Please, please, please, do an analysis on why planets and planetary systems in science fiction don’t have a SpacePort. Every time I see an advance civilization just sitting back and having random people just showing up and landing on their planet drives me nuts. I scream in Prometheus when the godlike Engineers just allowed a ship they lost contact with thousands of ago to just return and whipped them out. Logically, it should have been stopped at the edge of the solar system and forced to provide proper documents and asked if it is there for work or pleasure. Why don’t they have customs???????????
Question: Is there any possibility in the near future for the "Sojourn Book Series" in printed format? Call me old school, but I prefer reading in paper, or at least in a screen (not a criticism of your work, is just my personal preference).
In my sci-fi universe, fusion powered sublight engines create a lot of free electrons, which can cause lightning storms when used in atmosphere. A fleet of ships can weaponize their drive emissions to cause catastrophic lightning storms on a target planet.
in my sci-fi universe missiles utilize miniaturized (mostly single use) jump thrusters to accelerate to a significant fraction of the speed of light and create massive damage to the target armor, only lacking in the ability to penetrate energy shields. jump thrusters are used for sudden burst of acceleration and allow when in conjunction with a jump drive whish isolates the ship in a space-time bubble whish follows the ship movement, meaning that the ship never actually accelerates within that bubble, allowing it to travel throughout the entire galaxy (2 millions light years) in 2 month (100000 times the speed of light). when their jump drive is active a ship can not be interacted or interact with anything outside the bubble, whish removes the issue of obliterating planets with a simple kamikaze civilian ship.
Currently the idea I'm going for in my book is a 'Jump-gate' which is anchored on the surface of a small moon or planetoid. The idea being that there using the mass of the moon/planetoid to bend space. The gate itself would appear as a 'blister' (Due to wormholes being three dimensional objects, spheres.) This blister would reflect space in which ever system the gate is tethered to. The main reason which made by lean more towards jump gates over FTL drives, was the reality of having a drive that can fit on a starship and shorten interstellar travel enough to be commercially viable.
@@DecidedlyNinja no, missiles uses a type of sub-light engines capable of short burst of insane acceleration, jump drives only isolate the ship allowing it to reach FTL speeds, but it doesn't make the ship move, it uses it's sub-light engines for that.
The Alcubierre Drive is a nice idea but I dont think it will become a reality. White and his team may have warped space with the Casimir effect but that was on a nano scale. The Casimir effect is when you stick two plates so close together that quantum particles can not form between them. The plates experience a quantum push as particles form on the outside of plates kind've like how a submarine experiences pressure under water. What was interesting is this inturn created a negative space. The space between the plates was different then the space outside, essentially a warp bubble. How this effect could be used in space travel is anyone's guess. Additionally, this was on a nano scale from quantum particles, particles smaller than atoms to make this any bigger would require enormous amounts of energy. So, sorry no warp drive just a neat science experiment.
@@kenneyshepard4511 They only proved it was possible. Whether or not it can be done on the scale of Star Trek, will take at least 100 more years of off and on research and development to see any such results. After all, we are talking about a mode of propulsion that promises to bypass any form of physics commonly known or understood today. And it took centuries (some may argue millennia) to go from the idea of flight to the first aircraft. From there is has literally been "the sky's the limit" So we, as a species and civilization, will have to wait and see.
Alcubierre drive is not FTL. In his paper, Alcubierre said that people on board the ship will experience 14 days of real time when travelling to Alpha Centauri but around 900 years will pass in the outside from the perspective on an observer standing on the Earth. There is no "realistic" FTL of any kind, Alcubierre or vortex or eleventh compressed dimension or anything like that because light is not the speed of photons but the speed of causality. If you can send info (electromagnetic signals) or matter beyond the causality limit, you will end up with a "tachyonic telephone" and all sorts of paradoxes. The more realistic way possible is NAFAL (near as fast as light) like in Cameron's Avatar with matter-antimatter reaction or Tau Zero (Pool Anderson) with Bussard ramjet to have near c acceleration in a matter of years. Anything beyond is not "realistic" in any way.
7:10 I would very much like to see a more comprehensive video detailing FTL methods in Sci-fi. One of the main things I've been planning with my book at the moment, is how faster-than-light travel works. Would be really useful to have an easy to understand video going over different methods. At the moment I'm leaning more towards the idea of a 'Jump-gate' of sorts.
my universe uses both, simply because "space is big" and even going at 100 000 times the speed of light, that still not enough to reach the nearest galaxy in a reasonable time. «jumpdrives» are the technology used to achieve FTL travel, they isolate the ship in a space-time bubble that's gets dragged along with the ship has it accelerates using it’s engine, normally the faster you are the more energy it takes to accelerate, but while the jumpdrive is active the ship isn’t actually accelerating nor moving (in comparison to it’s local space-time bubble obviously, it’s still moving and accelerating trough the universe) which allow the ship to reach unimaginable speed far faster than the speed of light while being protected from all outside threat (the ship bubble is also incapable of interacting with outside elements such has planets, for the sake of not transforming any jump drives equipped ships into a planet-blowing missile.) The name «jumpdrive» refers to the fact that jumpdrives are extremely power hungry and can only be sustained for a few minutes on average, even purpose-built ships can’t sustain it for more than an hour. «jumpgates» are mega-structures build around black holes that allow a ship correctly equipped to enter the black hole and instantly travel to any location within a certain radius of the black hole (range is defined by the mass of the black hole, bigger = farther) by creating a short-lived tiny white hole at that destination, those jumps are generally made from jumpgates to jumpgates, «blind» jumps are possible, but really dangerous, has jump gates also serves as FTL communication towers which supports «The Network» (basically an intergalactic internet) and allow ships to be informed of the state of their destination, a blind jump could lead you into an area currently at war or even worse, teleport you into a planet/star/whatever else that isn’t void, destroying your ship.
My favorite FTL method is the warp drive, as it allows interstellar travel while still having travel time, and its the method most likely to actually work in real life.
@@2MeterLP weirdly I like universes that have multiple ftl types. I just find it cool to have one species with hyperspace that allows them to go farther and faster but requires more energy and is more dangerous while another species uses warp since it’s easier and cheaper but slower. Could even make them work under similar principles just used differently
@@ledocteur7701 Accelerates to many times the speed of light and slows down using the normal engine within the few minutes that the jump drive operates? Your ships' sublight acceleration makes Honor Harrington look slow as a snail.
It is kind of ironic... In BSG the FTL Jumps were never truly explained, it just did its thing and i completely accepted it as such. Dark Matter had a Blink drive and that made the hero ship the most important ship in the universe somehow... and i accepted that as is. Then Kurtzman NuTrek starts yapping about Mushrooms and makes a stupid looking spinning animation, puts this OP drive chronologically before Kirk's 1701 and it instantly was the dumbest thing Star Trek EVER did. Heck, i take Transwarp turning Paris and Janeway into Lizards over this gobbledygook.
