Quantum Multi-World as Means to Travel Faster than Light

[Obikawa]

The current idea of FTL engines being different from classical thrusters but also different from stargates is causing a number of theoretical issues.

For example, the Alcubierre engines. How do those interact with space? What would happen during a hostile interception or crash with a space debris?

There is another kind of problem to consider here. Right know DU is known to simplify a lot of the Universe and break exactly one Law. Classical FTL engine ideas would need to break more of the Laws. When I thought about FTL travel from this perspective I had en epiphany. What if we could apply the quantum multi-world theory on which the ressurection nodes are based to other elements of the game? The answer is "yes! we can".

It was surprisingly simple for me to devise a quantum engine that has many desirable traits:

• It is not jumping. It simply moves forward faster than light.
  
• It can be intercepted by hostiles during transit in a convincing and engaging way.
  
• It has no theoretical limit on top speed.
  
• It is only limited by the ships energy supplies.
  
• Finally, this engine can solve the problem of size versus speed tradeoff very elegantly, without involving mass!
  

The idea is as follows.

The main difference from stargates and ressurection nodes would be range. The gates and nodes seem to work over infinite distances and as such are the ultimate destination of the game's research and development. As such they require the ultimate cost and effort which will make them very rare, so FTL engines become a real necessity to a point where it could take less time to travel FTL to close-by systems than wait in a queue to a stargate for the instant warp. The first change to the lore I made here is that stargates actually employ the same principle of overwriting the reality through the multi-world quantum theory.

And the FTL engine I write about here is actually employing the same theory as well, but with local range instead. It is able to modify a sphere of space around it to enforce movement of objects inside. Through quantum manipulation it constantly makes the ship be "in front of itself". While in microscopic scale the ship effectively jumps in a series of tiny steps, macroscopically it moves fluidly and really fast. It obviously needs lots of energy to keep moving like this.

The engine actually has two spheres of influence. The inner one - the Sphere of Containment which defines what is moved. The outer one - the Sphere of Displacement which defines how far the Sphere of Containment can be moved in a unit of time or with a unit of energy. Basically you could equate the Sphere of Displacement to range in some contexts.

The fun part here is that both spheres are strongly related. A better engine can influence more space. It is up to the designer to distribute the energy between containment and displacement. The ratio here is obvious. The total energy output defines a volume of a sphere which in turn is the sum of volumes of the two spheres of influence. In result, big advances in ship's size or speed require big advances in energy density and ultimately the tradeoff for speed becomes a very real and pressing issue.

My choice of the mathematical formula gives a very simple calculation programming-wise which is very important factor when most of space travel will use the FTL mechanics. It is also elegant as it is compliant with the Laws of the Universe. This basically means that to achieve two times faster speed limit on a space craft you would need less than eight times stronger energy output. The reverse works as well. There is even an interesting side effect of this theory. You always will have to devote significantly more energy for the speed factor of the engine as Sphere of Displacement which is smaller than Sphere of Containment has no practical sense.

[norab7]

That sounds like a good lore to put behind the engines and how FTL is possible..

 

I just can't see the difference between your idea and a standard 'non-jumping' FTL device. In the game world they will all just move from pointA to pointB at a speed relevant to energy output, more energy = more speed and the faster you get from pointA to pointB.

 

However one point i thought about during your idea was.. What if I have a ship with nothing but 'energy' attached and this FTL drive.. If i can make the SoD big enough would i start to see stutter while flying?.. as my second sphere is now big enough to have a noticeable 'jump' everytime.. Then what about larger ships that would have a ridiculous amount of surplus energy that's usually used for weapons but during no combat could be applied to the FTL.. would they not have a similar issue?

 

What happens if I'm outside my ship but still inside the SoC ?

What happens if i'm attacking someone else's ship and breach their SoC with my front end, and my backend is still outside the SoC/SoD?

[Obikawa]

I am still thinking about this engine and coming up with new ideas. For example if you specialize the engine to limit its direction to straight line forward, then you can greatly decrease the energy expense because you no longer need to maintain the Sphere of Displacement and instead just "provide" a cylindrical shape through which the Sphere of Containment can move.

First I need to make clear what I understand under term of "jumping FTL". The engines like Alcubierre's are based on idea of slipping through the time-space without interacting with it, from start to finish without possibility of interception. Two Alcubierre ships on crash course would literally slip through each other without them even registering the fact. Thanks to that characteristic this engine creates a space jump rather than a space flight. It literally disappears in one place to appear in another.

