like to travel using them.
2.2 Warp drives now also known as Alcubierre drives. There are more guidelines here than with instantaneous drives, because this is somewhat within the realm of predictability. The only predicted way to travel faster than light (but slower than instantaneous) is to “warp” space time around the ship, expanding it behind and contracting it in front of the vessel. The bubble moves through space faster than light, but the object inside is not traveling FTL in it’s local space. Because of the fact that ship is not actually moving in it’s local space the occupants would feel no acceleration whatsoever. (this is why the Butlerian Jihad ships cannot be utilizing any kind of space-time altering drive systems, it would not allow for the passengers to feel any g-force).
To tell the reader that the ships use conventional drives to accelerate to and surpass the speed of light is in my opinion a bit of an insult to the reader’s intelligence, and it removes the writing from the genre of serious science fiction altogether. It is akin to saying that one can construct a time machine out of paperclips and chewing gum.
Simon wrote:
Yeah, seems like a lot of people think they could have written a better Dune tale than any of the authors, I've said on a few occasions that I'd genuinely like to see a OH effort at DUNE 7.
It'd be interesting. They have a real eye for detail and at very worst would have a dull tale without any inconsistencies. At best they would resoundingly prove their point. I really want to see in story form where they thought FH was going with CH:D.
Not bite yet though.
Simon wrote:
Yeah, seems like a lot of people think they could have written a better Dune tale than any of the authors, I've said on a few occasions that I'd genuinely like to see a OH effort at DUNE 7.
It'd be interesting. They have a real eye for detail and at very worst would have a dull tale without any inconsistencies. At best they would resoundingly prove their point. I really want to see in story form where they thought FH was going with CH:D.
Not bite yet though.
Tleilax Master B wrote:Simon wrote:
Yeah, seems like a lot of people think they could have written a better Dune tale than any of the authors, I've said on a few occasions that I'd genuinely like to see a OH effort at DUNE 7.
It'd be interesting. They have a real eye for detail and at very worst would have a dull tale without any inconsistencies. At best they would resoundingly prove their point. I really want to see in story form where they thought FH was going with CH:D.
Not bite yet though.
You still don't get it. First, you don't have to be a writer to critique or appreciate a book. You need only be a reader. Secondly, I don't know too many OH that claim they can write a better book. Most of us would prefer that NONE was written if they are going to be this quality. Third, and most importantly, for many of us its not the writing style that is the problem--its the inconsistencies with the originals. Followed by poor attempts to explain them off. If the errors are that glaringly obvious (you don't real need an "eye for detail" to figure out Paul wasn't born on Kaitain), there is something wrong. Either you screwed up, or you just don't care. Either way, its wrong.
Ultra Spice wrote:Simon wrote:
~edited~
I just think its stupid to say that they did some science wrong, they know more about it than this guy Ill bet. I dont see why something cant go faster than light with enough power, and obviously kevin has a science backround so if he thinks the same thing hes probably right.
SimonH wrote:
oh yeah - I am a scientist and I agree with AToE
Ultra Spice wrote:SimonH wrote:
oh yeah - I am a scientist and I agree with AToE
Reallly? I find it hard to beleive that they wouldnt get the science right, they are science fiction authors and Kevin did work for scientist, I think they were probably right.
Ultra Spice wrote:SimonH wrote:
oh yeah - I am a scientist and I agree with AToE
Reallly? I find it hard to beleive that they wouldnt get the science right, they are science fiction authors and Kevin did work for scientist, I think they were probably right.
Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:Ultra Spice wrote: ~edited~
Sorry, Ultra-Spice. But you, Kevin and brian are wrong.
I am physicist and astronomer, and i work in the research area.
I study quantum mechanics and relativity in the College, so I can say that i agree with AToE.
Never a rocket propelled with fuel would increase it velocity until reach the lightspeed. It agaisnt relativitic mechanic. The energy necessary to take the rocket there would tend to infinity.
And other thing, never a lightspeed travel would cover a galatic extension in less than a year, or ten years, or thousand years.
Our galaxy have a extension of apx. 100,000 light-years.
boardadmin wrote:
Where did it say in the novel that the rockets were propelled with "Fuel"?
Ultra Spice wrote:
If you read the original post it has quotes which show that the rockets are regular stuff burning rockets. I still dont see what the problem is through, youd need alot of fuel?
boardadmin wrote:Ultra Spice wrote:
If you read the original post it has quotes which show that the rockets are regular stuff burning rockets. I still dont see what the problem is through, youd need alot of fuel?
And what would be "regular burning rockets" ten thousand years from now? What are they burning? Dark matter? Who knows what the future holds as far as the options for rocket propulsion and how fast they'll travel.
Special relativity offers the possibility of shortening the travel time: if a starship with sufficiently advanced engines could reach velocities approaching the speed of light, relativistic time dilation would make the voyage much shorter for the traveller.
Ultra Spice wrote:boardadmin wrote:
And what would be "regular burning rockets" ten thousand years from now? What are they burning? Dark matter? Who knows what the future holds as far as the options for rocket propulsion and how fast they'll travel.
Special relativity offers the possibility of shortening the travel time: if a starship with sufficiently advanced engines could reach velocities approaching the speed of light, relativistic time dilation would make the voyage much shorter for the traveller.
Exactly! Dark matter would have more than infinite energy so using it as fuel would give enough power to go faster than light!
And the second paragrph also explains this so called mistake, the ships in the legends series werent really going faster than light (it actually probably tooks decades and centures for each trip in the books) but because of time dialation it seemed like weeks.
Frybread wrote:
That is impossible. If there was time dilation of that degree then the world leadership would have changed in the time it took Xavior Harkonnen to cross space to inspect the defenses of the League of Nobles in "The Butlerian Jihad." IOW, while the trip would have seemed like weeks or months to Xavier, it would have been centuries for those outside of his vessel. This would have meant that there would have been no Serena Butler for him to return to Salusa Secundus for, because she would have been dead for hundreds of years during his travel through space.
boardadmin wrote:
And what would be "regular burning rockets" ten thousand years from now? What are they burning? Dark matter? Who knows what the future holds as far as the options for rocket propulsion and how fast they'll travel.