@@ZeroB4NG Yeah the problem with the spore drive is just that it's chronologically over a century before TNG, messing with the internal logic and not just realistic physics. It's got some major risks to use but given the main characters could use it hundreds of times before encountering a problem, a century of research could easily miniaturize it and improve the safety and efficiency until starships can carry it as a backup for extreme emergencies. And even if the Federation never does that, the fact that it's possible to invent at all means someone else should have by the 2300s
They did dark master dirty. Actual effort was put into the universe and characters and story threads and the plug was pulled anyway for ‘reasons.’ You can blatantly tell in the 3rd season that the writers were trying to expand the story to epic scale so that there would be interest in renewing it. Never seen such an obvious “to be continued” cliffhanger. If you watch, make sure you know it does not wrap up at the end, but unlike modern shit it’s not because of bad writing but because they gave it their best shot to get renewed
@@ZeroB4NG Threshold was unironically the worst episode of Voyager, and it's STILL better than the stupid spore drive. At least Star Trek Online salvaged the idea of the Spore Drive being a Blacksite project with their storyline, and tied it into the Elachi that previously only showed up in two episodes, making them natives of the mycelial web actually makes sense.
The Expanse is an incredible benchmark for live-action depictions of so many sci-fi concepts. I don't think there's a Spacedock video that can't benefit from an Expanse reference.
I agree. That said, having only watched the first season (please, no spoilers!) I do have one nit-pick: I think one of the main features of the setting would've been better presented if the show were animated (not really an option in the US, I guess, since animation is considered for kids whereas live action can be for general audiences, but I digress). The problem with the show - visually - is that Belters, Martians and Earthers all look too similar. The effect that growing up in low-G has on the human body is drives the setting and plot of the show. This could be better communicated visually if Belters and Martians actually looked the way they would in real-life. People born in less gravity would be tall and lankly, and generally look frail. Achieving this look would be easier in some form of animation (preferably a realistic looking one) than with actual actors. I guess, though there is a counter-argument - certain scenes might not look right if they were to that. In particular, I'm thinking of the part where an Earther is beat up by Belter thugs - but maybe that scene wasn't that realistic to begin with (the passions that the Belters felt were certainly realistic, it's just the physical ability that I question).
@@jeffbenton6183 in the books thats exactly how it is. they showed a few people in season 1 that are lot taller and skinner but for the most part its a simple issue that humans arnt built that way and they had to comprise for the sake of budget.
I do have one nitpick with the scene of Bobbi Draper in the Razorback. The novel explicitly says the couches are fixed, and she ripped out the pilot's couch and jammed herself in her armor (Which acts as a G-suit alongside being able to apply the juice), into it's spot. This is utilized to the missile escape by pushing the G's WAY above what Avasarala can handle without blacking out, even in the G-couch in the bunk-room. (And by WAY above, IIRC, the book says she pushes the engine up to it's theoretical limit...you know, the thing that killed the inventor by pushing him up over 10G's increasing. So chances are, for several seconds the only things keeping Avasarala alive was the Juice, and the only thing keeping Bobbi conscious was her suit squeezing the SHIT out of her to keep her blood in her brain.)
Yeah there are really only two instances that I can think of were that concept is explored at all, those being Stargate Atlantis and Star Trek. Interestingly enough, those are the only two sci-fi universes that I can think of where the FTL technology would allow for that
I think it… wouldn’t? If you and your target are going FTL your weapons need to go FTL as well, but they’re probably too small to mount a warp drive. On the other hand direct energy weapons wouldn’t work because they’d be limited to the speed of light On the other hand if you are FTL and your target isn’t you could deliver a devastating laser strike by turning on a flashlight for hours while going at exactly the speed of light, causing the photons to “stack” together and hit the enemy all at the same time with an extremely short wavelength, effectively hitting them with a deadly gamma ray burst.
@@marcmagnier It actually was exactly once, if I remember correctly. A convoy of ships was ambushed by a Shadow vessel inside of hyperspace. As to how it worked, in B5 their weapons and propulsion seemed to work the same in hyperspace as it did in realspace. So the Shadow vessel used its normal beam weapon to massacre the convoy, they did fire back but it being early in the Shadow story line their weapons had no lasting effect on the Shadow ship.
I would definitely like a more in depth look at the different types of FTL from different sci fi genres including the different scales and speeds of each universe compared to each other. Echhartsladder touched on this a few years ago but would like you guys to go more detail with it.
It is interesting. For example, Mech Warrior's FTL is a jump drive, but it can only be done from the ecliptic poles. Meaning that most of the travel time is spent getting to and from the jump points. Other settings require highly expensive gates, and there's even one book where the drive only works in extremely high gravity but can go anywhere. So the brown dwarfs that were settled can be traveled to, but you have to slowboat back.
He knows Nexus : The Jupiter Incident ! YES !!! Also, I think you should make a video exclusively on faster-than-light travel in Science-Fiction, so many different systems in so many fictional universes... It deserves its own video.
There was also a very interesting reverse thruster used in Revenge of the Sith when Obi-Wan and Anakin are crashing the Separatist ship from the beginning on Coruscant. The giant engines in the back re-directed the thrust by closing the rear opening and opening up panels on the sides, so the main engines acted as a break... the ship was ripped in half as a result. I would love to see a proper Stardestroyer or a Venator Class doing that.
I always found that particular scene a bit improbable, even for Star Wars. What those panels were made out of so that the ship's exaust didn't vaporize them?!
That would be a "thrust reverser" they mentioned briefly. These sorts of things do exist in real life, it's used by jet aircraft to stop faster on runways. I agree it's very underutilized in sci fi!
@Darth Biomech Keep in mind that IRL rocket engines can be more than freezing on the outside while turned on(it could have cooling). Concidering that blaster technology works by thermal energy (unlike guns using kinetic energy) they for sure have pretty good armour materials that could be used here. And that engine might be able to run on less power with far less efficiency(may be the reason why exhaust turned blue).
@@ImieNazwiskoOK Blaster technology uses tibanna gas plasma, and since the gas is compressed enough to fit hundreds of shots into a tiny pistol you could probably use it as a cooling medium for blasters.
That was pretty good I like those cool I wish you'd do more on the hyperdrives and faster-than-light technology stuff that would be cool too I was wondering also if maybe you would do something about the space all technology from the Robotech series or maybe even Battletech's a faster-than-light drive
A video about FTL drives would be great. One of the things I loved about Stargate is how different factions have different FTL limitations and how that directly affects the people on those ships, like how the Wraith have to take breaks to let their organic ships heal, but at the same time is complementary to their viking lifestyle of Culling human worlds.
That‘s one thing I love about the Bobiverse, it‘s interstellar/galactic in scale but still doesn’t have FTL travel. That doesn’t matter though because the the main character(s) are basically immortal, so it gives a nice feeling that time doesn’t really matter
Yes on FTL. Need to talk about David Webber. Love his drive ideas. The impeller from the Honorverse and the "creating a black hole in front of your ship but always pushing it ahead of you so you never fall in" from Path of the Fury have always been two of my favorites.
i once read a couple of books where the ftl travel was shifting between dimensions and 'riding' the flow by using sails that are manually controlled on the surface of the vessel like sailing ships of old. there there is bodacious space pirates which uses ships that have engines, but also use sails to provide power when just cruising and not fighting.
