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Old 09-01-2019, 03:06 PM   #39
Prince Charon
 
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Default Re: [Psionics] [Space] Psi Trek - Worldbuilding

Faster-Than-Light Drives

It's kind of hard to have a setting that looks like Star Trek without being able to trek between the stars. The easiest way to do this (in a Star Trekish way) using psychotronics is probably using Teleportation in some way. Here are some ways that I think would fit:

* Stutter-warp: The entire vessel teleports in the direction of travel, only a tiny fraction of the intended distance, repeating the operation until it reaches the destination. The 'speed' of the vehicle depends on how far a single 'jump' is, and how often. A spacecraft that teleports more than about twenty times per second will seem to be traveling faster than light from the viewpoint of the passengers and crew (if they don't have Enhanced Time Sense, or something like that), in much the same way that the frames of a movie appear as continuous motion. Noticeably slower than that, and the vessel will seem to stutter along its path, hence the name (though the farther away any reference objects like stars are, the less able the passengers are to notice this). Not my favorite drive type for this setting, but one that is reasonably workable. The longer the time between jumps, the less like a stutter-warp it is, and the more like a form of jump drive (GURPS Space for 4e, pp38-39).

* Spacetime warping: If psionic teleportation involves warping or folding space, then continuously warping space to ride a wave of spacetime to the destination (approximately how Star Trek's warp drive works) should be plausible. This is my favorite drive type for this setting, but I'm not going to insist on it if another is strongly preferred.

* Astral hyperdrive: The term 'hyperdrive' is not used that much in Star Trek (I think it might have only been used in the first pilot), but it does get mentioned. The idea behind this version is that the vessel shifts physically into the astral plane (Outer or Inner), possibly within a bubble of 'normal' space, travels through it to the destination, and shifts physically out again. If this is used, perhaps natural teleportation involves shifting the psi's body into and out of the astral plane. This does have the advantage of making the 'space storms' and other really weird anomalies that vessels encounter in Star Trek less implausible. The nearest equivalent in published fiction is the Warp drives from Warhammer 40,000, which take vehicles through an astral hell-dimension called 'the Warp.' I'd prefer to leave hell dimensions out of it (apart from rare warp accidents that might be the focus of a session or two), but the idea of an astral hyperdrive in general is not completely out of line with the setting.


Expanded Teleportation Distance Modifiers

Distance... Modifier
10 yards... 0
20 yards... -1
100 yards... -2
500 yards... -3
2 miles... -4
10 miles... -5
100 miles... -6
1,000 miles... -7
10,000 miles... -8
100,000 miles... -9
1,000,000 miles... -10
10,000,000 miles... -11
1 Astronomical Unit... -12
10 AUs... -13
100 AUs... -14
1,000 AUs... -15
10,000 AUs/0.16 light years... -16
100,000 AUs/1.6 ly/0.5 parsecs... -17
16 ly/5 pcs... -18
160 ly/50 pcs... -19
1,600 ly/500 pcs... -20


Thoughts?

EDIT: OK, the sort-of consensus is that we're going with spaecetime warping, though we might revisit whether it's teleportation-based or not.
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Last edited by Prince Charon; 09-06-2019 at 12:35 PM.
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