Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-05-2015, 07:29 PM   #1
davester65
 
davester65's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2009
Default Warp Drive Question

Okay, I know warp drives are supposed to work by folding or warping space, compressing space in front of the ship and stretching it behind it. The question I have is how would one do that? The only thing I can think of that might do that is creating artificial gravity fields. Is there any other force that could be used to do that? Magnetic fields maybe? I want to run a scifi campaign using warp drives and I'd like my explanation about how warp drives work to at least be slightly plausible. Also I'm thinking how the warp field is created would effect other aspects of what the ships were like (whether they would have artificial gravity or need separate maneuver drives, etc...) Any thoughts are welcome.
davester65 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2015, 07:49 PM   #2
SRoach
 
Join Date: Oct 2015
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

You might want to google "Alcubierre drive".
The artist interpretations I've seen of the hypothetical drive has the drive as a large ring.

This looks interesting. Don't know if it's true. Found it in the results of Google.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/...ubierre-drive/
SRoach is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2015, 09:00 PM   #3
Humabout
 
Humabout's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by davester65 View Post
Okay, I know warp drives are supposed to work by folding or warping space, compressing space in front of the ship and stretching it behind it. The question I have is how would one do that? The only thing I can think of that might do that is creating artificial gravity fields. Is there any other force that could be used to do that? Magnetic fields maybe? I want to run a scifi campaign using warp drives and I'd like my explanation about how warp drives work to at least be slightly plausible. Also I'm thinking how the warp field is created would effect other aspects of what the ships were like (whether they would have artificial gravity or need separate maneuver drives, etc...) Any thoughts are welcome.
Most means I've heard of involve weird stuff like negative mass to create the sort of wave needed to move forward. A totally not-based-in-science idea might be to isolate a bubble of spacetime with the ship in it and then cause the bubble to move. But really, any technobabble like that should suffice. There just isn't any really feasible way of doing this that we know of yet.
__________________
Buy My Stuff!

Free Stuff:
Dungeon Action!
Totem Spirits

My Blog: Above the Flatline.
Humabout is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2015, 09:01 PM   #4
Minuteman37
 
Minuteman37's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by davester65 View Post
Okay, I know warp drives are supposed to work by folding or warping space, compressing space in front of the ship and stretching it behind it. The question I have is how would one do that? The only thing I can think of that might do that is creating artificial gravity fields. Is there any other force that could be used to do that? Magnetic fields maybe? I want to run a scifi campaign using warp drives and I'd like my explanation about how warp drives work to at least be slightly plausible. Also I'm thinking how the warp field is created would effect other aspects of what the ships were like (whether they would have artificial gravity or need separate maneuver drives, etc...) Any thoughts are welcome.
Long story short, this is complicated and you shouldn't try to explain it if you have to ask this question, but if you insist you'd need exotic matter to make an Alcubierre drive work so that puts it at a solid TL11 to exist in any FLT capacity.
Minuteman37 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2015, 09:49 PM   #5
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

Negative energy could be used, and due to quantum mechanical effects isn't as silly as it sounds.
But of course if we knew how to make one, we would have one, or at least one in labs proving principles.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2015, 10:12 PM   #6
Minuteman37
 
Minuteman37's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Negative energy could be used, and due to quantum mechanical effects isn't as silly as it sounds.
But of course if we knew how to make one, we would have one, or at least one in labs proving principles.
Not necessarily, the kinds of energy that could hypothetically be required are staggering even if such a thing is hard science it could very well require an amount of infrastructure we can't economically produce and see pay off within the lifetimes of the founders.
Minuteman37 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2015, 01:14 AM   #7
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Minuteman37 View Post
Not necessarily, the kinds of energy that could hypothetically be required are staggering even if such a thing is hard science it could very well require an amount of infrastructure we can't economically produce and see pay off within the lifetimes of the founders.
It's obscenely unlikely that humans are the only technologically capable species in the universe.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2015, 01:29 AM   #8
Minuteman37
 
Minuteman37's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
It's obscenely unlikely that humans are the only technologically capable species in the universe.
And that's exposed to mean what exactly?
Minuteman37 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2015, 08:21 AM   #9
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Minuteman37 View Post
Not necessarily, the kinds of energy that could hypothetically be required are staggering.
Seems to depend strongly on the details. That's true of Alcubierre's original metric, but other people have modified the metric to require much less energy. A mere three solar masses -- but wait, there's also a 700 kg solution -- and a modification of the 3 solar mass one that needs only a few milligrams of negative mass. Oscillating the field can also supposedly reduce the mass requirement. The amount of energy required doesn't seem to be a settled question. It depends on the exact shape and behavior of the warped area. Any solution to GR that we know of that allows FTL requires negative energy, but we don't really understand exactly how much or how it has to behave.
Anaraxes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2015, 02:06 PM   #10
Minuteman37
 
Minuteman37's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
Default Re: Warp Drive Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Seems to depend strongly on the details. That's true of Alcubierre's original metric, but other people have modified the metric to require much less energy. A mere three solar masses -- but wait, there's also a 700 kg solution -- and a modification of the 3 solar mass one that needs only a few milligrams of negative mass. Oscillating the field can also supposedly reduce the mass requirement. The amount of energy required doesn't seem to be a settled question. It depends on the exact shape and behavior of the warped area. Any solution to GR that we know of that allows FTL requires negative energy, but we don't really understand exactly how much or how it has to behave.
Yes I know, this is why I said could and not would.
Minuteman37 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
drive, space, spaceship, spaceships, warp

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 01:59 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.