Had to watch the video twice. Once for the soothing background music, that took me back to so many great playthroughs of Mass Effect (I should start another one). And then another time to pay attention to the content at hand xD I'd really love a video on FTL drives, there's so many great concepts!
I very much miss reaction wheels in sci-fi-s for attitude control. In fact, some powerful reaction wheel can serve much of the functions of the RCS. Of course it won't help for changing the net momentum and angular momentum of the ship, which can be only done by the RCS or main engine trust vectoring, however, they are more then perfect for rotating the ship in a very precise manner and also stabilising its attitude by using the reaction wheels as momentum wheels. If the fuel efficiency of the RCS are vastly worse then the main engine, then powerful reaction wheels could be a useful tool to conserve RCS reaction mass. On the other hand, one obvious way, which I miss from TV sci-fi, to turn a propulsion method into a weapon is the kinetic kill vehicle. Why should one put a warhead to a rocket, when an enough efficient rocket in itself is more then enough to cripple the target? In fact, a kinetic kill vehicle can be even more effective then warhead tipped missile, because it is way faster and agile, hence it has better survivability against point defences. Or if, the point defences are too accurate even for a bare kinetik kill vehicle, then instead of a warhead, one should apply some equally heavy armour plates to tip of the kill vehicle. This way one can potentially immunise the kinetik kill vehicle against some light but accurate point defences.
@@ThisCanBePronounced Well, I do not know any sci-fi ship that have reaction control wheels. Note that reaction wheeled attitude control isn't as fancy or spectacular as RCS attitude control, because it just only involves spinning heavy wheels somewhere concealed in the ship. Though it might give the look of "advanced technology" if a ship rotates without expelling any reaction mass or drive plume. Nevertheless, mentioning the reaction wheels that are used at the very least to complement the attitude control of the RCS would give a realistic engineering depth to the lore.
o man, a complete video talking about FTL drives?! sign me up! i'd watch a video about ships that actually have toilets on them. honestly ill watch basically anything yall put out as soon as it pops up!
NEBULOUS: Fleet Command has all ships with reverse thrusters on the bow, or fore for a destroyer that has the bow reserved for either a spine-mounted rail gun or beam cannon, to slow down or to come to a complete stop.
I think that Battlestar Galactica made a very important decision in talking about the fuel their spacecraft used occasionally. Not so much how it worked, but the fact that they had a finite amount, and had to try not to waste it. Also, they had to use a refinery ship to process the raw ore into something their ships could use. Which basically made the refinery ship a very good target for the Cylons. As stories go, it requires that you go places to get more fuel, do things like pay for it or refine whatever it is, and running out leaves you stranded in the cold depths of space. Firefly made a good episode of what happens when the spacecraft’s engine stops working in space, and you’re left without power. In Firefly and BSG, they don’t explicitly tell how the engine operates, but drive home the limits. (Rather like most people understanding that gasoline gets used in a car engine, even if they don’t understand the tech and underlying engineering behind it.)
My favorite propulsion system is from an anime called Stellvia. Humanity discovered gravity control technology and use it for every form of propulsion. Need to get to orbit? Just turn on the antigrav drive and "fall" upward. Wanna go fast? Create a strong gravity point in front of the ship and an antigrav point behind. No FTL in the setting, but the ability to travel fast in the solar system without any "thrust" is pretty neat.
I really think that Particle Systems' classic '90s game "I-War" deserves a mention here with its fusion/plasma drives powered by a collider ring producing a realistic feeling Newtonian spaceflight experience.
Lensman series. Inertial dampening drives. And how they were used in combat. Docking or clamping onto another ship and turning off the drive. Shaking the other ship with the inertia from the location you just left, which is different from where they came from.
For some reason since I was kid, the engines in almost all sci Fi IPs have always fascinated me the most!!! Maybe one day you guys can do a video on the GN Solar reactor drive from Gundam OO and maybe a Gundam from that cannon. The drive is a lot similar to the reimagined BSG Basestar engines in that it's a semi perpetual drive. I love this video so much but feel like it could be even more of a overview but I still love it.
The Blink Drive in Dark Matter was similar to the FTL jumps in BSG, with the notable exception that the Raza was the only ship with this capability. If you do a video on FTL drives (which I'd love!) it'd be cool if you explored that in it as well as the more well known examples
I'd like a comprehensive video of not only all FTL drives, but also what would prevent an enemy from sneaking up with his FTL, destroying a strategic asset, or component of a targeted ship, and FTL hop back away before you could strike. For example, the Blackbird disabling the FTL of the resurrection ship in BSG--how could you prevent an enemy from doing the same to you?
In the Honor Harrington books, the use of gravity propulsion defines many things, not the least of which being combat. In fact, David Weber designed it this way on purpose in order to get close to naval combat during the Napoleonic era. The two impeller wedges that push the ship are at the top and bottom. They represent such a high compression of gravity that they’re virtually impenetrable to any weapon. Thus the top and bottom are protected and are usually left unarmored. The sides are protected by sidewalls (shields), which are less powerful gravity fields that attempt to bent the incoming projectile or beam away. They press against the impeller wedges and thus require the wedges to be on. Fore and aft are exposed, since putting sidewalls there would short-circuit the impellers and prevent the ship from accelerating or maneuvering except with chemical thrusters. They’re later added anyway for special cases. Typically, a shot to the exposed bow or stern is called “down the throat” or “up the kilt” (respectively) by the sailors. Ships often try to put their side to the enemy since that’s where the weapons are concentrated, which allows for large broadside volleys of missiles or lasers. Huge ships are called dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts and are collectively known as “ships of the wall” (three dimensions, remember?). The missiles used in the setting are typically of the bomb-pump laser kind. Older books still have them use contact nukes, but sidewalls and laser defenses usually help protect against those. The BPLs detonate tens of thousands of kilometers away from the target. The nuclear blast powers the lasing rods that hit the target with multiple laser beams for a few seconds. Missiles often maneuver just before detonation in order to do as much damage as possible, sometimes managing down the throat or up the kilt shots for devastating damage. Even some of the star nations in the setting mirror historical ones. The Star Kingdom of Manticore is basically Britain with a constitutional monarchy and hereditary aristocrats. The People’s Republic of Haven is France just before and during the French Revolution (the latter part is even led by a guy named Rob S. Pierre) with some Soviet stereotypes thrown in. There’s even a space equivalent of Prussia, the Anderman Empire (ironically, they’re ethnically Chinese but speak German and have German last names). There’s also the Protectorate of Grayson, which is a mix of American Deep South (minus slavery) and Meiji-era Japan
And then there are the Travelers (I mean the Star Trek Travelers, but if memory serves, a point can be made for the B5 Travelers with their thought-ships), or the "our FTL engines are our OWN FRAKKING BRAINS! (grabs starship, points at the edge of the universe) YEEEEEEET!!!"
You've probably never heard of it, but the Eighties-era sci-fi novel series 'America 2040' by Evan Innis has perhaps the most efficient form of hyperspace jump-travel I've ever seen. The first time the engine (the 'Shaw Drive', after its creator) is tested, it makes a thirty trillion-mile jump in one-billionth of a second. The storylines are met at best, but the tech is interesting (but needs more description).