Special relativity offers the possibility of shortening the travel time: if a starship with sufficiently advanced engines could reach velocities approaching the speed of light, relativistic time dilation would make the voyage much shorter for the traveller.
boardadmin wrote:
And what would be "regular burning rockets" ten thousand years from now? What are they burning? Dark matter? Who knows what the future holds as far as the options for rocket propulsion and how fast they'll travel.
Talos Aquinas wrote:
We have discovered that banana peels contain astounding amounts of energy. Dark matter? Why not tachyons, or some other currently trendy jargon. I personally prefer zero-point vacuum energy.
Talos Aquinas wrote:
Either way, the ships won't travel as fast as or faster than light (by accelerating up and through lightspeed).
Special relativity offers the possibility of shortening the travel time: if a starship with sufficiently advanced engines could reach velocities approaching the speed of light, relativistic time dilation would make the voyage much shorter for the traveller.
Talos Aquinas wrote:
Yes, for the traveller. But as Frybread has pointed out, not for the outside world, where hundreds or thousands of years pass.
boardadmin wrote:boardadmin wrote:
And what would be "regular burning rockets" ten thousand years from now? What are they burning? Dark matter? Who knows what the future holds as far as the options for rocket propulsion and how fast they'll travel.Talos Aquinas wrote:
We have discovered that banana peels contain astounding amounts of energy. Dark matter? Why not tachyons, or some other currently trendy jargon. I personally prefer zero-point vacuum energy.
Sarcasm must create tons of energy in your universe.Talos Aquinas wrote:
Either way, the ships won't travel as fast as or faster than light (by accelerating up and through lightspeed).
Of course. That's because you said so, so it must be.Quote:
Special relativity offers the possibility of shortening the travel time: if a starship with sufficiently advanced engines could reach velocities approaching the speed of light, relativistic time dilation would make the voyage much shorter for the traveller.Talos Aquinas wrote:
Yes, for the traveller. But as Frybread has pointed out, not for the outside world, where hundreds or thousands of years pass.
True that to the outsider, their time wouldn't dialate. But then there's still light speed travel using rockets of unknown origin 10,000 years in the future. Who knows what they'll contain and how efficiently they'll "burn."
boardadmin wrote:Talos Aquinas wrote:
We have discovered that banana peels contain astounding amounts of energy. Dark matter? Why not tachyons, or some other currently trendy jargon. I personally prefer zero-point vacuum energy.
Sarcasm must create tons of energy in your universe.
boardadmin wrote:Talos Aquinas wrote:
Either way, the ships won't travel as fast as or faster than light (by accelerating up and through lightspeed).
Of course. That's because you said so, so it must be.
Kull_wahad wrote:boardadmin wrote:Talos Aquinas wrote:
We have discovered that banana peels contain astounding amounts of energy. Dark matter? Why not tachyons, or some other currently trendy jargon. I personally prefer zero-point vacuum energy.
Sarcasm must create tons of energy in your universe.
Actually, I don't think he was being sarcastic. There is an almost unfathomable amount of energy locked up in any organization of matter, whether it be in a banana or dark matter. It's just a matter of figuring out how to tap into it.
Also, judging by your attitude on these boards lately, if we could learn to tap into sneering condescension, you could power several universes by yourself.boardadmin wrote:Talos Aquinas wrote:
Either way, the ships won't travel as fast as or faster than light (by accelerating up and through lightspeed).
Of course. That's because you said so, so it must be.
Oh look, another universe has sprung into being! Sheesh, Byron. How dare Talos Aquinas do things like quote well-known concepts of current science when making his arguments? The nerve! Who did that smartass Einstein think he was, anyway?
I understand that our knowledge of how the universe works is always changing, as we learn more and more, and maybe at some future date we will learn how to use new kinds of "fuels" to power advanced "rockets" that can accelerate beyond the speed of light. However, it is hardly foolish to assume that we got at least some of it right, and to base an argument on that. His comments are hardly deserving of your vitriol.
boardadmin wrote:
Let's not get holier-than-thou.
Show me where San ...I mean Talos Aquinos quoted Einstein, please. He quoted nothing. Just like you did here.
Advances in rocket propulsion and fuel are coming across every year. You can check out some of it here (http://hypography.com/forums/space/9156 ... earch.html) and see advance theories.
There are also plenty of scientists who now believe that Einstein's theories to have gaping holes in them or to have ways of getting around them.
If you're going to argue that these rocket propulsion ideas are theories, I would argue so is foldspace (which is really out there by comparison).
boardadmin wrote:
If you're going to argue that these rocket propulsion ideas are theories, I would argue so is foldspace (which is really out there by comparison).
Quote:
SPACE TRAVEL!
Mankind's movement through deep space placed a unique stamp on religion during the one hundred and ten centuries that preceded the Butlerian Jihad. To begin with, early space travel, although widespread, was largely unregulated, slow, and uncertain, and, before the Guild monopoly, was accomplished by a hodgepodge of methods. The first space experiences, poorly communicated and subject to extreme distortion, were a wild inducement to mystical speculation.
~Dune
arnoldo wrote:
Regardless of the means of travel from point A to point B there is no inconsistency with FH's writings since he never explicitly gave an explanation other than the following.SPACE TRAVEL!
Mankind's movement through deep space placed a unique stamp on religion during the one hundred and ten centuries that preceded the Butlerian Jihad. To begin with, early space travel, although widespread, was largely unregulated, slow, and uncertain, and, before the Guild monopoly, was accomplished by a hodgepodge of methods. The first space experiences, poorly communicated and subject to extreme distortion, were a wild inducement to mystical speculation.
