The DN FTL debate, AKA: Byron Makes Ass of Self

[A Thing of Eternity]

This is primarily copied word for word from DN, though certain off-topic posts have been removed. This topic was originally created by myself, and was mostly ignored by all of the preeks until long after I was banned (Byron and Arnoldo made a few BS posts which ignored the meat of my argument); a wonderful idiot named Ultra Spice (me) came along and revived it. I hope you all enjoy reading this fine example of ignorance.


As a side note: When Dominos (me again (but just for this thread, Dominos was actually The Phantom's puppet which he kindly lent to me)) was banned following this debate his final rebuttal was also deleted from DN. As I hate to see that thread ending off with what wrongly appears to be a preek victory, I would be indebted to anyone who would re-post or paraphrase the final Dominos post over at DN and set the record straight. (It's actually his second last comment I'd like re-posted, the last post was adressed to Byron and he chose to delete it rather than admit that KJA hadn't given him an answer yet)

[A Thing of Eternity]

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)

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)

and yet they are able to travel from star system to star system in weeks or months.

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)

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.

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)

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

Spaceships in the new books are capable of traveling at four different speeds: sub-light speed, light speed, ridiculous speed, and ludicrous speed. When going into ludicrous speed all crew members must use a seat belt for their own safety. Ludicrous speed results in the ship leaving a trail of plaid, parodying the "warp trail" seen in the first few Star Trek films.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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

[A Thing of Eternity]

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

[A Thing of Eternity]

AToE 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

I already answered this. They used the magic drive system described above which goes faster than light.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

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.

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

I imagined that they mainly used foldspace engines with computers for navigation along with every other method we can conceive of. 110 centuries is a long time, time to think of ways we can't even imagine.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

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).

Which stealth bomber is that?

The B-2 Spirit is powered by four General Electric F-118-GE-100 engines.

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.

Sounds like warp drive ala Star Trek. I'm sure Hyppo will be along to correct me if I'm wrong.

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.

Foldspace probably was safe before the Butlerian Jihad smashed all the computers. I imagined the Guild just found a way to do it safely without computers. Only a technical difference, I know.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron wrote:

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

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").

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

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").

You don't think humanity could establish a million planets in 11,000 years? Prequels aside, we don't know when foldspace came into use. If it was early, that number would be easily achievable.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

Einstein and Rosen proved wormholes (foldspace) are possible:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein-Rosen_Bridge

[A Thing of Eternity]

Talos Aquinas wrote:

Unfortunately, zeropoint, 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. (Frank Herbert's answer to pulp scifi silliness, if you will. Something else misunderstood?)

There were only around thirteen thousand worlds represented in the Landsraad at the time of the Jihad, no, Freakzilla? The majority of the "million planets" were added during the following 10,000 years.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

I don't recall a firm number ever being established. But Odrade refers to the Old Empire as "The Million Planets" or something similar.

[A Thing of Eternity]

AToE wrote:

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?

I didn't mean if somone qualified dissagreed with him. He'd probably be delighted, and there are people out there who do. I meant that if I made this post and someone responded: "oh yeah, well maybe we can break light speed with regular propulsion, yeah. Why not? Who says?" Then he would be rolling over in his grave. I was simply pointing out that to argue against the fact that you cannot accelerate to or past light speed using conventional methods is rediculous (unless you can back it up with signatures from a few dozen recognised partical theorists). I was using Hyperbole.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Zeropoint wrote:

oneeyedunicornhunter wrote:
wasn't it einstein himself who proved that newtons laws weren't universal?

Are you referring to Einstein's unified field theory?? I forget the author but I read an article (a few actually, but one good one) that the laws of relativity are BS and the universe is plasmic in nature.

electrohydrodynamics is of no use whatsoever in vacuum; and it has nothing to do with anti-gravity.

Hey, this is science FICTION. I was only throwing out some possible scenerios for arnoldo. PS- are you sure your not thinking of Ionic wind (which doesn't work in a vaccuum)??

Folding space is a way of cheating Nature and getting around the lightspeed barrier.... Something else misunderstood?

Are you implying I misunderstood Frank's usage of foldspace?? The topic was about space travel PRE-Guild.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

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?

I've stated how I imagined it. If Holzmann came up with his theories much earlier than indicated in the prequels, mankind had up to 110 centuries to colonize planets through foldspace and the use of computers for navigation not to mention whatever other methods of propulsion they were using. FH barely ever mentions Holzmann except to name his theories, he says nothing about the man.

You can't go faster than light. Wormholes (foldspace) do not allow you to go faster, it is a shortcut in distance. The new books say they were zipping around the galaxy using conventional propulsion, (rocketry?) this simply cannot be done. It defies science and the appendix of Dune.

Why do you think FH used foldspace? It's a solution to the common sci-fi issue of the vast distances between stars.

[A Thing of Eternity]

AToE wrote:

I'm mostly just curious why the authors chose to do the interplanetary travel this way. They must have known that they really should have used warp engines of somekind instead of conventional? Then they wouldn't have had this issue, they would have had to ditch the whole acceleration advantage for the machines, but as I state above, that wasn't really necessary anyways.

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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?

I could be wrong, but I haven't read anyone posting anything criticising what BH and KJA haven't spelt out. There are obvious inconsistencies that a lot of people have issue with.