It seems like for story purposes, there's a bigger difference between 'instant travel' engines (like BSG, or Dune) and 'really fast' engines, than between FTL or compressed dimensions. Characters can do stuff, have conversations, or whatever while they are in transit. They can also be intercepted, or be forced to stop or divert in-route. All kinds of different literary options. BSG has to use travel in a different way to build tension or otherwise create or solve story problems (i.e. "can we get their in time" type drama looks very different when you are either "there" or you are not).
Greater Gforces cause you to black out as it forces blood away from your brain and into your extremeities. One of the greatest spitfire pilots, Douglas Bader was a double amputee, his legs were badly injured in combat and needed to be amputated. He wanted to keep fighting so he had the pedals for the aircraft's flaps modified in so he could fly. The fact that he had no legs meant that he could perform manourvres that would cause an able bodied pilot to black out as the blood can't be forced into your legs if you don't have any.
I'd love a series on different drive archetypes- you could group and compare how they limit and drive storytelling as well as doing comparisons on effectiveness.
A couple of the ship designs I have in my head have rotating engines that can be used for landing but also for reverse thrust as they can rotate fully backwards.
Yes please more drives. But you must include the greatest drive ever invented, the Infinite Improbability Drive. It's great for mindbogglingly big space.
6:40 you can have interstellar scifi without ftl. That would Suggest that stories take place over the curse of generations. And that is great for epic stories. alternatively, You have people, that can communicate, but will never see each other in person. That is also an interesting constrained.
This whole video was just a great excuse to show that Sci-Fi is AWESOME, isn't it? …And to show people a bunch of amazingly fun properties they might be missing out on. (And if you're not aware of some of these, you *are* missing out.) I heartily approve!
I sort of remember the Stargate Episode when a F-302 used it's subspace window drive to bypass a mothership's shields. Using features of a drive like that in a story helps support the realism of the fantasy. [Tangent Alert:] I also was thinking on a design of spaceship for a story, essentially a generic multi-purpose cylindrical hull type that is studded with directional thrusters. These thrusters, however, can have their focus radically adjusted on-the-fly to become blasters, ostensibly for deflecting hazardous objects, but an enemy ship also counts as a hazardous object. The mulit-purpose generic hull pattern would also be practically indistinguishable between a commercial mining vessel or a heavily armed warship with a ship length axial railgun running down it's core and capable of firing equally in either direction. There would always be doubt in the minds of enemies until the railgun fires but no easy way (beyond ultra advanced telemetry and/or espionage) to determine the absence of a massive railgun. A priority of combat would be avoiding the forward or rear sectors of the ship, as those would potentially be the most dangerous, though lateral and/or radial weapons could also be present but may be easier to rule-out. The safest place would likely be on a ship's 1-2, 4-5, 7-8, 10-11 angles. This is also assuming that it isn't a mirror-match, in which case depending on weapon yield and/or resistance to damage in story it would either be a stealth one-shot, broadside man-o-war beatdown while one tries to get an advantageous angle, or a dynamic stalemate as both try to stay in the other's weapon's areas of low coverage.
Yes, I would definitely like to see a more comprehensive look at the FTL drives, although I would view the Teleport drives as worthy of consideration as a separate type, given the implications.
"This is what standard reaction engines can do, now imagine that with something more hi-tech!" Such as when the Serenity ignites its main drive in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. "Here's something you can't do!"
Reaction wheel gyrodyne or gyrostabilizer can allow a spacecraft great agility where a pilot can turn a spinning disk to impart an attitudinal change orientation of where a spacecraft is pointing.
A breakdown of different FTL drive types by both plot and realism 'hardness' would be really interesting - FTL as a fictional/hypothetical tech as well as FTL as a thing serving a narrative purpose (expanding the setting, being the MacGuffin, etc. - some interesting game settings also use it to differentiate species, as do things like Star Trek occasionally, via things like Borg transwarp)
Check out our original SF Audio Drama, The Sojourn!
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Please, please, please, do an analysis on why planets and planetary systems in science fiction don’t have a SpacePort. Every time I see an advance civilization just sitting back and having random people just showing up and landing on their planet drives me nuts. I scream in Prometheus when the godlike Engineers just allowed a ship they lost contact with thousands of ago to just return and whipped them out. Logically, it should have been stopped at the edge of the solar system and forced to provide proper documents and asked if it is there for work or pleasure. Why don’t they have customs???????????
I’d like a video on the various types of ftl in sci fi
nice one using ksp as a demostration
Never heard of that Larry Kniven bloke.
Question: Is there any possibility in the near future for the "Sojourn Book Series" in printed format?
Call me old school, but I prefer reading in paper, or at least in a screen (not a criticism of your work, is just my personal preference).
In my sci-fi universe, fusion powered sublight engines create a lot of free electrons, which can cause lightning storms when used in atmosphere.
A fleet of ships can weaponize their drive emissions to cause catastrophic lightning storms on a target planet.
Sounds interesting.
in my sci-fi universe missiles utilize miniaturized (mostly single use) jump thrusters to accelerate to a significant fraction of the speed of light and create massive damage to the target armor, only lacking in the ability to penetrate energy shields.
jump thrusters are used for sudden burst of acceleration and allow when in conjunction with a jump drive whish isolates the ship in a space-time bubble whish follows the ship movement, meaning that the ship never actually accelerates within that bubble, allowing it to travel throughout the entire galaxy (2 millions light years) in 2 month (100000 times the speed of light).
when their jump drive is active a ship can not be interacted or interact with anything outside the bubble, whish removes the issue of obliterating planets with a simple kamikaze civilian ship.
Currently the idea I'm going for in my book is a 'Jump-gate' which is anchored on the surface of a small moon or planetoid. The idea being that there using the mass of the moon/planetoid to bend space.
The gate itself would appear as a 'blister' (Due to wormholes being three dimensional objects, spheres.) This blister would reflect space in which ever system the gate is tethered to.
The main reason which made by lean more towards jump gates over FTL drives, was the reality of having a drive that can fit on a starship and shorten interstellar travel enough to be commercially viable.
@@ledocteur7701 Wait, you made the jump bubble non-interacting to keep jump drives from being weaponized, then weaponized them anyway?
@@DecidedlyNinja no, missiles uses a type of sub-light engines capable of short burst of insane acceleration, jump drives only isolate the ship allowing it to reach FTL speeds, but it doesn't make the ship move, it uses it's sub-light engines for that.
I would love a more comprehensive look at FTL drives, and perhaps delving into real life FTL concepts like the Alcubierre Drive.
The Alcubierre Drive is a nice idea but I dont think it will become a reality. White and his team may have warped space with the Casimir effect but that was on a nano scale. The Casimir effect is when you stick two plates so close together that quantum particles can not form between them. The plates experience a quantum push as particles form on the outside of plates kind've like how a submarine experiences pressure under water. What was interesting is this inturn created a negative space. The space between the plates was different then the space outside, essentially a warp bubble. How this effect could be used in space travel is anyone's guess. Additionally, this was on a nano scale from quantum particles, particles smaller than atoms to make this any bigger would require enormous amounts of energy. So, sorry no warp drive just a neat science experiment.