~Dune
boardadmin wrote:arnoldo wrote:
Regardless of the means of travel from point A to point B there is no inconsistency with FH's writings since he never explicitly gave an explanation other than the following.
Thanks for pulling that quote, Arnoldo.
I do believe that our technology with rocketry will advance significantly over the next ten thousand years. We'll find away around Einstein's theories and break the lightspeed barrier, just as we did the speed of sound (which, until some 50-odd years ago, was thought to be impossible, too). Although there was no theory that said it was impossible, it appeared to be so since we destroyed a lot of aircraft and pilots trying to do so. I have no doubt that we'll beat the speed of light. None whatsoever.
Ultra Spice wrote:boardadmin wrote:
I do believe that our technology with rocketry will advance significantly over the next ten thousand years. We'll find away around Einstein's theories and break the lightspeed barrier, just as we did the speed of sound (which, until some 50-odd years ago, was thought to be impossible, too). Although there was no theory that said it was impossible, it appeared to be so since we destroyed a lot of aircraft and pilots trying to do so. I have no doubt that we'll beat the speed of light. None whatsoever.
Yes I agree. there will be advances in efficiency and fuel so that we can beat lightspeed. there are lots of scientists that think that there is a way to fly faster than lightspeed with rocket engines. Its exactly the same as the sound barrier we just need to build strong ships!
oneeyedunicornhunter wrote:
yes! that's how we'll defeat Einstein's theories! stronger ships! it makes perfect sense!
stronger ships, and we'll also tap into the power of those banana peels.
i would tap into your brainpower as well, but...
Ultra Spice wrote:
no, like boardadmin said, we will also make advances in fuel and efficiency which will allow us to releease enough energy to not only go lightspeed but even faster. the barrier is just like the sound barrier. peoiple "knew" that we would need infinite energy to go faster than sound, and then we did it anyways. the same thing will happen with the speed of light for sure.
boardadmin wrote:Ultra Spice wrote:
no, like boardadmin said, we will also make advances in fuel and efficiency which will allow us to releease enough energy to not only go lightspeed but even faster. the barrier is just like the sound barrier. peoiple "knew" that we would need infinite energy to go faster than sound, and then we did it anyways. the same thing will happen with the speed of light for sure.
Let's be clear here: it was never suggested that we needed infinite energy to reach the sound barrier. The problems were with aerodynamics and wind-sheer. Plus you're flying within our atmosphere and not in space where there is no atmosphere (which is where the lightspeed barrier will be breached without question).
boardadmin wrote:
http://www.livescience.com/technology/0 ... light.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... light.html
You might check out these two links that come awfully close to showing how the lightspeed barrier will be broken in the future.
boardadmin wrote:
Special relativity offers the possibility of shortening the travel time: if a starship with sufficiently advanced engines could reach velocities approaching the speed of light, relativistic time dilation would make the voyage much shorter for the traveller.
Ultra Spice wrote:boardadmin wrote:
Let's be clear here: it was never suggested that we needed infinite energy to reach the sound barrier. The problems were with aerodynamics and wind-sheer. Plus you're flying within our atmosphere and not in space where there is no atmosphere (which is where the lightspeed barrier will be breached without question).
Oh, sorry I should have looked that up. I thought you were saying that it was the same problem and because we beat the soundbarrier we could beat the lightspeed one too. My bad, I should have looked up how the two we related.
So we dont have to worry about "strength" of the ship much in space because airodynamics and wind sheer and such dont exist at all there and wont be a problem for the ship? we just have to build a rocket efficient enough with good enough fuel and we should be able to accellerate past lightspeed.
SimonH wrote:
by light quanta maybe... what has that got to do with propelling rockets a high speeds ?
SimonH wrote:
The first link shows that light can be manipulated in different media. We might learn something new about light, but we can't change the medium of space itself??
SimonH wrote:
The second shows that light particles can disappear and re-appear due to quantum tunneling. This sounds more like space folding to me than light speed travel using rockets
<edit> bad spelling</edit>
SimonH wrote:
Also, the books clearly say that the travellers feel the inertia of starting and stopping the spacecraft.
It would destroy anything (not anything living, anything) feeling the inertia from these accelerations. Either the craft would have some type of inertia relief like an anti-gravity concept or everything would be destroyed.
if the anti-gravity was wrong by 0.1% for 0.1s then everything would be destroyed.
Please just accept that this was not very well thought out.[/i]
SimonH wrote:
I'll bite
At 300 000 000 m/s one dust particle will rip through any material that we know of now. At 30000 km/hour or so, satellites in orbit of the earth are damaged from miniature debris
It is a massive extrapolation to think that any material we ever develop could resist encountering one grain of dust in space. There is matter in space, just much less
Byron wrote:SimonH wrote:
by light quanta maybe... what has that got to do with propelling rockets a high speeds ?
It shows that the speed of light is not the end-all of end-alls. There are things that go faster. Quantum mechanics will probably be one of the things that helps us break the lightspeed barrier.SimonH wrote:
The first link shows that light can be manipulated in different media. We might learn something new about light, but we can't change the medium of space itself??
The fact that something is going faster than the speed of light is extremely significant, and it helps to disprove part of Einstein's theory, does it not?SimonH wrote:
The second shows that light particles can disappear and re-appear due to quantum tunneling. This sounds more like space folding to me than light speed travel using rockets
<edit> bad spelling</edit>
True. But it is using LIGHT particles to do it, not some sort of folding space theory.
Admit it, Einstein was wrong. The speed of light will not be such a big barrier to us 10,000 years from now. We're already tinkering with it.
boardadmin wrote:SimonH wrote:
I'll bite
At 300 000 000 m/s one dust particle will rip through any material that we know of now. At 30000 km/hour or so, satellites in orbit of the earth are damaged from miniature debris
It is a massive extrapolation to think that any material we ever develop could resist encountering one grain of dust in space. There is matter in space, just much less
Please explain how this has anything to do with breaking the lightspeed barrier...