FH leaving pre-guild space travel undefined is not an inconsistency. You could argue it was a cop out, but we are discussing it 43 years after the publication. This is something in itself.

Conversely, the new authors presented descriptions of pre guild space travel and these are hugely inconsistent with current scientific theory. Even metallic/composite objects would be obliterated at near light speeds.

Leaving something to our imagination is very different to presenting an illogical scenario. The latter requires further explanation or backtracking and doesn't stimulate my imagination.

My personal opinion at this point in time is that the new authors do not consider it important to be scientifically consistent in the novels. A fast paced plot seems to be more important.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Crysknife wrote:

Not to mention the guild monopoly could easily be overcome with planets that are close to each other......say no more than 300 light years apart. Why use the Guild when you can use hyperships?

No one did that anywhere after the Guild? I find that hard to believe.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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?

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

AToE wrote:

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?

Freak - The flames are mentioned by the narrator. The quote is is my original post, I believe it's the first or second quote.

I appreceate the "throw the new authors a bone" sentiment Zeropoint, and I agree with your statement. The end of your first paragraph is right; these are clearly conventional engines in our 'current' period, the word conventional was put in there by me, not the authors. They just have regular old rockets.

[A Thing of Eternity]

AToE wrote:

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.

Brian and Kevin gave the humans a very powerful way to counteract the g-forces. Artifical-Gravity and Anti-Gravity. I go over this a couple of times in my first post. With the Artifical-Gravity (which thhey already had at the beginning of the novels) or Anti-Gravity (which good ol' Norma gave them) it would have been absolute childs play to apply a feild of pressure pulling (or pushing) in the opposite direction as the g-forces created by accellerating and decellerating. So unless humanity continued being as blind to this option as they are in the Legends series it would be easy for them to continue using the "FTL but not Foldspace" ships, way cheaper that hiring the guild, and if travel only takes a couple weeks or months, who cares if it only costs X% of instantaneous.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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:

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron wrote:

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:

Why not just skip a spaceship off the rim of a blackhole? Would that be considered a "rimshot"?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Zeropoint wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:

Are the engines mentioned by the characters as conventional or is it the omniscient narrator?

Neither. Its a joke. Something to give us a reason to gripe. The books, this message board, every word you ever typed or are going to type has all been predestined. Don't you get it?? There are no laws of physics. All that you percieve is a manifestation of your rational mind trying to make sense of a choatic multiverse (which in actuality doesn't exist, you just think it does).


...




Nah, its just bad writing.

[A Thing of Eternity]

AToE 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]

Freakzilla wrote:

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.

I have a hypothesis but it's personally insulting to the authors, so...