@@kenneyshepard4511 It's still the most likely though
@@kenneyshepard4511
They only proved it was possible. Whether or not it can be done on the scale of Star Trek, will take at least 100 more years of off and on research and development to see any such results. After all, we are talking about a mode of propulsion that promises to bypass any form of physics commonly known or understood today. And it took centuries (some may argue millennia) to go from the idea of flight to the first aircraft. From there is has literally been "the sky's the limit"
So we, as a species and civilization, will have to wait and see.
FTL! FTL! FTL!
Alcubierre drive is not FTL. In his paper, Alcubierre said that people on board the ship will experience 14 days of real time when travelling to Alpha Centauri but around 900 years will pass in the outside from the perspective on an observer standing on the Earth. There is no "realistic" FTL of any kind, Alcubierre or vortex or eleventh compressed dimension or anything like that because light is not the speed of photons but the speed of causality. If you can send info (electromagnetic signals) or matter beyond the causality limit, you will end up with a "tachyonic telephone" and all sorts of paradoxes. The more realistic way possible is NAFAL (near as fast as light) like in Cameron's Avatar with matter-antimatter reaction or Tau Zero (Pool Anderson) with Bussard ramjet to have near c acceleration in a matter of years. Anything beyond is not "realistic" in any way.
7:10 I would very much like to see a more comprehensive video detailing FTL methods in Sci-fi.
One of the main things I've been planning with my book at the moment, is how faster-than-light travel works. Would be really useful to have an easy to understand video going over different methods.
At the moment I'm leaning more towards the idea of a 'Jump-gate' of sorts.
my universe uses both, simply because "space is big" and even going at 100 000 times the speed of light, that still not enough to reach the nearest galaxy in a reasonable time.
«jumpdrives» are the technology used to achieve FTL travel, they isolate the ship in a space-time bubble that's gets dragged along with the ship has it accelerates using it’s engine, normally the faster you are the more energy it takes to accelerate, but while the jumpdrive is active the ship isn’t actually accelerating nor moving (in comparison to it’s local space-time bubble obviously, it’s still moving and accelerating trough the universe) which allow the ship to reach unimaginable speed far faster than the speed of light while being protected from all outside threat (the ship bubble is also incapable of interacting with outside elements such has planets, for the sake of not transforming any jump drives equipped ships into a planet-blowing missile.)
The name «jumpdrive» refers to the fact that jumpdrives are extremely power hungry and can only be sustained for a few minutes on average, even purpose-built ships can’t sustain it for more than an hour.
«jumpgates» are mega-structures build around black holes that allow a ship correctly equipped to enter the black hole and instantly travel to any location within a certain radius of the black hole (range is defined by the mass of the black hole, bigger = farther) by creating a short-lived tiny white hole at that destination, those jumps are generally made from jumpgates to jumpgates, «blind» jumps are possible, but really dangerous, has jump gates also serves as FTL communication towers which supports «The Network» (basically an intergalactic internet) and allow ships to be informed of the state of their destination, a blind jump could lead you into an area currently at war or even worse, teleport you into a planet/star/whatever else that isn’t void, destroying your ship.
My favorite FTL method is the warp drive, as it allows interstellar travel while still having travel time, and its the method most likely to actually work in real life.
@@2MeterLP weirdly I like universes that have multiple ftl types. I just find it cool to have one species with hyperspace that allows them to go farther and faster but requires more energy and is more dangerous while another species uses warp since it’s easier and cheaper but slower. Could even make them work under similar principles just used differently
@@Nostripe361 I feel like allowing multiple ways to break the laws of physics would strain suspension of disbelief a bit.
@@ledocteur7701 Accelerates to many times the speed of light and slows down using the normal engine within the few minutes that the jump drive operates? Your ships' sublight acceleration makes Honor Harrington look slow as a snail.
If you ever take a deeper look into FTL drives and talk about teleportation drives then I’d LOVE if you mention the Blink Drive from Dark Matter.
It is kind of ironic...
In BSG the FTL Jumps were never truly explained, it just did its thing and i completely accepted it as such.
Dark Matter had a Blink drive and that made the hero ship the most important ship in the universe somehow... and i accepted that as is.
Then Kurtzman NuTrek starts yapping about Mushrooms and makes a stupid looking spinning animation, puts this OP drive chronologically before Kirk's 1701 and it instantly was the dumbest thing Star Trek EVER did. Heck, i take Transwarp turning Paris and Janeway into Lizards over this gobbledygook.
i cast upon
instant teleportation is canonically before the invention of ftl technology
@@ZeroB4NG Yeah the problem with the spore drive is just that it's chronologically over a century before TNG, messing with the internal logic and not just realistic physics.
It's got some major risks to use but given the main characters could use it hundreds of times before encountering a problem, a century of research could easily miniaturize it and improve the safety and efficiency until starships can carry it as a backup for extreme emergencies.
And even if the Federation never does that, the fact that it's possible to invent at all means someone else should have by the 2300s
They did dark master dirty. Actual effort was put into the universe and characters and story threads and the plug was pulled anyway for ‘reasons.’ You can blatantly tell in the 3rd season that the writers were trying to expand the story to epic scale so that there would be interest in renewing it. Never seen such an obvious “to be continued” cliffhanger. If you watch, make sure you know it does not wrap up at the end, but unlike modern shit it’s not because of bad writing but because they gave it their best shot to get renewed
@@ZeroB4NG Threshold was unironically the worst episode of Voyager, and it's STILL better than the stupid spore drive.
At least Star Trek Online salvaged the idea of the Spore Drive being a Blacksite project with their storyline, and tied it into the Elachi that previously only showed up in two episodes, making them natives of the mycelial web actually makes sense.
The Expanse is an incredible benchmark for live-action depictions of so many sci-fi concepts. I don't think there's a Spacedock video that can't benefit from an Expanse reference.
The Expanse set the bar so high, that it will be used as a benchmark for space travel or combat for at least the next dacede.
The Expanse pushed standards for scifi settings lightyears ahead. And it even punched those "realistic scifi is boring" idiots right in the nose!
I agree.
That said, having only watched the first season (please, no spoilers!) I do have one nit-pick: I think one of the main features of the setting would've been better presented if the show were animated (not really an option in the US, I guess, since animation is considered for kids whereas live action can be for general audiences, but I digress). The problem with the show - visually - is that Belters, Martians and Earthers all look too similar. The effect that growing up in low-G has on the human body is drives the setting and plot of the show. This could be better communicated visually if Belters and Martians actually looked the way they would in real-life. People born in less gravity would be tall and lankly, and generally look frail. Achieving this look would be easier in some form of animation (preferably a realistic looking one) than with actual actors. I guess, though there is a counter-argument - certain scenes might not look right if they were to that. In particular, I'm thinking of the part where an Earther is beat up by Belter thugs - but maybe that scene wasn't that realistic to begin with (the passions that the Belters felt were certainly realistic, it's just the physical ability that I question).