Quote:
And folding space isn't dangerous? Possibly ending up in the middle of an asteroid field ...or a red dwarf?
boardadmin wrote:
Did Frank Herbert explain how Holzmann engines worked?
Did Brian and Kevin explain how their lightspeed ships worked?
Next.
dominos wrote:
He didn’t have to explain it because: foldspace is exactly what wormholes are, and wormholes are an accepted scientific theory about how to get around relativity.
dominos wrote:
Even if you want to dispute that is what Frank had in mind – he created a new technology to get around the lightspeed barrier as a plot device. This is common in SF. Brian and Kevin just ignored the problem and had rocket ships travelling FTL in their books, which makes no sense and is not good SF writing.
dominos wrote:
Again, please read the original post. It explains in great detail how the way Frank did it is good technique, and the way the new authors did it as bad.
dominos wrote:
It also explains major issues (read: holes) in they way FTL travel is portrayed in the Legends series. It talks about how the passengers should NOT have felt g-forces, because ANY method of traveling FTL will revolve around moving the space-time around the ship, not the ship itself – which means the passengers feel no acceleration.
dominos wrote:
Even if you want to continue your ridiculous (and un-educated)
dominos wrote:
argument that a ship could use rocket propulsion to accelerate to or past light speed, the authors still messed up big time by forgetting that there shouldn’t be any g-forces because the people had the tech to counteract them (artificial grav and anti grav)!
dominos wrote:
If you can read every word of that post and still believe that the authors put ANY thought into this, well, there’s nothing that can be done for you.
dominos wrote:
I'm going to have to add my 2 cents to this conversation, because you clearly don't know anything about the laws of relativity. None of Einstein’s laws say that a particle can't travel faster than light, just that matter cannot accelerate to or past the speed of light. This is a massive difference, and renders your entire argument moot, because the ships in the Legends series clearly accelerate.
I think you should go back and read the original post in this thread from beginning to end. It explains that FTL travel is theoretically possible, but not at all with rocket engines. You are totally correct that we may one day find a way to exceed the speed of light, but it will have to be done by altering space-time, either with something like a warp drive, or a wormhole generator (foldspace).
Byron wrote:dominos wrote:
I'm going to have to add my 2 cents to this conversation, because you clearly don't know anything about the laws of relativity. None of Einstein’s laws say that a particle can't travel faster than light, just that matter cannot accelerate to or past the speed of light. This is a massive difference, and renders your entire argument moot, because the ships in the Legends series clearly accelerate.
I think you should go back and read the original post in this thread from beginning to end. It explains that FTL travel is theoretically possible, but not at all with rocket engines. You are totally correct that we may one day find a way to exceed the speed of light, but it will have to be done by altering space-time, either with something like a warp drive, or a wormhole generator (foldspace).
You do know, I hope, that science is already finding out about particles/matter that travel close to the speed of light, right?
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0211/12electrons/
I realize these are particles, but the concept is sound.
Freakzilla wrote:
(Again) I don't think anyone is saying that it isn't possible to go faster than light, just to accelerate to FTL.
boardadmin wrote:dominos wrote:
He didn’t have to explain it because: foldspace is exactly what wormholes are, and wormholes are an accepted scientific theory about how to get around relativity.
Wormholes and Foldspace are not the same. Similar, yes, but definitely not Einstein-Rosen Bridges or planck-scale firmament. Talk about uneducated (your word, not mine).
dominos wrote:
Even if you want to dispute that is what Frank had in mind – he created a new technology to get around the lightspeed barrier as a plot device. This is common in SF. Brian and Kevin just ignored the problem and had rocket ships travelling FTL in their books, which makes no sense and is not good SF writing.
Frank used it to get around time and travel distances, for sure. Otherwise his universe wouldn't have made sense or it would've taken a lot of time to get to point-B from point-A. That's why Brian and KJA USE that theory still. FTL rocketry isn't out of the question, either. I love how you just throw it out like you're the end-all source on this.
dominos wrote:
Again, please read the original post. It explains in great detail how the way Frank did it is good technique, and the way the new authors did it as bad.
I've read it. And the books. And all of the posts related to it here. I disagree that the new authors' style of FTL manipulation was "bad."
dominos wrote:
It also explains major issues (read: holes) in they way FTL travel is portrayed in the Legends series. It talks about how the passengers should NOT have felt g-forces, because ANY method of traveling FTL will revolve around moving the space-time around the ship, not the ship itself – which means the passengers feel no acceleration.
According to current models/theories, yes. But, AGAIN, who knows what new theories and models will be developed over the next few thousand years.
dominos wrote:
Even if you want to continue your ridiculous (and un-educated)
Ah. There's that flame baiting word...
dominos wrote:
argument that a ship could use rocket propulsion to accelerate to or past light speed, the authors still messed up big time by forgetting that there shouldn’t be any g-forces because the people had the tech to counteract them (artificial grav and anti grav)!
Perhaps there was partial counteraction. Perhaps there is a small delay in jumping to lightspeed and the brief sensation of G-forces. This is a lame argument. There are so many future possibilities that your argument falls apart.
dominos wrote:
If you can read every word of that post and still believe that the authors put ANY thought into this, well, there’s nothing that can be done for you.
And if you think that the authors gave no thought to this, then there's nothing that can be done for you.
boardadmin wrote:
So you don't believe that in the next 10,000 years or so we'll have developed particle ACCELERATION and/or fuel systems that can propel rockets that come close to or exceed lightspeed?
Might wanna check this out...
From Breaking the Lightspeed Barrier
~edited~
dominos wrote:
BTW I do think that we'll be able to get close-ish some day with rockets. But not FTL. We may eventually travel FTL, but it will not be as simple as just pushing something extra hard until it gets there.
boardadmin wrote:SimonH wrote:
by light quanta maybe... what has that got to do with propelling rockets a high speeds ?