Now that is cleared up I want to touch on the topic of the quantum jump. This concept is purely theoretical one and simply a means to explain the engine. In practice you have to realise another fact: this is an FTL engine, so it will be impossible to see. At best a line that is visible for duration of one frame. However, even without seeing it you could intercept it with a logical application of the multi-world theory.

The engine works by "enforcing reality" in a radius around it. If you put another, active quantum engingine it's path, at the moment of intersection of Spheres of Containment both engines will fail to enforce their respective realities and abort. In result the ships powered by the engine will stop in their tracks. Now, if you can specialize the quantum engine to go "forward only", you could also specialize another engine to create a huge "Disc of Containment" with no displacement at all. This is where I retract my last statement of the previous post, as such disc is a practical use of the quantum engine with zero speed capability. Can you see where am I going with that?

I have yet to consider the corner cases. With current theory you could rip pieces out of enemy ships just by starting the FTL travel. It is because the Sphere of Containment locks the space within it. And as I write this I realise that I have to think up countermeasures to that to allow people to move during the FTL flight.

[norab7]

Doesn't the Alcubierre drive only shrink and expand space in the front of and behind the ship creating a pull push effect on the object, the object is still there and still travels and is still in motion, but due to the shrink and expansion of space it gets around the issue of 'faster than light' because it's manipulating space not the object ?

If two ships using this method were to collide I think it would be no different than a standard crash as they are still there and moving, just from the outside moving FTL.

[Obikawa]

No. "They would slip through each other". Literally. In an undefined way they would shrink/expand each other without actual contact during collision.

[norab7]

I just spent a little time with google and looking at what might happen as i wasn't sure myself.. and the general answer i could find was that they would combine into a single alcubierre bubble and alter each ships vector to that of the combine vector of both ships for a moment..

 

Nothing i found explained what would then happen to the ships, if they would see each other or contact each other, however i found a small section that reference star trek and a asteroid that entered the bubble (somehow because the ship was also moving relative to its position inside the bubble and the bubble had to move also or something).. But the asteroid entered the bubble and would have destroyed the enterprise if they didn't do something about it... it didn't explain what happened to the asteroid but said that it would have destroyed the ship...

 

I'm thinking the combined bubble and the asteroid example would mean that yes, the ships do slip through space and any interaction with planets or asteroids ect would be irrelevant but interacting with another alcubierre bubble would combine them together and you'd be inside each others bubble and have to either leave it or fight the other person for control of it, otherwise you would just travel along the combined vector.. 

 

If that makes sense.. Interesting read though.. my earlier statement is still correct but it would only be other bubbles that would effect your ship and not 'non-bubbles'

[Obikawa]

Still, that pretty much shows that the Alcubierres are a mystery. The interactions are undefined. In case of the Quantum Engine none of that matters. As soon as two of them intersect they have to stop working because they no longer are able to completely enforce their respective realities.

Let me repeat a question for you - what do you think a stationary Quantum Engine with a disc-shaped containment zone could be used for? I hope the answer will let you better understand the importance of proper intersection mechanics.

[vylqun]

No. "They would slip through each other". Literally. In an undefined way they would shrink/expand each other without actual contact during collision.

No, they wouldn't slip through each other, as nora said, that drive, (which is btw. only mathematically possible if you ignore physics), works influencing the space surrounding the spaceship, anything that enters its sphere of influence would still interact with the ship inside.

 

I also don't get how your "quantum-multi-world" drive is supposed to function. Derived from your description its continous small teleportations, which in itself might be ok, but has nothing to do with (what i suppose you mean with "quantum-multi-world") the additional dimensions if you postulate a multiverse, but that just wouldn't work because you either are at the same location in space if you switch dimensions or at a completely different location, in both cases you would not archieve "small teleportations" while jumping between dimensions.

 

"The engine works by "enforcing reality" in a radius around it."

honestly, i'd rather have reasonable ftl-drives for dual universe, somethinq that you could find in hard-scifi, not some random things you would rather find in fantasy-scifi. the alcubierre is really close to the limit for that, but something like a reality overwriting drive definitely crossed that border^^

[norab7]

No, they wouldn't slip through each other, as nora said, that drive, (which is btw. only mathematically possible if you ignore physics), works influencing the space surrounding the spaceship, anything that enters its sphere of influence would still interact with the ship inside.

 

I also don't get how your "quantum-multi-world" drive is supposed to function. Derived from your description its continous small teleportations, which in itself might be ok, but has nothing to do with (what i suppose you mean with "quantum-multi-world") the additional dimensions if you postulate a multiverse, but that just wouldn't work because you either are at the same location in space if you switch dimensions or at a completely different location, in both cases you would not archieve "small teleportations" while jumping between dimensions.