[A Thing of Eternity]

~~~~~Interlude~~~~~

Well, up until this point the whole discussion has been Byron trying to avoid my point, even using going to the lengths of insulting FH to draw attention away from the issue, and then some completely off topic political BS. This thread proceeded to fade away as it was ignored by everyone, myself having given up, and the preeks scared to face the fact that KJABH did a shit job.



Two and a half months later (and about three or four weeks after I was banned) a nice little troll name Ultra Spice got the ball rolling again.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

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.

Reading through all the old posts here like i was told to, and this one makes me a bit mad. Pretty arrogant to think that you know more about science than a science fiction author. kevin used to work with scientists didnt he? so Id think he knows what hes talking about. He wouldnt have impossible ships in his books, hes smarter than that. If he says that the rocketships can go fatser than light then they can, he knows more about this stuff than us.

jeez.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice 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.

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Simon wrote:

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.

Don't get me wrong TMB, I'm not bashing, I just really want to see an OH version of DUNE 7, something more than casual fan fic, I think you guys could do it and it'd be cool to read, that's all.

[A Thing of Eternity]

TMB wrote:

That kind of sounds like the ol' "if you think you can do better how come you haven't" argument.

But honestly, I have been sketching out a storyline with another OHer for Dune 7--so who knows, maybe we will write one

[A Thing of Eternity]

Simon wrote:

Yeah, sorry if it came off as that (I know I'd said something like that before when I first came here), but YES, it would be cool if you guys did work on something, your insights into classic Dune are quality and a well thought out fan fic by you guys would definitly get my readership

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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.

it's not stupid if you have clear examples.

my advice (which you do not have to take) is to not put anyone up on a pedestal. it can be very distressing when you can't keep them up there - everyone is human.

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

oh yeah - I am a scientist and I agree with AToE

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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.

I guess so

[A Thing of Eternity]

Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:

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.

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron wrote:

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.

Where did it say in the novel that the rockets were propelled with "Fuel"?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

boardadmin wrote:
Where did it say in the novel that the rockets were propelled with "Fuel"?

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?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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.

And Byron making a fool of himself begins!

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

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.

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Frybread wrote:

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.

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

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.

Oh. But dark matter would still have more than infinite energy and be enough to go faster than light with a rocket. Or some other fuel could be in those engines with enough energy to go faster than light! We dont know what might happen in the future.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Talos Aquinas 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.

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.

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.

Yes, for the traveller. But as Frybread has pointed out, not for the outside world, where hundreds or thousands of years pass.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Bryon 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.

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."

Remember this post when Byron starts quoting from papers later, and you start to think that maybe, just maybe he does undertand what he's talking about. Remember that in this post he clearly didn't understand the concept that no matter what you burn, no matter how efficient the rocket; it will never have the necessary amount of energy. He has absolutely no idea what we are talking about.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

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."

Exactly! If there is efficient enough fuel it'l give more than the infinite energy necessary to accelereate to lightspeed or the more than infinite energy needed to accelllerat past lightspeed! I dont see why this is impossible at all, people just arent thinking of the fuel advances we might make in the future!

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

Let's not get holier-than-thou. Show me where San ...I mean Talos Aquino 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-advanced-future-rocket-propellents-under-research.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).

[A Thing of Eternity]

Kull_wahad wrote:

boardadmin wrote:
Let's not get holier-than-thou.

That's what I was trying to say to you.

Show me where San ...I mean Talos Aquinos quoted Einstein, please. He quoted nothing. Just like you did here.

Just like you did as well, until this very post I am quoting. What was that about being holier-than-thou again? Besides, the basic idea of Einstein's theories have been relatively (heh) common knowledge for quite some time now, so when someone says "you can't go beyond the speed of light using conventional propulsion," it's no great leap to assume they are referring to Einstein.

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.

Interesting, but I see nothing there suggesting the eventual downfall of the lightspeed barrier. If we made rockets that were five million times more efficient than we currently can make, we are still relatively speaking (heh, did it again) no closer to the infinite amount of energy required.

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.

Of course. Much of science fiction - and a good part of science too, these days - involves finding ways around the laws of relativity. No one is suggesting that Einstein was the end-all-be-all of science. Certainly there is more to learn and discover. Many gaping holes will hopefully eventually be filled. That doesn't mean the basic principles, at least as far as Einstein understood them, are unsound. Just as Newton was supplanted by Einstein, but the basic idea of "an object in motion stays in motion" is still true. There have just been many loopholes discovered since.

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).

Not my argument. I was simpy surprised that you would attack someone for basing their arguments on relativity theory, which, despite having some big holes in it, just like Newton, the basic ideas are sound. Talos Aquinas (He's SC? Huh, never made the connection! Makes sense though!) could do worse than to base his argument off of it. It's certainly no more absurd than "infinite energy dark matter rockets."

For what it's worth, I find foldspace more plausible than FTL rockets myself. It makes more sense in a relativity-based universe, at least.

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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).

both concepts are outside current science.

foldspace is (AFAIK) a partly novel concept that retains current scientific theory and allows new results. While FH left some of it up to our imagination - the concept was stimulating. Like all good science fiction.

The legends series rockets were described poorly and you can clearly see that the authors do not understand physics. Like everything else, these sort of details would just stunt the growth of their story.

1. If passengers could feel inertial effects when taking off or landing from speeds equal or greater than the speed of light then they would be obliterated. Machines would also be obliterated. Only things without mass can travel at that speed without being crushed in the speed changes.

2. Light speed is not fast enough to get anywhere in the universe except the planets in our own solar system. Each trip would take months, years,decades or more. I don't think BH&KJA know or care about this
Just some examples...

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

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

Way to stay on topic ass-hat. Not what we were discussing at all.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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.

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

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.

Indeed, thanks for helping Byron avoid the real discussion Arnoldo, he needs all the help he can get.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

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.

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!

[A Thing of Eternity]

oneeyedunicornhunter wrote:

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!

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...

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

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...

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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).[/u]

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

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).

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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.

by light quanta maybe... what has that got to do with propelling rockets a high speeds ?

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 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>

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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.

so you will marginally younger than everyone else when you get there. or maybe the human race would be extinct by the time you get there.

this is not what happened in the books so is irrelevant

[A Thing of Eternity]

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]

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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.

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

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos 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.

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).