It shows that the speed of light is not the end-all of end-alls. There are things that go faster. Quantum mechanics will probably be one of the things that helps us break the lightspeed barrier.SimonH wrote:
The first link shows that light can be manipulated in different media. We might learn something new about light, but we can't change the medium of space itself??
The fact that something is going faster than the speed of light is extremely significant, and it helps to disprove part of Einstein's theory, does it not?
boardadmin wrote:SimonH wrote:
The second shows that light particles can disappear and re-appear due to quantum tunneling. This sounds more like space folding to me than light speed travel using rockets
<edit> bad spelling</edit>
True. But it is using LIGHT particles to do it, not some sort of folding space theory.
Admit it, Einstein was wrong. The speed of light will not be such a big barrier to us 10,000 years from now. We're already tinkering with it.
boardadmin wrote:SimonH wrote:
Also, the books clearly say that the travellers feel the inertia of starting and stopping the spacecraft.
It would destroy anything (not anything living, anything) feeling the inertia from these accelerations. Either the craft would have some type of inertia relief like an anti-gravity concept or everything would be destroyed.
if the anti-gravity was wrong by 0.1% for 0.1s then everything would be destroyed.
Please just accept that this was not very well thought out.[/i]
Did Frank Herbert explain how Holzmann engines worked?
Did Brian and Kevin explain how their lightspeed ships worked?
Next.![]()
boardadmin wrote:dominos wrote:
BTW I do think that we'll be able to get close-ish some day with rockets. But not FTL. We may eventually travel FTL, but it will not be as simple as just pushing something extra hard until it gets there.
I think we can agree on this: it'll take more than just pushing hard. I think pulling AND pushing AND skipping will probably be involved. But the rockets will be there and who knows what type of fuel they'll be using.
You might want to read that article I quoted rather carefully and who supported it.
boardadmin wrote:SimonH wrote:
I'll bite
At 300 000 000 m/s one dust particle will rip through any material that we know of now. At 30000 km/hour or so, satellites in orbit of the earth are damaged from miniature debris
It is a massive extrapolation to think that any material we ever develop could resist encountering one grain of dust in space. There is matter in space, just much less
Please explain how this has anything to do with breaking the lightspeed barrier...
And folding space isn't dangerous? Possibly ending up in the middle of an asteroid field ...or a red dwarf?
SimonH wrote:boardadmin wrote:SimonH wrote:
I'll bite
At 300 000 000 m/s one dust particle will rip through any material that we know of now. At 30000 km/hour or so, satellites in orbit of the earth are damaged from miniature debris
It is a massive extrapolation to think that any material we ever develop could resist encountering one grain of dust in space. There is matter in space, just much less
Please explain how this has anything to do with breaking the lightspeed barrier...
And folding space isn't dangerous? Possibly ending up in the middle of an asteroid field ...or a red dwarf?
I was addressing ultraspice's comments regarding aerodynamics. you cut the rest of the post off.
my point is that at near lightspeed, even a motionless particle will have an approach trajectory that will be catastrophic to any materials that we know of. So while normal aerodynamics don't apply, there are aerodynamics to be aware of at those speeds.
as Freak said, Guild Navigators had a job because folding space was so dangerous. This was discussed many times in even the new books if I recall correctly.
arnoldo wrote:
Before Norma perfected fold space she developed holtzman shields for ships which would be more than capable of handling a "motionless particle".
SimonH wrote:arnoldo wrote:
Before Norma perfected fold space she developed holtzman shields for ships which would be more than capable of handling a "motionless particle".
I didn't remember that. I'm happy with that small component then.
dominos wrote:(Byron)dominos wrote:
argument that a ship could use rocket propulsion to accelerate to or past light speed, the authors still messed up big time by forgetting that there shouldn’t be any g-forces because the people had the tech to counteract them (artificial grav and anti grav)!
Perhaps there was partial counteraction. Perhaps there is a small delay in jumping to lightspeed and the brief sensation of G-forces. This is a lame argument. There are so many future possibilities that your argument falls apart.
That would make sense if the books didn't repeatedly take about the g-forces being present for long parts of the voyages. It, however, would still not make FTL rockets any less laughable.
Not to mention that you ignored my (and the OP's) point that there shouldn't have been any g-forces anyways, because they had the tech right at their fingertips to counteract it. Since the authors over looked this, and so much of those three books counted on the machines being able to withstand higher g-forces than the human, this is a clear cut case of poor writing.
Ultra Spice wrote:
Im so lost. cant we accelerate lots?
boardadmin wrote:
My main point remains unchanged, however: Frank put foldspace in to make his story continue on without having to explain every minute detail about how it functioned ...and you, as the reader, accepted that. You have to admit, too, that it's pretty far-out there in terms of technological advancement. And he explained nothing about the Holzmann generators and how they worked. He just said, "Here. This is what gets us from point-A to point-B. Forget about how it works. It just does."
Whereas when BH and KJA state that, "Here are rocket propulsion systems that can travel FTL. Forget how they do it, they just do," you cry foul. See what I mean? Yes, yes, yes. I know about Einstein's Relativity Theory and how it circumvents or destroys it. But I BELIEVE that we will do that some day. It'll involve more than just "pushing hard" as you said, and will probably involve super-replenishable-fuels with gravitational pulls, etc. to achieve it ...but it'll happen ...and probably be much more likely achieved before fold spacing technology occurs.
boardadmin wrote:
My main point remains unchanged, however: Frank put foldspace in to make his story continue on without having to explain every minute detail about how it functioned ...and you, as the reader, accepted that. You have to admit, too, that it's pretty far-out there in terms of technological advancement. And he explained nothing about the Holzmann generators and how they worked. He just said, "Here. This is what gets us from point-A to point-B. Forget about how it works. It just does."