@@jeffbenton6183 in the books thats exactly how it is. they showed a few people in season 1 that are lot taller and skinner but for the most part its a simple issue that humans arnt built that way and they had to comprise for the sake of budget.
I do have one nitpick with the scene of Bobbi Draper in the Razorback. The novel explicitly says the couches are fixed, and she ripped out the pilot's couch and jammed herself in her armor (Which acts as a G-suit alongside being able to apply the juice), into it's spot. This is utilized to the missile escape by pushing the G's WAY above what Avasarala can handle without blacking out, even in the G-couch in the bunk-room. (And by WAY above, IIRC, the book says she pushes the engine up to it's theoretical limit...you know, the thing that killed the inventor by pushing him up over 10G's increasing. So chances are, for several seconds the only things keeping Avasarala alive was the Juice, and the only thing keeping Bobbi conscious was her suit squeezing the SHIT out of her to keep her blood in her brain.)
one thing that I think is rarely well-explored, if it isn't just handwaved entirely, is how combat might work at FTL speeds
Yeah there are really only two instances that I can think of were that concept is explored at all, those being Stargate Atlantis and Star Trek. Interestingly enough, those are the only two sci-fi universes that I can think of where the FTL technology would allow for that
@@James-ho5te I guess you could fight while in hyperspace in B5. But it's never done on screen
there's an isaac arthur video on that
I think it… wouldn’t? If you and your target are going FTL your weapons need to go FTL as well, but they’re probably too small to mount a warp drive. On the other hand direct energy weapons wouldn’t work because they’d be limited to the speed of light
On the other hand if you are FTL and your target isn’t you could deliver a devastating laser strike by turning on a flashlight for hours while going at exactly the speed of light, causing the photons to “stack” together and hit the enemy all at the same time with an extremely short wavelength, effectively hitting them with a deadly gamma ray burst.
@@marcmagnier It actually was exactly once, if I remember correctly. A convoy of ships was ambushed by a Shadow vessel inside of hyperspace. As to how it worked, in B5 their weapons and propulsion seemed to work the same in hyperspace as it did in realspace. So the Shadow vessel used its normal beam weapon to massacre the convoy, they did fire back but it being early in the Shadow story line their weapons had no lasting effect on the Shadow ship.
I would definitely like a more in depth look at the different types of FTL from different sci fi genres including the different scales and speeds of each universe compared to each other. Echhartsladder touched on this a few years ago but would like you guys to go more detail with it.
It is interesting. For example, Mech Warrior's FTL is a jump drive, but it can only be done from the ecliptic poles. Meaning that most of the travel time is spent getting to and from the jump points. Other settings require highly expensive gates, and there's even one book where the drive only works in extremely high gravity but can go anywhere. So the brown dwarfs that were settled can be traveled to, but you have to slowboat back.
He knows Nexus : The Jupiter Incident ! YES !!!
Also, I think you should make a video exclusively on faster-than-light travel in Science-Fiction, so many different systems in so many fictional universes... It deserves its own video.
That game was better than it had any right to be.
Nice to see Nexus get some love!
@@ZeroB4NG Not sure I could agree with you more. If I were designing my ideal game, I think I'd draw heavily on NTJI's mechanics.
There was also a very interesting reverse thruster used in Revenge of the Sith when Obi-Wan and Anakin are crashing the Separatist ship from the beginning on Coruscant.
The giant engines in the back re-directed the thrust by closing the rear opening and opening up panels on the sides, so the main engines acted as a break... the ship was ripped in half as a result.
I would love to see a proper Stardestroyer or a Venator Class doing that.
I always found that particular scene a bit improbable, even for Star Wars. What those panels were made out of so that the ship's exaust didn't vaporize them?!
That would be a "thrust reverser" they mentioned briefly. These sorts of things do exist in real life, it's used by jet aircraft to stop faster on runways. I agree it's very underutilized in sci fi!
@Darth Biomech Keep in mind that IRL rocket engines can be more than freezing on the outside while turned on(it could have cooling). Concidering that blaster technology works by thermal energy (unlike guns using kinetic energy) they for sure have pretty good armour materials that could be used here.
And that engine might be able to run on less power with far less efficiency(may be the reason why exhaust turned blue).
@@ImieNazwiskoOK Blaster technology uses tibanna gas plasma, and since the gas is compressed enough to fit hundreds of shots into a tiny pistol you could probably use it as a cooling medium for blasters.
I live how when KSP is shown the mission is in the middle of going horribly wrong
As KSP does
That was pretty good I like those cool I wish you'd do more on the hyperdrives and faster-than-light technology stuff that would be cool too I was wondering also if maybe you would do something about the space all technology from the Robotech series or maybe even Battletech's a faster-than-light drive
A video about FTL drives would be great. One of the things I loved about Stargate is how different factions have different FTL limitations and how that directly affects the people on those ships, like how the Wraith have to take breaks to let their organic ships heal, but at the same time is complementary to their viking lifestyle of Culling human worlds.
That‘s one thing I love about the Bobiverse, it‘s interstellar/galactic in scale but still doesn’t have FTL travel. That doesn’t matter though because the the main character(s) are basically immortal, so it gives a nice feeling that time doesn’t really matter
I believe that Honorverse and The Expanse (or BSG) are the benchmark right now. Each of them the the own way.
Yes on FTL. Need to talk about David Webber. Love his drive ideas. The impeller from the Honorverse and the "creating a black hole in front of your ship but always pushing it ahead of you so you never fall in" from Path of the Fury have always been two of my favorites.
First...the Mass Effect music. **Chef's kiss**. Loved it. Second, an episode on FTL...yes please.
i once read a couple of books where the ftl travel was shifting between dimensions and 'riding' the flow by using sails that are manually controlled on the surface of the vessel like sailing ships of old. there there is bodacious space pirates which uses ships that have engines, but also use sails to provide power when just cruising and not fighting.
Yes I would very much like a video on the all the types of FTL methods we have thought of over the years
Had to watch the video twice. Once for the soothing background music, that took me back to so many great playthroughs of Mass Effect (I should start another one). And then another time to pay attention to the content at hand xD
I'd really love a video on FTL drives, there's so many great concepts!
Great mini-doc! Love the ME2 Mining Soundtrack in the background. 👍
I very much miss reaction wheels in sci-fi-s for attitude control. In fact, some powerful reaction wheel can serve much of the functions of the RCS. Of course it won't help for changing the net momentum and angular momentum of the ship, which can be only done by the RCS or main engine trust vectoring, however, they are more then perfect for rotating the ship in a very precise manner and also stabilising its attitude by using the reaction wheels as momentum wheels. If the fuel efficiency of the RCS are vastly worse then the main engine, then powerful reaction wheels could be a useful tool to conserve RCS reaction mass.