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla 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...

Can I throw a brick at your car windshield while you're driving? It has nothing to do with the speed limit, I promise.


ZING!!!

Quote:
And folding space isn't dangerous? Possibly ending up in the middle of an asteroid field ...or a red dwarf?

Well, that explains the need for prescient navigators, doesn't it?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

boardadmin wrote:

Did Frank Herbert explain how Holzmann engines worked?

Did Brian and Kevin explain how their lightspeed ships worked?

Next.

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. 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.

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. 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. Even if you want to continue your ridiculous (and un-educated) 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)!

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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.
_________________

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

So, how are wormholes and foldspace different?

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

If you read my first paragraph I actually do mention that that's not a problem. That’s, ah, the whole point of that paragraph actually.

I (and 99.99% of scientists, and Freakzilla) said: To accelerate mass (even just one particle) to the speed of light would require infinite energy. This is not an efficiency issue. Relativity has no problems with particles which always travel (read: are emitted, not accelerated) close to, at, or faster than the speed of light.

Do you get that every link you're posting does nothing to help your argument that FTL rockets make sense? They all conform to relativity, not contradict it.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron wrote:

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.

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 Omph, could you (or anyone who can) please go over there and grab the URL and post it here? I had no luck getting it to work

The Newtonian Reactionary Force Unlimited Speed Principle

Suppose, instead of an automobile we have a large open truck containing many individuals who in sequential order jump outward from the back of the truck. We then have a condition similar, in the most general sense, to rocket propulsion. In this case a force is exerted against the vehicle in a direction opposite to that of the jumping individuals or in the case of an actual rocket, in a direction opposite to the escaping gases, or rocket propellant. Thus, in the case of the real rocket, an acceleration of the vehicle occurs in one direction as the gases are expelled in the other direction. With very little thought it becomes clear that if the rocket keeps going faster as the gasses continue to escape, then as long as the rocket does not run out of fuel, there appears to be no limit to the speed it can achieve. Nonetheless, it can be easily shown that there are practical limitations on the design of such chemical fuel based rockets, and subsequently an inherent practical speed limit, if not in fact a theoretical speed limit. This does not rule out the uses of exotic fuels, however, including some form of atomic energy, ion propulsion, or for that matter replenishable fuels, or even the use of innovations such as solar sails. The point being that there is no evidence in support of the proposition that there is a theoretical speed limit in this regard. The evidence shows only the practical limitations. Again using electromagnetic propulsion as the ultimate reactionary speed limit of an energy source, we can express this reactionary force diagrammatically as shown in Figure 2.



Referring to Figure 2, it can be seen that the secondary mass interface of Figure 1 has been removed. This does not necessarily mean that the energy source is not exerting force on secondary masses, such as particles being expelled by the electromagnetic energy, but rather that such consideration has no bearing on the acceleration of the primary mass. As should be obvious from the diagram, the acceleration of the primary mass is primarily a function of the reactionary force exerted against the primary mass interface by the reactionary force, or energy source. Thus, whereas the secondary influence the energy source might have on secondary masses is unchanged from what it was in Figure 1, and is therefore still relativistic, its influence on the primary mass is of a Newtonian nature. More specifically, the theoretical speed limit is still the speed of light with regard to secondary masses, but no such theoretical limit is implied with regard to the primary mass. In fact, in this second case the primary mass appears to follow direct Newtonian principles. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that in the acceleration frame of the primary object, Newtonian physics prevails.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

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).

Please answer Freakzilla's question on that one... wormholes are what happen when you "fold" space. It's a simplification yes, but the fact of the matter is that FH actually imagined a way to get around relativity. Brian and Kevin just ignored the problem. I apologize for the uneducated remark, but your lack of understanding has me a bit worked up.

He never did answer Freak's question. I wonder why?

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.

Yes, FTL rocketry is out of the question. I'm not the source BTW. There is not enough energy in the universe. Period. If spacetime could be warped somehow, or if a ship could travel through an alternate dimension (hyperdrive) then it would be possible. It is not possible simply by by applying lots of force to an object, which is all a rocket engine is capable of doing.

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."

Please see final comment in this rant.

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.

And maybe in the future we will be able to invent perpetual motion machines. Maybe we'll be able to create planets out of pebbles by wishing really hard. Sounds like I'm being rude, but that's the kind of leap you're making.

dominos wrote:
Even if you want to continue your ridiculous (and un-educated)

Ah. There's that flame baiting word...

Again, I apologize.

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.

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.

If they had put though into it they would have used FTL drives of some kind, not rockets.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

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~

This completely ignores the fact that (which has been proven, or as close to it as anything can ever be proven) accelerating to the speed of light would require infinite energy, and would actually increase the mass of the object being accelerated to infinite - both of which are impossible for obvious reasons.

I truly aplaud you for digging up some support, but you have to understand that this just isn't right. The vast, vast majority of scientists have proved to themselves that it's impossible. I could go right now and get you some scientific papers proving that the world is flat, that men never walked on the moon, that there was never a holocaust, that the earth is six thousand years old and so are the dinosaur bones, that there is no such thing as global warming.


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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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?

Under certain circumstances the theory may not apply to massless light quanta. This does not say anything about the energy required to accelerate mass to speeds close to the speed of light.

No it does not disprove Einstein. There is a bulk of experimental evidence confirming relativistic predictions in many cases. Why would it still be relevant? These theories don't last without experimental confirmation

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.

??? what is space folding to you? I think we need your definition of it. To me it is somehow forcing particles to jump from one position in space to another. Like a wormhole jump. Or quantum tunnelling. Hence my comments directly above.

[A Thing of Eternity]

SimonH wrote:

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.

your reply does not address my comments at all. you are ignoring the bad logic in the books.

this "Next. " stuff is quite arrogant.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

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.

I'm doing just that, I'll comment again when I've read it from start to finish, and researched it's writers and supporters.

Also, by you saying Pushing pulling and skipping (what terminology you have) you're pretty much admitting that you believe that it's impossible to do with just rocket power. Which is what this entire argument has been about.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Arnoldo wrote:

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.

Before Norma perfected fold space she developed holtzman shields for ships which would be more than capable of handling a "motionless particle".

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote:

Im so lost. cant we accelerate lots?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

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.

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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 are 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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Byron 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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

DrunkenDuncan wrote:

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.

I think you're dreaming, Byron...

I'm not saying FTL travel is impossible. I'm sure they'll think of some crazy way to do it, but I'm also sure it will have nothing to do with propulsion or fuels. To me, FTL and rocket-propulsion are incompatible subjects.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Freakzilla wrote:

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."

Genius

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.

I don't see what you mean.

FH used an accepted theory to circumvent the light barrier, BH&KJA just ignored it. Since FH didn't tell us how Holzmann generators work there's nothing to cry foul about. Like I've said many times, part of FH's genius is what he doesn't tell you that makes the story interesting.

That's why he's The Master and they're hacks.

[A Thing of Eternity]

DrunkenDuncan wrote:

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.

Heh.

It's not a double standard. Freak says it pretty bluntly, but I think BH and KJA simply made the mistake of getting too specific in their explanation. They don't quite have the science right.