 

"The engine works by "enforcing reality" in a radius around it."

honestly, i'd rather have reasonable ftl-drives for dual universe, somethinq that you could find in hard-scifi, not some random things you would rather find in fantasy-scifi. the alcubierre is really close to the limit for that, but something like a reality overwriting drive definitely crossed that border^^

 

To be honest, i was thinking about this last night, and it doesn't really matter what words we put around any FTL engines or methods, the Devs will have a  way to code it into the game that works both the easiest and the best performing, what we're doing here is just kinda lore'makeing.

 

I'd be surprised if anything we said here influenced the way FTL's are planned to work in the Dev's work book, but we can always think of the reasons behind 'why' they work for lore and maybe create a unintentionally awesome weapon out of Obi's engine ..

 

But then again anything in the game is 10,000 years after the first arkship took off, so the AI could have been working on new tech while we're asleep and anything is kinda possible when you think about it like that... 100 years ago we didn't have TV's.. what could we have in 10,000 years?....... ooo that makes me shiver!

[Obikawa]

No, they wouldn't slip through each other, as nora said, that drive, (which is btw. only mathematically possible if you ignore physics), works influencing the space surrounding the spaceship, anything that enters its sphere of influence would still interact with the ship inside.

 

I also don't get how your "quantum-multi-world" drive is supposed to function. Derived from your description its continous small teleportations, which in itself might be ok, but has nothing to do with (what i suppose you mean with "quantum-multi-world") the additional dimensions if you postulate a multiverse, but that just wouldn't work because you either are at the same location in space if you switch dimensions or at a completely different location, in both cases you would not archieve "small teleportations" while jumping between dimensions.

 

"The engine works by "enforcing reality" in a radius around it."

honestly, i'd rather have reasonable ftl-drives for dual universe, somethinq that you could find in hard-scifi, not some random things you would rather find in fantasy-scifi. the alcubierre is really close to the limit for that, but something like a reality overwriting drive definitely crossed that border^^

 

It has been a while - been busy.

I distinguish a difference between quantum teleportation and quantum multi-world reality rewrite. Anyway what you said does have sense as well.

What I aim at here is reusage of existing technology. It is a confirmed fact that the game's humanity learned to rewrite reality (the resurrection nodes). My understanding is that building of the first player made node will be possible after a technology of the quantum multi world gets rediscovered. On its own I believe it would be major breakthrough allowing for effective (while not desired) transfer of matter through unlimited distance. I believe this "technology" could be split to steps of progress ranging from "rewrite the reality here" to "rewrite the reality wherever in universe". Each of those steps could be associated with new, intriguing tools. I am thinking of barriers, no-damage zones, engines and finally the nodes and stargates.

The Dev Blog about the quantum ressurection mentions the extremely high energy costs of this technology with which I agree. The solution to this problem was that only the player's body would be transported on death. I can see here two optimizations:

1. "Only player's body"
2. "Transport to the node"

With my understanding of the quantum multi world the stargates could use the same technology after changing energy optimizations to "swap an area with preset location (another stargate)". I believe it may be easier to understand my engine when you step down the energy scale from the stargates and resurrection nodes. When you have less energy and less advanced technology you may achieve only lesser goals. Like rewriting reality to relocate an area on a small distance or (with even less energy required) guard an object from some damage.

Explanation to the micro scale teleportation is my attempt to consider the game engine. Actually after some thought I believe it would be an important factor in FTL travel. You see, it is impossible for any computer system to perfectly represent a fully fluid movement. You can take efforts to make it as smooth as possible by updating the object's coordinates as often as possible. But when you have to to track thousands of objects across hundreds of servers it becomes a complex challenge! And I can not overlook the need to make piracy possible, so there has to be a way to intercept an FTL ship. So in effect we get a ship that with every "tick of the game's clock" updates it's coordinates. The more powerful the engine. the bigger the distance covered in one tick.

While in FTL mode, it's relative momentum is frozen. Combine that with what I wrote earlier about conditions of failure and you get interesting tactics for combat with pirates. Imagine a transporter propelling away from destination before starting the quantum engine. If it gets ambushed by what I call a quantum anchor (a quantum engine with disc shaped containment zone and no displacement zone)  it can still have a chance to escape if the pirates are not prepared to pursue  in that direction.

At a low level the travel would look like that:

1. Check if any other quantum containment zones intersect.
2. If true, shut down all engines generating those zones.
3. If false warp to the next point; repeat above.

I am aware I produced another wall of text, but hopefully I cleared some of your questions. The more you doubt it and point out the weaknesses, the more I can improve the idea.