Whereas when BH and KJA state that, "Here are rocket propulsion systems that can travel FTL. Forget how they do it, they just do," you cry foul. See what I mean? Yes, yes, yes. I know about Einstein's Relativity Theory and how it circumvents or destroys it. But I BELIEVE that we will do that some day. It'll involve more than just "pushing hard" as you said, and will probably involve super-replenishable-fuels with gravitational pulls, etc. to achieve it ...but it'll happen ...and probably be much more likely achieved before fold spacing technology occurs.
DrunkenDuncan didn't, but Byron wrote:
You're avoiding my point about the writing and information: why is it okay for Frank to leave out details about how the Holzmann engines work but it isn't okay for Brian and KJA to leave out how their FTL engines work?
Sounds like an OH double-standard, IMO.
dominos wrote:dominos wrote:(Byron)dominos wrote:
argument that a ship could use rocket propulsion to accelerate to or past light speed, the authors still messed up big time by forgetting that there shouldn’t be any g-forces because the people had the tech to counteract them (artificial grav and anti grav)!
Perhaps there was partial counteraction. Perhaps there is a small delay in jumping to lightspeed and the brief sensation of G-forces. This is a lame argument. There are so many future possibilities that your argument falls apart.
That would make sense if the books didn't repeatedly take about the g-forces being present for long parts of the voyages. It, however, would still not make FTL rockets any less laughable.
Not to mention that you ignored my (and the OP's) point that there shouldn't have been any g-forces anyways, because they had the tech right at their fingertips to counteract it. Since the authors over looked this, and so much of those three books counted on the machines being able to withstand higher g-forces than the human, this is a clear cut case of poor writing.
Just realized you ignored me calling to attention that you'd ignored my point about the extremely poorly thought out g-force element of these novels. And it's not exactly a background mistake, (all authors make occasional mistakes, rarely do they involve one of the major elements of the plot however), the ability of the machines to withstand higher g-forces is a big part of the books.
Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:Ultra Spice wrote:
Im so lost. cant we accelerate lots?
Until reach the light speed? No.
If have a object with mass, you need "infinity" energy to get it in the light speed. Because of that is impossible by the usual methods (Rockets and fuel, wherever what they are) to accelerate that object until the speed of light, understand now?
When i say infinity energy is because that energy isn't commensurable. it isn't "high energy", it is impossible energy, understand?
Nothing is wrong, the Einstein theory is not wrong, but it needs complements, and is that what the Quantum mechanics do and the expected theory of 'everything" will do.
What the good science fiction do to "explain" the space travel "faster" than light is using theoretical physical objects, like wormhole, black hole (not more theoretical), tachyons, etc. to explain the mechanisms of the travel. It's nothing really wrong in that, because these objects are support by the main theory, but they were never proved.
However, when you say that rockets with unknown fuels are traveling with the speed of light, you a misconcepting the already accepted physical laws of nature. If your universe isn't our own, it's ok (you will have to explain it physical laws), but if it is, you committed a mistake.
I thing my comments can help a little in the questions of this topic.
See ya.
Sorry for my bad English.
boardadmin wrote:
My main point remains unchanged, however: Frank put foldspace in to make his story continue on without having to explain every minute detail about how it functioned ...and you, as the reader, accepted that. You have to admit, too, that it's pretty far-out there in terms of technological advancement. And he explained nothing about the Holzmann generators and how they worked. He just said, "Here. This is what gets us from point-A to point-B. Forget about how it works. It just does."
Whereas when BH and KJA state that, "Here are rocket propulsion systems that can travel FTL. Forget how they do it, they just do," you cry foul. See what I mean? Yes, yes, yes. I know about Einstein's Relativity Theory and how it circumvents or destroys it. But I BELIEVE that we will do that some day. It'll involve more than just "pushing hard" as you said, and will probably involve super-replenishable-fuels with gravitational pulls, etc. to achieve it ...but it'll happen ...and probably be much more likely achieved before fold spacing technology occurs.
dominos wrote:
No no no. Arnoldo, those ships were flying around at FTL speeds long before Norma ever invented those sheilds. SimonH is still 100% correct about the danger of those particles.
Arnoldo wrote:dominos wrote:
No no no. Arnoldo, those ships were flying around at FTL speeds long before Norma ever invented those sheilds. SimonH is still 100% correct about the danger of those particles.
Thanks for the correction dominos! It's been a while since I read the Legends books . . . so when were the the holtzman shields invented?
dominos wrote:arnoldo wrote:
so when were the the holtzman shields invented?
At some point during the first novel if I recall correctly.
dominos wrote:
At some point during the first novel if I recall correctly.
arnoldo wrote:dominos wrote:
At some point during the first novel if I recall correctly.
Correct. It's in the novel The Butlerian Jihad where in one pasage under half of a fleet are using the "unproven new technology" of holtman shield generators. The other half were using "reliable and proven technology" so either way some form of shielding was being implemented.
Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:
"They will certainly invent something strong enough to withstand the dangers of lightspeed or FTLspeed particle bombardments."
I think you dont understand physics, Byron.
Never will exist "strong material" to resist the speed of light. Any matter in the speed of light would become light itself.
FTLspeed perticle?? What are you saying? That type of particles dont even exist. And if we suppose they exist, we dont even know how they react between them or between the ordinary matter.
You are saying anything tangible at all.
Whtennisfan115 wrote:
Hey one of the classic sci-fi debates. Trying to explain how the unexplainable works. I happen to agree with the main point that Byron is making here and I pose this to everyone.
Can rockets as we know/define them, accelerate a ship to and past the speed of light?
Answer: NO WAY! This is clear and proven. The energy required is infinite so the Fuel(as we know it) would need to be more matter than in the entire universe.
But: Did the "rockets" in the prequels accelerate a ship to and past the speed of light?
Answer: Absoultely!