In my earlier post, I was simply reacting to "faster-than-light rockets" which is absurd. What surface could you even push off of without destroying it or everything else on said surface? Rockets just don't have lightspeed capabilities. Even our own primitive space vessels only use rockets to get out of the atmosphere. After that, they orbit around the planet to build up speed, using minor thrusters for control.

The reason Frank Herbert could get away with this is because unlike the new authors, Frank thinks very carefully about everything he writes, constantly thinking about the final product.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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]

Dominos wrote:

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.

Thank you Lisan for this very clearly written response, I think your english actually adds a poetic element to your posts, and they are certainly very easy to understand.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

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.

This is not a double standard. When one picks up an SF novel and they are told that the ships use Hyperspace/Wormholes/Warpdrives/FoldSpace(same as wormhole - hey! you never did answer Freakzilla's question on that one.) to get around the problem of Relativity - that is good writing, and very standard in SF. Very few authors try to explain how exactly those FTL drives work, though some do take the extra time to add something about anti-grav or exotic matter. As long as the author doesn't say the FTL engine uses apple and onions to alter space-time I think we're okay.

The problem arises when one picks up a SF book and is told that the ships use rocket engines/bicycles/wings to get around the problem of Relativity. That means the authors forgot, didn't understand, or just plain didn't think the readers would notice.


BY THE WAY - when you say that it will involve "gravitational pulls" .................that's a WARP drive. Not a rocket. We're talking about rockets. If a ship had a warp drive then rockets would not add to the effect (there would be no reason to have rockets) AND in a ship utilizing WARP drives there would be zero g-force exerted on the passangers. That's true of all theoretical FTL drives. But, I wouldn't expect Kevin to have figured that out since he forgot that because the ships use artificial gravity and have access to anti gravity there wouldn't have been any g-forces anyways. Still waiting for a comment on that.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos 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?

At some point during the first novel if I recall correctly.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Talos Aquinas wrote:

dominos wrote:

arnoldo wrote:
so when were the the holtzman shields invented?

At some point during the first novel if I recall correctly.

Well into the second half in fact.

Those shields are irrelevant here since both the machines and humans were using FTL ships long before their invention.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

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.

Yes, they would have been using some kind of alloy, ceramic, fullerene, whatever. Whatever they were using it wouldn't have been nearly strong enough to withstand the forces SimonH was talking about.

AND - I'm going to use my prescience to debate the response Byron seems so fond of using in this argument, though whether it would have been him or you to actually say this probably depends on who would have gotten here first:

"who knows what kinds of materials might be invented in 10,000 years? They will certainly invent something strong enough to withstand the dangers of lightspeed or FTLspeed particle bombardments."

This argument doesn't hold up because: IF in fact they had invented such materials in the Legends universe they would have had no need for the holtzman shields. All battles would have been pointless and impossible. Ships are clearly destroyed by mere missiles in the Legends series (most of which are probably not nuclear) - if they could be destroyed by mere missiles, or even nuclear missiles then there is no way that they were using shielding material which could withstand the bombardment SimonH brought up.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:

"They will certainly invent something strong enough to withstand the dangers of lightspeed or FTLspeed particle bombardments."

Never will exist "strong material" to resist the speed of light. Any matter in the speed of light would become light itself.

FTLspeed particle?? 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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

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.

Ooops! Lisan - you miss-read my post! That was just me guessing what him or Arnoldo would say, not something they've actually said yet! We can't make fun of them for saying that quiiiite yet.

Although what you posted should stay up just in case they decide to use that argument.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:

hahahaha, My bad! Sometimes I read the things to fast, and because of that I thought that it was written by byron.

really sorry, Byron.

But I will let this post here for the cause of any similiar answer

So, I have already written my counter-argument, however I erased my byron's citation.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote:

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?

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.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Whtennisfan115 wrote:

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.

I don't think its quite out the window yet . Okay so they didn't come out and say that they were using rockets as their "conventional engines." Looking back at the first post it says "Aft engines blazed pure fire pushing the vessels to accelerations that would have crushed more biological passengers."

I could be wrong because I haven't read the prequels in almost a year but that quote doesn't establish if the flames were the actual method of acheiving interstellar speeds. In fact I remember wondering how they did it when I read the book as well because they didn't say how. All they said was that the ships had "conventional engines" Feel free to quote a section of the book if you remember it, but did they ever say that the ships spewed their flames and that is how they crossed the stars? I thought that was only refering to in system travel.

Perhaps once they get a sufficient distance from a system and into interstellar space, they can use a different method that you'd be more comfortable with say a warp drive for instance.

As far as artificial gravity is concerned we are never told about how the ships do this and we don't have to be told. Maybe whatever sci-fi method they use only allows them to project gravity to pull downward for whatever reason. What if its a property of the deck plating but its not practical to make the whole ship out of it? In this case they would feel plenty of acceleration.

Either way it is a completely unknown technology to us and we have no idea how it would work. Just because they can project the gravity in any direction in other shows and series to nullify acceleration, doesn't mean they can do it in Dune and that's fine. The authors don't have to tell us how it works, or why they don't use it to nullify the effects of acceleration.

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.

Is it done differently in the prequel books? If anyone has a quote let me know. I could have just forgotten it

[A Thing of Eternity]

Ultra Spice wrote: ~~This post was deleted by Byron~~

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?

I agree, it doesnt matter. 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]

Dominos wrote: ~~This post was deleted by Bryon. This is the one I would like to see paraphrased or re-posted over at DN~~

Frig! this website just deleted my post, which I'd spent a half hour typing up.

Here's a summary, because I'm much too upset now to re-type it, my original post was much more in depth and eloquent, sorry for this rushed mess you're about to read.

- FTL for interstellar, rockets for in system excuse - maybe. But this should have been brought up by the authors, who should have known that everything in the book points towards there only being rocket engines on those ships. Especially the fact that the passengers feel g-force, which they would not with any warp type drive. If you read the original post made by A Thing of Eternity it actually goes pretty in-depth into the evidence for the rockets being the only source of propulsion.

- deck plating excuse - again, not bad, this does actually provide a possible excuse: PRE norma cenva inventing the suspensor feild, which was cheap enough to put in lamps and effective. It could have easily nullified the g-forces - this is still a massive and obvious mistake by the authors.

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.

Fair enough - but read my points # 1 and # 2 for a decent explanation of why this is a pretty big stretch from the info given us in the books. These are authors who will tell the reader fifteen times what a nice person a character is (they do hate to use real characterization techniques don't they?) but it didn't even occur to them that there were massive holes in their story? WEAK.

1. The two types of engine idea - actually a not half bad excuse, but YOU came up with it based on nothing at all from the novels. Which is fine, but plugging plot holes is the authors job, not the reader. We shouldn't have to have a five page discussion just to come up with ONE somewhat flimsy and completely imagined excuse for the authors mistake.

2. The deck plating idea - this was pretty good thinking on your part, but as I stated above it's really just half the mistake because the people had cheap and effective anti-grav tech which could have done the job. And again - a culture having arti-grav and anti-grav but not being able to nullify g-forces is something that should have set off alarm bells in any real SF authors head - and that author should have supplied the reasoning behind the solution to the problem, not a fan imagining it.

It's obvious that you and I have put more thought into this topic than the authors did, and that's pretty sad considering they call themselves SF authors. If they had put in hallf the thought that you or I have they would have seen these holes a million miles away and plugged them.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Dominos wrote: ~~This post was deleted by Byron. He never did hear back from KJA for an excuse I guess...~~

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.

Alright quoting myself for the third time in a row! Byron, do you have an answer for this one yet? Maybe it would go well in the FAQ section of this site, KJA could say the problem was caused by prescient manipulation!

[A Thing of Eternity]