On the other hand, one obvious way, which I miss from TV sci-fi, to turn a propulsion method into a weapon is the kinetic kill vehicle. Why should one put a warhead to a rocket, when an enough efficient rocket in itself is more then enough to cripple the target? In fact, a kinetic kill vehicle can be even more effective then warhead tipped missile, because it is way faster and agile, hence it has better survivability against point defences. Or if, the point defences are too accurate even for a bare kinetik kill vehicle, then instead of a warhead, one should apply some equally heavy armour plates to tip of the kill vehicle. This way one can potentially immunise the kinetik kill vehicle against some light but accurate point defences.
@@ThisCanBePronounced Well, I do not know any sci-fi ship that have reaction control wheels. Note that reaction wheeled attitude control isn't as fancy or spectacular as RCS attitude control, because it just only involves spinning heavy wheels somewhere concealed in the ship.
Though it might give the look of "advanced technology" if a ship rotates without expelling any reaction mass or drive plume.
Nevertheless, mentioning the reaction wheels that are used at the very least to complement the attitude control of the RCS would give a realistic engineering depth to the lore.
The Mote in God's Eye had this in some ships
Absolutely yes on an FTL comparison video!
What no love for the Heart of Golds Infinite Improbability Drive.???
It’s unfair to compare amateurs with professionals. Even the Federation’s warp 10 couldn’t safely be everywhere at once
@@monkofbob not without causing evolutionary changes and such. 0-0
@@ditzydoo4378 and yet the Heart of Gold does it
o man, a complete video talking about FTL drives?! sign me up! i'd watch a video about ships that actually have toilets on them. honestly ill watch basically anything yall put out as soon as it pops up!
Goddamn, that amazing, clean mass effect soundtrack in the background.
It doesn't take much to make me want to replay the series...
NEBULOUS: Fleet Command has all ships with reverse thrusters on the bow, or fore for a destroyer that has the bow reserved for either a spine-mounted rail gun or beam cannon, to slow down or to come to a complete stop.
I could spend hours listening to the the Mass Effect Galaxy Map theme. It's so goddamn soothing.
I think that Battlestar Galactica made a very important decision in talking about the fuel their spacecraft used occasionally. Not so much how it worked, but the fact that they had a finite amount, and had to try not to waste it. Also, they had to use a refinery ship to process the raw ore into something their ships could use. Which basically made the refinery ship a very good target for the Cylons.
As stories go, it requires that you go places to get more fuel, do things like pay for it or refine whatever it is, and running out leaves you stranded in the cold depths of space.
Firefly made a good episode of what happens when the spacecraft’s engine stops working in space, and you’re left without power. In Firefly and BSG, they don’t explicitly tell how the engine operates, but drive home the limits. (Rather like most people understanding that gasoline gets used in a car engine, even if they don’t understand the tech and underlying engineering behind it.)
My favorite propulsion system is from an anime called Stellvia. Humanity discovered gravity control technology and use it for every form of propulsion. Need to get to orbit? Just turn on the antigrav drive and "fall" upward. Wanna go fast? Create a strong gravity point in front of the ship and an antigrav point behind. No FTL in the setting, but the ability to travel fast in the solar system without any "thrust" is pretty neat.
You just HAD to remind us of *that* Voyager episode.
Love the Mass Effect music in the background.
your voice is so perfect for narration and stuff like this.
I really think that Particle Systems' classic '90s game "I-War" deserves a mention here with its fusion/plasma drives powered by a collider ring producing a realistic feeling Newtonian spaceflight experience.
Thank you for mentioning the Kzinti Lesson
Jamming to Uncharted Worlds never gets old
Engines, the often overlooked thing that is key to many many settings
Lensman series. Inertial dampening drives. And how they were used in combat. Docking or clamping onto another ship and turning off the drive. Shaking the other ship with the inertia from the location you just left, which is different from where they came from.
Yes please more in depth on each.
6:57 In Leiji Matsumoto works, his preferred FTL is transdimensional ones, beginning with Wave Motion Engine in Space Battleship Yamato.
@Spacedock Love the Mass Effect map soundtrack in the background.
That Mass Effect music never gets old...
For some reason since I was kid, the engines in almost all sci Fi IPs have always fascinated me the most!!! Maybe one day you guys can do a video on the GN Solar reactor drive from Gundam OO and maybe a Gundam from that cannon. The drive is a lot similar to the reimagined BSG Basestar engines in that it's a semi perpetual drive. I love this video so much but feel like it could be even more of a overview but I still love it.
YES, I'd like a video about different FTL drives!
I love these wide cover videos. So cool
There's a game coming out called "Nebulous: Fleet Command" which I think you'd be giddy over as it simulates realistic space battles.
A deeper look into FTL and FTL theory would be fantastic. Thank you for what you guys do
A Space 1999 reference. We don't see many of those around! Very cool! :D
The Blink Drive in Dark Matter was similar to the FTL jumps in BSG, with the notable exception that the Raza was the only ship with this capability. If you do a video on FTL drives (which I'd love!) it'd be cool if you explored that in it as well as the more well known examples
The map theme from mass effect really sets the mood
I'd like a comprehensive video of not only all FTL drives, but also what would prevent an enemy from sneaking up with his FTL, destroying a strategic asset, or component of a targeted ship, and FTL hop back away before you could strike. For example, the Blackbird disabling the FTL of the resurrection ship in BSG--how could you prevent an enemy from doing the same to you?
a video on FTL engines in SciFi would be awesome
In the Honor Harrington books, the use of gravity propulsion defines many things, not the least of which being combat. In fact, David Weber designed it this way on purpose in order to get close to naval combat during the Napoleonic era. The two impeller wedges that push the ship are at the top and bottom. They represent such a high compression of gravity that they’re virtually impenetrable to any weapon. Thus the top and bottom are protected and are usually left unarmored. The sides are protected by sidewalls (shields), which are less powerful gravity fields that attempt to bent the incoming projectile or beam away. They press against the impeller wedges and thus require the wedges to be on. Fore and aft are exposed, since putting sidewalls there would short-circuit the impellers and prevent the ship from accelerating or maneuvering except with chemical thrusters. They’re later added anyway for special cases. Typically, a shot to the exposed bow or stern is called “down the throat” or “up the kilt” (respectively) by the sailors.
Ships often try to put their side to the enemy since that’s where the weapons are concentrated, which allows for large broadside volleys of missiles or lasers. Huge ships are called dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts and are collectively known as “ships of the wall” (three dimensions, remember?). The missiles used in the setting are typically of the bomb-pump laser kind. Older books still have them use contact nukes, but sidewalls and laser defenses usually help protect against those. The BPLs detonate tens of thousands of kilometers away from the target. The nuclear blast powers the lasing rods that hit the target with multiple laser beams for a few seconds. Missiles often maneuver just before detonation in order to do as much damage as possible, sometimes managing down the throat or up the kilt shots for devastating damage.
Even some of the star nations in the setting mirror historical ones. The Star Kingdom of Manticore is basically Britain with a constitutional monarchy and hereditary aristocrats. The People’s Republic of Haven is France just before and during the French Revolution (the latter part is even led by a guy named Rob S. Pierre) with some Soviet stereotypes thrown in. There’s even a space equivalent of Prussia, the Anderman Empire (ironically, they’re ethnically Chinese but speak German and have German last names). There’s also the Protectorate of Grayson, which is a mix of American Deep South (minus slavery) and Meiji-era Japan
I would love a more in depth look at different FTL types in another video.