Therefore, since our definition of the word "rocket" does not include the ability to propel a ship faster than light, we must conclude then that the ships in the prequel novels use a definition of rocket that allows this to happen in some "sci-fi" way. I was going to put some supposition as to what fake mechanism they use to do this but it is irrelevant.
This is not the same issue of inconsistency that I've seen freak and the rest of the dune fans discuss with the originals. The fact that they have a "rocket" that allows faster than light travel only means that they have defined that word differently than we normally do.
I'll put it in context,
In Star Trek they have Warp Drives
In Star Wars they have Hyperdrives/Hyperspace
In Babylon 5 they have Jump Engines/Hyperspace
In the Prequel Dune novels they have FTL Rockets
Clearly they aren't the same Rocket that we have because then FTL travel with them would be impossible. Don't let the choice of word cause that much trouble. We are simply asked to believe that it works regardless of the label the authors chose to put on it. Is that not the point you were making Byron?
Dominos Wrote:
I appreciate the point you're trying to make here, but there is a pretty big difference between inventing a warp drive/foldspace/hyperspace ship and just ignoring the problem and saying that your rockets can go FTL. Might as well say my Chevy Cavalier can go FTL.
As to your saying that their definition of rockets is different, the novels clearly show the ships expelling flames out their rears - which is not a believable/respectable way to achieve FTL. Rockets is the word WE used, not them, because that is the kind of ships they depicted. And this goes beyond the FTL capability issue - please read the sections in the original post and since then regarding the fact that ANY possible method of travelling FTL will also remove any sensation of g-forces from the passengers, it's common physics. THE ONLY way that the occupants of a vessel would feel the g-forces is if the ship was just being propelled by conventional methods. Also, note the repeated mentions of the fact that there shouldn't have been any g-forces anyways, because the technology to prevent this was right there in the people's hands.
So your “definition” argument is unfortunately out the window, I hear what you're saying about "just believing it because they said it" but some authors (MOST SF authors) actually put thought into this kind of thing instead of insulting their readers' intelligence. The g-force issue is the nail-in-the-coffin of their credibility as authors who take what they write seriously.
Whtennisfan115 wrote:Hey one of the classic sci-fi debates. Trying to explain how the unexplainable works. I happen to agree with the main point that Byron is making here and I pose this to everyone.
Can rockets as we know/define them, accelerate a ship to and past the speed of light?
Answer: NO WAY! This is clear and proven. The energy required is infinite so the Fuel(as we know it) would need to be more matter than in the entire universe.
But: Did the "rockets" in the prequels accelerate a ship to and past the speed of light?
Answer: Absoultely!
Therefore, since our definition of the word "rocket" does not include the ability to propel a ship faster than light, we must conclude then that the ships in the prequel novels use a definition of rocket that allows this to happen in some "sci-fi" way. I was going to put some supposition as to what fake mechanism they use to do this but it is irrelevant.
This is not the same issue of inconsistency that I've seen freak and the rest of the dune fans discuss with the originals. The fact that they have a "rocket" that allows faster than light travel only means that they have defined that word differently than we normally do.
I'll put it in context,
In Star Trek they have Warp Drives
In Star Wars they have Hyperdrives/Hyperspace
In Babylon 5 they have Jump Engines/Hyperspace
In the Prequel Dune novels they have FTL Rockets
Clearly they aren't the same Rocket that we have because then FTL travel with them would be impossible. Don't let the choice of word cause that much trouble. We are simply asked to believe that it works regardless of the label the authors chose to put on it. Is that not the point you were making Byron?
Whtennisfan115 wrote:
My impression of FTL travel in the books is this and if you have a quote from the book that I missed let me know.
They use "conventional engines" to travel between the stars.
They "blazed pure fire" to travel in system and to leave a system.
When they wanted to leave a system they accelerated out of the system and at some point after they left the system they achieved FTL speeds with their conventional engines.
Its not hard to envision a FTL tech that must be some distance from a star system before they can activate it and that most of the trip is spent accelerating away from the system with some kind of thruster and then decelerating when they arrive.
Its also not hard to accept some limitation in the generation of artificial gravity that prevents it from effectively eliminating g-forces. We don't know how they generate it.
Dominos wrote:dominos wrote:dominos wrote:(Byron)dominos wrote:
argument that a ship could use rocket propulsion to accelerate to or past light speed, the authors still messed up big time by forgetting that there shouldn’t be any g-forces because the people had the tech to counteract them (artificial grav and anti grav)!
Perhaps there was partial counteraction. Perhaps there is a small delay in jumping to lightspeed and the brief sensation of G-forces. This is a lame argument. There are so many future possibilities that your argument falls apart.
That would make sense if the books didn't repeatedly take about the g-forces being present for long parts of the voyages. It, however, would still not make FTL rockets any less laughable.
Not to mention that you ignored my (and the OP's) point that there shouldn't have been any g-forces anyways, because they had the tech right at their fingertips to counteract it. Since the authors over looked this, and so much of those three books counted on the machines being able to withstand higher g-forces than the human, this is a clear cut case of poor writing.
Just realized you ignored me calling to attention that you'd ignored my point about the extremely poorly thought out g-force element of these novels. And it's not exactly a background mistake, (all authors make occasional mistakes, rarely do they involve one of the major elements of the plot however), the ability of the machines to withstand higher g-forces is a big part of the books.
This is going to be a busy day for me it seems!
Yet again, you sidestep talking about this one - I can quote myself quoting myself allllll day until you admit that this is a MASSIVE example of poor attention to... 'detail' isn't really the right word for something as big as this.
Or has KJA not sent you the proper answer for this one yet? I'll wait.
A Thing of Eternity wrote:Ultra Spice wrote: ~~This post was deleted by Byron~~
Its science fiction we should just read and accept whatever the authors tell us too. It doesnt have to make sense, its science fiction, writers can ssay anything they want is possible and its still really good quality writing.