~~~FIN~~~

Thanks for reading.

I hope I didn't miss any, or state that a post was made by the wrong person. I'm not sure if there were any other posts near the end which also got deleted, if anyone knows of one please post it or a paraphrase of it here.

[Lisan Al-Gaib]

What a tragic history

Did Byron never answered you or came back to the debate? That was a sad end...

[A Thing of Eternity]

I honestly think he was waiting for KJA to give him an answer. It's too bad he booted me right when I'd actually found someone compitent to debate with. I wouldn't mind having preeks like that Whtennisfan115 around to discuss things with.

[GamePlayer]

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.

This explains a great deal about the thinking of these fans. They deserve KJA. There's simply no other way to say it.

[SimonH]

a wonderful idiot named Ultra Spice (me)

nice - you had me for a number of posts before I suspected Ultra spice was a pseudonym

[A Thing of Eternity]

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]

LOL I had no idea.

[The Phantom]

LOL I had no idea.

lol i suspected it which was when i offered dominos for aToE's use in the debate

[A Thing of Eternity]

I got a pretty good laugh out of it. Especially that Byron seemed to not notice the sarcasm at all in this thread. I do wish he hadn't deleted the second last post over at DN in a lame attempt to make it appear that a preek had won the argument. What a pathetic thing to do.

[SandChigger]

But we should be used to that as typical HLP behavior by now.

After all, they have made it appear Sadworms has a 3.5 or better rating over on Amazon by deleting several tens of one-star reviews.

It's all in how you edit reality!

[Freakzilla]

It's all in how you edit reality!

I prefer narcotics.

[SandChigger]

Maybe you should recommend some to Byron?

(I imagine they keep a close watch on the stash in the ER, though.)

[Freakzilla]

Maybe you should recommend some to Byron?

(I imagine they keep a close watch on the stash in the ER, though.)

Some people just can't handle drugs or reality and there is sadly no hope for them.

[Ampoliros]

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...

[Serkanner]

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...

... "stupid is as stupid does"

Edit: I am re-reading the topic. Well played ATOE! UltraSpice is a monument of a sock-puppet!

[A Thing of Eternity]

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!

[Serkanner]

: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!

Besides seeing Byrion being an ass the topic thought me a thing or twoabout physics I didn't know. Very entertaining.

[Ampoliros]

Well my Huffpost argument just ended up going in circles. The preek started off by saying nuDune was based off Frank's notes and then trying to defend B&K's changes as what a modern audience wanted, rather than some dry subtle villian.

It was good to see this discussion laid out. Iirc I did find a mention in Butlerian Jihad where they were refueling ships from tankers but I didn't get a page number. It's pretty close to the front.

[SandChigger]

"Tanker" gets you this from TBJ (Ch.17):

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.

"Refuel" gets you this one, too (Ch.108):

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.

"Cistern" makes it sound like liquid fuel, no?

[A Thing of Eternity]

The fuel thing actually isn't that bad, if you wanted you could maybe run any kind of drive you wanted off gasoline or whatever, assuming it doesn't require some exotic energy (which sadly all FTL drives I'm aware of do, meaning even something amazing like anti-matter wouldn't cut it).

The exhaust cones clearly points to simple rocketry though.

One almost well formed counter argument some random preek gave me at DN was actually pretty good - that the rocket engines were just for in-system, and for inter-stellar voyages a real FTL drive could be used. Hey, fair enough, does seem a little dangerous to use FTL in-system... but they never mention any second kind of drive - EVER. And, they DO repeatedly mention g-forces from intersteller acceleration being a danger, and ANY realistic FTL drive would not technically involve acceleration within the local space-time, so no forces would be felt by the crew (star trek got that one right, speed up to warp 10 and nobody gets knocked down or splattered).

No matter how well they argue in it's defense they lose. Also, the fact that the FANS have to retcon this shit means that KJA didn't think to include it in the book, which equals failure.

[SandChigger]

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?

There are a couple of places where he discusses the feeling of gravity returning after a flight, after a "nullfield" has been turned off. Hmm...

[A Thing of Eternity]

I don't think we've glossed over it, I'm sure we've discussed it before. Suspensors seem to do more than just cancel gravity, I was under the impression that they actually had a repulsive force, though I could be wrong about that.

FH definitely did some "glossing over" of those topics though.

[SandRider]

for some reason, maybe just rolling around in my own head for years,
I think I've always assumed that "suspensors" created some type of
opposite magnetic field .... I understand the close relationship between
gravity & magnetism ... and this may be from Clarke, or some other science
fiction from my youth .... I think that everytime "anti-gravity" is mentioned,
I read it as a controlled magnetic field generator ...

[A Thing of Eternity]

I don't know about that. Opposite magentism wouldn't really levitate things in a very controllable manner I don't think - though you can levitate non-magnetic objects with diamagnetism (such as levitating a frog with magnets, the water in the frog is repused rather than attracted by the mag feild). (So think about that, if regular mag attracts some things and repusles others, then opposite-mag would do the opposite, so even though it would be pushing away iron for example, it would be attracting water and other diamagnetic materials). What I'm saying is using either mag-lev or anti-mag-lev in a setting outside of a controlled track (like a mag lev train) would be really dangerous, you'd have shit flying everywhere, it would be really fucked up.

Also anti-gravity just makes more sense to me because we know the holtzman science is used for foldspace/wormhole stuff, and that's got gravity written all over it.

That's just my take on it though, not a physicist.

Also - FH forgetting to clarify artifical grav or g-force cancelling tech is definitely not idea, but it's not a very big omission, considering the story already had (in my opinion) several gravity altering technologies, "assuming" a few more isn't a huge deal.

Not even close to KJA's mistakes in the tech department.

[SandChigger]

I wasn't implying that there's any comparison between KJA fuck-ups and FH's omissions. Something in the FTL discussion just reminded me that there's a bit of a hole that FH never explicitly filled...

SUSPENSOR: secondary (low-drain) phase of a Holtzman field generator. It nullifies gravity within certain limits prescribed by relative mass and energy consumption.

And "foldspace/wormhole stuff"... still not convinced it's valid bringing wormholes into it.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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]

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]

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.

[Robspierre]

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.

To be honest, I never gave it that much thought in Frank's writings. Except for Heretics and Chapterhouse, we only have brief mentions of spaceships and shuttles.

Rob

[A Thing of Eternity]

I didn't either, and over-looking gravity on spaceships is so common in SF that it didn't occur to me very often.

[Freakzilla]

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.

They used suspensors to dampen gravity. See Odrade's descent to Gamu.

[Ampoliros]

I think the primary difference is what you want something to do and how, and how much you are going to techbabble vs. theorize.

Technobabble will get you so far, its like a nice warm blanket or a puppy, that no one will openly complain about. example: Foldspace. We're told that it works what it does, and its powered by Holzman fields. That's enough, it doesn't step on many toes and its believable because Frank doesn't descend into half-assed discussion of Einstien-Rosen bridges.

Now lets mention the gravity, inertial dampeners, etc. We never see anyone directly under the effects of zero-g so there must be something, but the description is poorly worded if not omitted. It gets glossed, and depending on the amount of believability of the other parts of the story, the reader might ignore this or not.

Then we get to the FTL rockets, which seem to be loosely mentioned as a description for space travel in what appears to be a blaring discrepancy from physics from someone who claims to have a physics degree and practically demands to be considered as a true science fiction author. If KJA never sought to claim to be something more than a science fantasy author then most of this would be easily ignored (in his own creations, but not when working in the universe of another author).

