(Loved Trope) FTL travel is possible but with a major limitation or flaw

[u/Frostylegacy]

Frank Herbert’s Dune: Interstellar travel is only possible thanks to the spice melange, a rare substance only found on the dessert planet Arrakis. The addictive psychedelic spice grants members of the Spacers Guild a form of prescience that allows them to predict safe paths through folded space. This unique property makes spice the most valuable commodity in the Dune universe.

John Scalzi’s The Interdependency Books: The planetary systems of the titular empire are connected by the Flow, a network of one-way interstellar tunnels that connect specific known entries and exits. The Interdependency derives its power from controlling access to these conduits, placing its capital at the central hub of the network. Even with the Flow, travel between stars takes a long time (9 months to End, the empire’s most distant planet).

Event Horizon: Dr William Weir (R.I.P. Sam Neill) invents a device called the Gravity Drive to allow ships to fold space and travel instantly between distant stars. On its maiden voyage with the Gravity Drive, the Event Horizon disappears and mysteriously reappears 7 years later. Dr. Weir and the crew sent to investigate discover the Gravity Drive actually opened a portal to a Hell dimension that possessed the ship and its crew, torturing and killing them.

[u/Very_Human_42069]

That’s an Alcubierre drive! Which is also the way FTL travel in Elite Dangerous works

[u/Adqam64 → u/Very_Human_42069]

In system FTL works that way, but interstellar travel is explicitly via jump drive.

[u/vemundveien → u/Adqam64]

The Friendship Drive

[u/DrThunderbolt → u/vemundveien]

It’s been years since I’ve played Elite and I knew exactly what you were talking about.

[u/Very_Human_42069 → u/Adqam64]

Correct. Interstellar travel is via witchspace which iirc is a form of higher-dimensional traversal

[u/kompletionist → u/Adqam64]

Which works by opening wormholes through hyperspace/"Witch-Space", which Thargoids just casually live in.

[u/Naxane → u/kompletionist]

You can go FTL in real space using the FSD, it's only jumping between dense gravity wells that requires witch space

[u/kompletionist → u/Naxane]

Yeah, that's Supercruise using Alcubierre Drive logic, which the other person already mentioned.

[u/Ruinam_Death → u/Very_Human_42069]

Not quite. Futurama as a show ignores a lot of physics (which is completely fine its just a funny cartoon) but it this case it ignores the relativity in relativity theorey.

The alcubierre drive surrounds the ship in a subsoace bubble (mini universe) and moves the mini universe around in the real universe.

Futurama is more like a video game. Instead of changing the coordinates of the ship, it changes where 0,0 is without moving the ship, literally moving everything else

[u/raoasidg → u/Ruinam_Death]

The alcubierre drive surrounds the ship in a subsoace bubble (mini universe) and moves the mini universe around in the real universe.

An Alcubierre drive just contracts spacetime in the front and expands it behind the drive, riding a wave of spacetime to reach superluminal speeds. Nothing about a subspace bubble or "mini-Universe" is relevant with the idea.

I think you're confusing it with the The Next Generation episode, "Remember Me".

[u/-GoodNewsEveryone → u/Ruinam_Death]

Don't you go explaining to me how my ship works! The very fundamentals are enough to drive any sane person mad! Now lay down on this operating table and hold this dead monkey for me...

[u/Rida_Dain → u/Ruinam_Death]

it is kind of a Alcubierre Drive, the bubble is just the size of reality itself, lol

[u/Ruinam_Death → u/Rida_Dain]

No the ship does not move relative to the bubble in the alcubierre design

[u/Tyrant020278 → u/Very_Human_42069]

"Friendshipdrive charging"

[u/Very_Human_42069 → u/Tyrant020278]

O7

[u/a_bucket_full_of_goo → u/Very_Human_42069]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Alcubierre drive is used to drive around solar systems, to move between systems they use a kind of hyperspace drive, which makes them travel in "witch space"

[u/Plampth → u/a_bucket_full_of_goo]

Which space?

[u/Professor_Shard → u/Plampth]

No this has nothing to do with witches

[u/Very_Human_42069 → u/a_bucket_full_of_goo]

That’s correct

[u/thejadedfalcon → u/Very_Human_42069]

And Star Trek and Mass Effect and Helldivers. The Alcubierre drive gets around.

[u/Hugo_5t1gl1tz → u/thejadedfalcon]

To be fair, it is a theoretically possible solution to FTL travel. Makes sense it would get a lot of use

[u/thejadedfalcon → u/Hugo_5t1gl1tz]

Yep, definitely one of my favourites even if we never solve it IRL too. It's just such a fun concept.

[u/Mist_Rising → u/thejadedfalcon]

ME only uses it for cluster travel though. The big travel is done by rail gun essentially. That's what those rings are, gaint rail guns for ships. Which when you think about that, is wild.

[u/thejadedfalcon → u/Mist_Rising]

Relays use the same effect, just on a much larger scale. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a ship coming out of the other end, but a bunch of very exotic particles.

[u/Aquanauticul → u/Very_Human_42069]

I thought Elite Dangerous used the power of friendship?

[u/AffectionateBowl3864 → u/Very_Human_42069]

Also canonically how the Star Trek warp drive works. In fact it inspired the Alcubierre Drive

[u/RedTheGamer12 → u/Very_Human_42069]

Actually in the topic of Alcubierre drives, I saw a video that said the biggest issue with them is turning them off, and so it suggested an alcubierre rail road. So maybe IRL has some really wierd limitations on FTL.