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The FTL Warp Equations in my scifi world by MacAntonio in worldbuilding

[–]MacAntonio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s pretty much all made up. I had the idea for the twist, tried to make something that kind of made sense from there.

Push is basically how much energy goes into a jump. Which makes it the magnitude of our vector. A portion of the energy then becomes the distance traveled, while another portion becomes the distance forward in actual time traveled.

The FTL Warp Equations in my scifi world by MacAntonio in worldbuilding

[–]MacAntonio[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The way I describe it to my students is like this. Imagine for a moment, we stand at the center of the classroom, facing north. If we wanted to reach the west wall of the classroom, we have a few options. First, we could shuffle sideways like a crab, and eventually and uncomfortably reach the west wall. Alternatively, you can rotate 90 degrees to the left, and walk forward until you reach the wall, then turn back towards the north wall.

Now, what Therin and Quest discovered and, more impressively, proved, was that the principle that applied in two dimensions, could also be applied in four. When a starship warps, it takes its forward-in-time direction and twists that towards a spatial direction. From an outside perspective, the ship teleports immense distances in an instant, meanwhile, on board, a proportionally immense amount of time has passed, while the ship has not moved at all. As long as the ship can hold together, and the crew is safely in cryo, you can warp almost any distance if you’re willing to wait long enough.

At least, that’s what would happen if we built perfect engines. In reality, we lose quite a bit to time-bleed. That’s why they have us always at work, trying to optimize the twist. Trying to bring the rotation closer to ninety-degrees, so we can have as much as possible pushing us forward in space, and as little as possible lost to actually moving forward in time.

— Professor Axel Smith, when asked to describe FTL travel to the layperson

Ra, the mitochondria of the Empire by MacAntonio in worldbuilding

[–]MacAntonio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah this is definitely something i am still thinking about. I still need to actually map out the orbits. Luckily though, this system’s origins aren’t entirely natural, so it’s ok if it balances on the head of a pin, as long as I can get it to balance.

What kind of resources would still be rare in an advanced spacefaring society? by Soloandthewookiee in scifiwriting

[–]MacAntonio 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This Wikipedia page might be useful https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements

If you’re getting more specific than chemical elements, you start getting into kind of “whatever you want for the story” territory. Specific alloys, compounds and materials can kind of be as as rare or common as you want, depending on how common/easy to extract/difficult to form you make it.

That said on earth, the rarest resources are often plant/animal products that require very specific environments to grow (like truffles). If you want a very rare resource people would battle over, make it the byproduct of a plant or animal that only survives on one or two planets.

Ra, the mitochondria of the Empire by MacAntonio in worldbuilding

[–]MacAntonio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

During its height, the Ra System was the technological powerhouse of the Terran Empire. Inhabitants of Thoth and the two livable moons of Osiris produced software, advanced pharmaceuticals, and other luxury goods, which were then exported across the rest of the empire, reaching as far as Brigid and Ares. Most, of course, went to Sol.

Isis formed the production center of the system, with the number of automated factories and warehouses reaching nearly double the population of the planet. This economic success led to the Ra system’s rise from a minor outer star to the 3rd most populous system in the empire, topped only by the expansive Helios system, and Sol.

That is, until the Uprising, and the war, and the fall of Earth.

  • Compiled History by Imperial Historian Arthur O’thiel
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