As per usual I'm thinking KJA took this straight from Star Wars which has the appearance of using some kind of thrust based engines. However he's forgetting that Star Wars is Science Fantasy, so it really doesn't matter what they use. LEIA: "Would it help if I went outside and pushed?" HAN: "It Might!"

I think its funny how often KJA digs a grave with a meaningless side plot (aka vineyards on Hellhole, railroads in space).

[D Pope]

I'm still a little weak on why you go faster if you've got a trail to follow.

[A Thing of Eternity]

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]

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...

Whatever space coke they use to go fast only works on a track? Black marketeers won't go as fast as the stink-line without a rare earth bouy every so often because they're afraid of the space dark? Is there an ultra-techno gap with the stink-line drive being a closly guarded secret?

[SandChigger]

I'm still a little weak on why you go faster if you've got a trail to follow.

That's a starwars question?

(sniff sniff) No... SMELLHOLE.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Oh... I see... any there's no mention of any kind of FTL drive at all? What is wrong with these guys?

[D Pope]

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?"

[Omphalos]

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?"

All that 'lectricity that was used for steering can now be shunted over to the drive system. Kinda like the way the Enterprise used to put all their 'lectricity into the shields.

[D Pope]

That works, thanks Omph!

[Ampoliros]

Think of it this way: Actually, no don't think about it all.

The normal FTL ships can move at a certain speed, but they still rely on human reaction speeds and limited sensors. So if anything gets in the way, they can't move out of the way if they are going too fast.

Enter the stringline, which creates a railroad of breadcrumbs marking a pre-mapped safe path. Now, following the path, they can go full speed.

Take away the markers, and the stringline is useless.

-But hey, Amp, isn't space really big and really empty between systems? Wouldn't they only worry about hitting stuff as they near a system?

-And don't objects move, so that a static path doesn't work? Even being counter productive?

-And if they have a pre-mapped safe route, why do they need the stringlines? Like in The Hunt for Red October, where they could run through that underwater canyon at high speed because they had hyper accurate maps?

Hey, I didn't write this! Besides, to fit with the rustic nature, they needed railroads!

[D Pope]

Actually, no don't think about it all.

I was afraid it would be something like that.
Why was I thinking that the reason they needed ultra rare breadcrumbs was because they posessed some quality that repelled obsticals? Because i'm an idiot hater, that's why. (Oh, sure, we can use the rapid expansion of burning liquid fuel to go faster than light, but it's dark in space, and you can't see a rock coming at you because headlights don't work when you move faster than the light coming out of them.) I took for granted that these problems already had solutions, that recognizing the need for 'clean' travel routes meant that they had come up with an answer. They would've been better off building giant tubes to travel in.
Thanks, Amp. Sorry it took me so long.

Has keith said where he was when he managed to hike out this chunk?

[Hunchback Jack]

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?

I you can cancel gravity, you can cancel the effects of acceleration, I would think. Doesn't general relativity teach us they're the same thing?

HBJ

[SandChigger]

They have the same effects... but I'm not sure if it means they're the same thing.

Either way, I still don't see the Holtzmann field generator as creating gravity (or its equivalent). You would have to be accelerating in the correct direction and cancel out the effects of massive gees to something like 1 g. Or something like that. I don't know...

(This is probably why FH left it alone. )

[Hunchback Jack]

They have the same effects... but I'm not sure if it means they're the same thing.

Hmm. Good point.

Ah, fuckit.

HBJ

[SandChigger]

Ah, fuckit.

Winning, d'uh!




Sorry, just kidding! I've wanted to use that all afternoon for some stupid reason....

[Sev]

Thanks for transcribing that whole thread AToH, it's from way before my time in Dune fandom, looks like I missed out on huge amounts of Byron stupidity. Favorite bit was when he stated his belief that a combination of 'pushing, pulling, and skipping' would get the desired effect without realising that the 'skipping' part implies some form of wormhole/hyperspace/foldspace - what an idiot he is,was, and always will be.

[TheDukester]

... what an idiot he is,was, and always will be.

Although I only ever lurked over there, I'll never forget when I finally had the pure, awe-inspiring epiphany that we've all experienced at DN:

"Byron Merritt isn't just an asshole and a lickspittle lackey ... he's also a real-life, honest-to-God dumbshit!"

[A Thing of Eternity]

He should have known better and just stayed quiet. I get that he wants to defend his family, and hell, maybe he even likes that garbage writing KJA spews, but he shouldn't have tangled with me in a physics argument when he clearly knows literally almost nothing.

The funny thing is that I don't even really know what I'm talking about, I'm a total amateur physics fan - and I can still kick the living shit out of KJA and the rest of them when it comes to this shit.

I wasn't even pissed that the writing was going against science, lots of SF does that, fuck, FH did it himself - I was pissed that it was done in a poor way from a literary point of view, from a respect to your readers point of view too. Readers can accept crazy shit like OM and prescience when presented properly, they can't be expected to accept a godsdamned rocket engine that get a ship up to FTL. Nor a ship that can get to FTL but can't dampen the inertia on it's occuppants (WTF? You can warp the fabric of space and time itself to move yourself at impossible speeds, but you can't stop your human passengers from becoming MUSH???!?).