Good choice on the mass effect background music :)
You should definitely do a video on different FTL drives
Thanks for the Niven reference. The Expanse borrows a LOT from Known Space.
I was very happy when Nexus: a Jupiter Incident was mentioned.
And then there are the Travelers (I mean the Star Trek Travelers, but if memory serves, a point can be made for the B5 Travelers with their thought-ships), or the "our FTL engines are our OWN FRAKKING BRAINS! (grabs starship, points at the edge of the universe) YEEEEEEET!!!"
All propulsion systems in SciFi are all the exact same speed. The speed of the plot. Their are no exceptions.
I would love to see yall do a run down of the difference styles of FTL in science fiction. That sounds amazing.
You've probably never heard of it, but the Eighties-era sci-fi novel series 'America 2040' by Evan Innis has perhaps the most efficient form of hyperspace jump-travel I've ever seen. The first time the engine (the 'Shaw Drive', after its creator) is tested, it makes a thirty trillion-mile jump in one-billionth of a second. The storylines are met at best, but the tech is interesting (but needs more description).
There are 3 FTL's 1: Interndimential travel (B5 and Star Wars) 2: Faster than light (warp speed) and 3: Space fold (BSG and Dune).
The Gravity Technology that Army from the Riddick Series peaked my interest.
Bring on the comprehensive FTL types video. Would love every second of it.
It seems like for story purposes, there's a bigger difference between 'instant travel' engines (like BSG, or Dune) and 'really fast' engines, than between FTL or compressed dimensions. Characters can do stuff, have conversations, or whatever while they are in transit. They can also be intercepted, or be forced to stop or divert in-route. All kinds of different literary options. BSG has to use travel in a different way to build tension or otherwise create or solve story problems (i.e. "can we get their in time" type drama looks very different when you are either "there" or you are not).
INPUT ! NEED INPUT ! More like this Please !
Greater Gforces cause you to black out as it forces blood away from your brain and into your extremeities.
One of the greatest spitfire pilots, Douglas Bader was a double amputee, his legs were badly injured in combat and needed to be amputated. He wanted to keep fighting so he had the pedals for the aircraft's flaps modified in so he could fly. The fact that he had no legs meant that he could perform manourvres that would cause an able bodied pilot to black out as the blood can't be forced into your legs if you don't have any.
I love how the expanse is heralded as such a realistic sci-fi series and then just doesn't explain how their drives work at all.
I'd love a series on different drive archetypes- you could group and compare how they limit and drive storytelling as well as doing comparisons on effectiveness.
I would love to see a more in depth FTL video.
Another option not in your list - folding space / wormholes / boom tubes.
I really like the honorvers drive system created by David Weber
Idea for FTL drives - a universe can travel faster than the speed of light... ego the ship stays still but the universe moves!
More FTL drive please, like warp and things like jump gates. Also may be something like the difference of star wars vs B5 hyperspace.
Winchel Dosuk Chung's "Atomic Rockets Rho" has descriptions of a space pilot lying prostrate.
A couple of the ship designs I have in my head have rotating engines that can be used for landing but also for reverse thrust as they can rotate fully backwards.
Yes please more drives. But you must include the greatest drive ever invented, the Infinite Improbability Drive. It's great for mindbogglingly big space.
6:40 you can have interstellar scifi without ftl. That would Suggest that stories take place over the curse of generations. And that is great for epic stories.
alternatively, You have people, that can communicate, but will never see each other in person. That is also an interesting constrained.
This whole video was just a great excuse to show that Sci-Fi is AWESOME, isn't it? …And to show people a bunch of amazingly fun properties they might be missing out on. (And if you're not aware of some of these, you *are* missing out.) I heartily approve!
I sort of remember the Stargate Episode when a F-302 used it's subspace window drive to bypass a mothership's shields. Using features of a drive like that in a story helps support the realism of the fantasy.
[Tangent Alert:] I also was thinking on a design of spaceship for a story, essentially a generic multi-purpose cylindrical hull type that is studded with directional thrusters. These thrusters, however, can have their focus radically adjusted on-the-fly to become blasters, ostensibly for deflecting hazardous objects, but an enemy ship also counts as a hazardous object. The mulit-purpose generic hull pattern would also be practically indistinguishable between a commercial mining vessel or a heavily armed warship with a ship length axial railgun running down it's core and capable of firing equally in either direction.
There would always be doubt in the minds of enemies until the railgun fires but no easy way (beyond ultra advanced telemetry and/or espionage) to determine the absence of a massive railgun. A priority of combat would be avoiding the forward or rear sectors of the ship, as those would potentially be the most dangerous, though lateral and/or radial weapons could also be present but may be easier to rule-out. The safest place would likely be on a ship's 1-2, 4-5, 7-8, 10-11 angles. This is also assuming that it isn't a mirror-match, in which case depending on weapon yield and/or resistance to damage in story it would either be a stealth one-shot, broadside man-o-war beatdown while one tries to get an advantageous angle, or a dynamic stalemate as both try to stay in the other's weapon's areas of low coverage.
Yes, I would definitely like to see a more comprehensive look at the FTL drives, although I would view the Teleport drives as worthy of consideration as a separate type, given the implications.
"Should you run out of ammo, even your ship can be used as a weapon of last resort."
- CVR recording
Big plus for my Galactica slamming in to atmosphere and b5
Serenity and Prometheus are like the Mars ship from Total Recall with the rotating engines, but you see the ship very briefly its inconsequential.
"This is what standard reaction engines can do, now imagine that with something more hi-tech!"
Such as when the Serenity ignites its main drive in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. "Here's something you can't do!"
Well done, Hooj. Yes please to FTL.
Lovely use of Uncharted worlds ME galaxy map track
Great video.
Can we please get the FTL video?
Reaction wheel gyrodyne or gyrostabilizer can allow a spacecraft great agility where a pilot can turn a spinning disk to impart an attitudinal change orientation of where a spacecraft is pointing.
Damn, I didn't think anyone else remembered Nexus.
A breakdown of different FTL drive types by both plot and realism 'hardness' would be really interesting - FTL as a fictional/hypothetical tech as well as FTL as a thing serving a narrative purpose (expanding the setting, being the MacGuffin, etc. - some interesting game settings also use it to differentiate species, as do things like Star Trek occasionally, via things like Borg transwarp)
You do not need to ask us if we want more about different types of FTL. YEAH WE DO !
Would love a vid on different ftl types
I remember playing Tie Fighter and taking engine damage when flying too close behind capital ships.
I'd love more FTL info!
Ok I’m sold on having alternate engines on crafts
The Gravimetric drive from Babylon 5 is and interesting one. It literally uses artificial gravity as a reactionless drive to move the ship.
The fact that something like Lunar Starship was actually chosen by NASA to land people on the moon in a few years is still kind of wild to me.
"[RCS] can be found on every real space vehicle ever built"
Have you ever made an Analysis on the lighthuggers from Revelation Space? I'd love to hear your perspective about Non-FTL interstellar travel.