A Thing of Eternity wrote:a wonderful idiot named Ultra Spice (me)
SimonH wrote:A Thing of Eternity wrote:a wonderful idiot named Ultra Spice (me)
nice - you had me for a number of posts before I suspected Ultra spice was a pseudonym
GamePlayer wrote:LOLI had no idea.
SandChigger wrote:It's all in how you edit reality!
SandChigger wrote:Maybe you should recommend some to Byron?
(I imagine they keep a close watch on the stash in the ER, though.)
Ultra Spice wrote:Exactly! Dark matter would have more than infinite energy so using it as fuel would give enough power to go faster than light!
Ampoliros wrote:Ultra Spice wrote:Exactly! Dark matter would have more than infinite energy so using it as fuel would give enough power to go faster than light!
I mean I know some people are stupid...but...
...
damn...
A Thing of Eternity wrote::lol=: Thanks, I think that whole discussion was my finest internet moment. Trying to explain to Byron that absolutely no kind of kinetic rocket could EVER breach lightspeed was really difficult. He kept saying shit like "they thought the sound barrier was impossible to break too back in the day" and I'd say "apples and oranges, that was about the limits of our engineering, not the limits of physics" and it went on and on. When he suggested engines might one day burn dark matter or something (he was just tossing random shit out there, but even then, dark matter? What a stupid thing to say. We don't even know what dark matter IS, hell, I don't think it's even 100% proven that it exists yet...).
He just didn't understand that it's not about putting more force out the back of the rocket and eventually it will be enough. Every time you push harder and go faster you also gain mass, so the next bit of acceleration will require more energy than the previous bit, and this starts becoming more extreme once you pass about 99% LS... so no matter how hard you push, you can only ever get closer and closer to LS, never faster than it, because your mass would become infinite.
He couldn't understand that ALL THE ENERGY CONTAINED IN THE ENTIRE DAMNED UNIVERSE WOULDN"T BE ENOUGH!!
For fuck's sake, why does he think every other SF story uses hyperspace, or warp drives, or wormholes, and NEVER rockets?! There's a damned reason for that!
Loader robots scurried among larger pieces of AI equipment that moved about on glider fields. Small scouring drones climbed into engine tubes and exhaust cones; maintenance machines scanned large drive components for needed repairs. Tanker robots refueled parked starships, preparing each long-range vessel for any mission that Omnius decreed in his infinite intelligence.
As rapidly as possible, Vor brought the shuttle into a drydock hangar and shut down all systems. Just ahead, amid cargo wharves, gantries, and refueling cisterns, a variety of spaceships were berthed. Machine crews worked the long-distance craft, preparing them for departure.
SUSPENSOR: secondary (low-drain) phase of a Holtzman field generator. It nullifies gravity within certain limits prescribed by relative mass and energy consumption.
A Thing of Eternity wrote:Well, either foldspace is technobabble gibberish or it's wormhole in my opinion!
I agree with you, FH left a hole with some of this.
Robspierre wrote:A Thing of Eternity wrote:Well, either foldspace is technobabble gibberish or it's wormhole in my opinion!
I agree with you, FH left a hole with some of this.
Frank knew when too much would interfere with the story. Folding space serves a purpose, the how isn't important, it is the conditions such an arrangement forces upon the universe that matters.
Rob
A Thing of Eternity wrote:Robspierre wrote:A Thing of Eternity wrote:Well, either foldspace is technobabble gibberish or it's wormhole in my opinion!
I agree with you, FH left a hole with some of this.
Frank knew when too much would interfere with the story. Folding space serves a purpose, the how isn't important, it is the conditions such an arrangement forces upon the universe that matters.
Rob
Oh I agree with that for foldspace, but not for the artificial gravity and inertia dampening, I think he should have mentioned a holtzman feild beign used or something.
A Thing of Eternity wrote:Robspierre wrote:A Thing of Eternity wrote:Well, either foldspace is technobabble gibberish or it's wormhole in my opinion!
I agree with you, FH left a hole with some of this.
Frank knew when too much would interfere with the story. Folding space serves a purpose, the how isn't important, it is the conditions such an arrangement forces upon the universe that matters.
Rob
Oh I agree with that for foldspace, but not for the artificial gravity and inertia dampening, I think he should have mentioned a holtzman feild beign used or something.
D Pope wrote:I'm still a little weak on why you go faster if you've got a trail to follow.
AMP wrote:discussion of how stringline ships work. basically iperion markers draw out a pre-mapped safe route through space so that ships can move along them at "superfast" speeds. Doesn't use any kind of dimensional shifting or hyperspace, so ships have to stick to a schedule so they don't run into each other.
-Man, it sure is a good thing that nothing in space moves...
A Thing of Eternity wrote:D Pope wrote:I'm still a little weak on why you go faster if you've got a trail to follow.
That's a starwars question?
D Pope wrote:That's kind of what i'm asking, he says the stiringline is faster than the black market ships but hasn't said why. I've probably missed something. What ever the method of propulsion is, I should think they all have it. Capt. JS has a whole planet of resources to draw from, why would he build slower ships?
"Well, what do you know- my ship has a gas petal too! Wanna see me go plaid?"
Amp wrote:Actually, no don't think about it all.
SandChigger wrote:You know, we kind of gloss over this with FH's stuff and assume that because the Holtzmann field stuff is about canceling gravity (in the suspensors, at least) that they can also counteract weightlessness in space, but being able to cancel gravity doesn't necessarily entail that you can create it as well. And if you can't create a gravitational field, you probably can't counteract the pseudo-gravity of acceleration (achieve what they call "inertial dampening" in Trekese, I believe). Anyone remember where FH discusses artificial gravity?
SandChigger wrote:They have the same effects... but I'm not sure if it means they're the same thing.![]()
Hunchback Jack wrote:Ah, fuckit.
Sev wrote:... what an idiot he is,was, and always will be.
Return to Discussions from Other Boards
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest