There's something really cool in Mass Effect that like FTL just... doesn't get anywhere _near_ as much attention as it deserves: the fact that this form of FTL isn't the only form of ship-mounted FTL drive system in the setting. We get to see a mention of what a civilisation that isn't caught in the Reapers' trap (specifically, the Mass Relays, and the tech caches they deliberately leave untouched) does for long-range FTL. They do what any species that got access to Eezo, but no tech cache to use as a crutch would do; they used Eezo's ability to _reduce mass_ - to in effect produce both virtual mass, and virtual _negative mass_ - to create a Warp Drive. (Or at the least, the Kett encoutered a species that did this, because they have it.) And it's mentioned only once, as a tiny little note squirreled away in the Codex, where it gets no fanfare whatsoever, just a vague comment from SAM that essentially amounts to "Huh... that's kinda neat."
I mean iirc we see the relays being repaired in the perfect destroy ending but without the relays the species of the galaxy could only go at speeds of 15 light years a day maximum which is a snail's pace for full on galactic travel and they would need to stop quite often to discharge built up heat as I bet most ships aren't built with the relays being unavailable for travel in mind.
Something you didn't mention is that as FTL speed in mass effect is determined by acceleration, travel speeds would actually increase exponentially with travel time. A ship travelling a set distance in a day would travel four times that distance in two days. The assumed FTL speeds for mass effect ships in 24 hours are 12 ly for civilian ships, 13 for the Tempest, 15 for military ships (a bit higher for the Normandy) and 30 for the reapers. In 48 hour this jumps to 48 ly for civilian ships, 52 for the tempest, 60 for military ships and 90 for reapers. Civilian and military ships tend to top out at these speeds since due to static build-up, they can't maintain constant FTL for longer than two days. The the Tempest and the Reapers could theoretically continue accelerating in definitely. In fact, based on the time it took for the Reapers to reach the milky-way and assuming that they never once stopped, I have calculated that the distance to their location in dark space is more than twice that to Andromeda and they crossed it in two years. Considering that they typically reach the galaxy through a mass relay floating independently in dark space rather than conventional FTL, this is not beyond possibility. As for why the Andromeda arks took so long, the simple explanation is fuel consumption. The arks fueled themselves for their journey by using buzzard ram scoops to gather hydrogen for their fusion plants. I believe these are the four big spikes that sticks out the sides of the ship's. And as seen, these are generally closed during ftl travel. It's unclear why, maybe their too fragile, exten beyond the ftl bubble, or maybe it's just impossible to capture hydrogen at those speeds. Either way, the only way for the arks to refuel would be to drop out of FTL every now and then during the journey and spend some time traveling at sublight speeds while refueling. This would have delayed them significantly.
Element Zero (0); realistically, this is the most realistic way FTL could be achieved in real life; having an exotic form of matter of which its mass 'flips' to negative when an electric charge is applied. Now, this is assuming the inertial mass is the 'mass' that is affected (generally, inertial mass and gravitational mass are assumed to be the same thing, but if such an element as element zero were to exist, then it 'may' behave in a way that exposes an inherent difference between inertial mass and gravitational mass; however, if no such difference exists in nature, then no 'exposing' would occur, and _m_ would simply change to _-m_ in the equations F = GMm/r^2 and F = ma Thus, in a gravitational field, a negative mass would behave as GM(-m)/r^2 = -ma GM = r^2 a, which is the same as a positive mass. This is because the negative mass would have the force from the gravitational field applied in the opposite direction; but since the mass is negative, it responds by accelerating in the opposite direction to the applied force, thus making it accelerate in the direction as a positive mass would accelerate It gets interesting when you apply a non-gravitational mass (or if the inertial mass and gravitational mass are not equivalent.
Hey Mister 00, I’d like to hear more about Dark Energy and how one of the original lore purposes for the Reapers was to prevent the acceleration of entropy
Your description of it accelerating and decelerating is identical to how it works in the game elite dangerous. When inside a system the fsd (frame shift drive) will fold space around the ship and the thrusters will accelerate the ship constantly like in "the expanse". Halfway to your destination your reverse thrusters fire and decelerate the ship to sublight speeds before collapsing the field around the ship. This allows for no time dilation and faster than light in system. From system to system the fsd instead folds space on front of the ship, creating a temporary worm hole between systems and the ship traverses it near instantly. It does have a light bending effect as you describe as well while in "witch space". Larger ships operate on similar principles but with more brute force. Smaller ships open a hole while larger ships tear open a hole and witch space along with electrical discharges pour out of the opening. Didn't realize how well this was designed until now.
I never understood why when there is a limit in which a ship can be built, they suddenly have the capability to build the Nexus which is15km long and why then did they even need six ark ships?
I got 10.8 Ly/day (to 1dp) for the ark ships by doing 2500000 (Ly) ÷ 634 (years) = 3943.21766562 (which is Ly/year) and then 3943.21766562 (Ly/year) ÷ 365 (days in a year) = 10.8033360702 (Ly/day). If I did anything wrong please feel free to let me know. I was inspired to do this from what defeatSpace said. Also keep in mind idk if the ark ships also had to stop to let out heat that built up.
Unlike Normandy and Tempest the arks are not stealth so they wouldn't be storing any heat. Though like the Tempest the arks have massive capacitors to store and use the static buildup since they couldn't discharge into the empty dark space between galaxies.
So how far did the reapers have to travel on FTL from dark space after the Citadel didn't activate as a relay? Also there is thought to be as many stars in the vast darkspace between galaxies as there is in galaxies themselves, they are just so spread out. Did the reapers have a star system/ home planet they hibernated on? How long did it take Sovereigns signal to reach them? If it only took them three years to get to earth from darkspace, why did Sovereign try and manoeuvre allies for centuries, or should we not think about it too much? Vigils words not mine!
For the first one if we assume that they travel 30 Ly/day non stop for 3 years then it would be around 32,850 light years. We have no evidence for the second bit and for the third bit they didn't want to invade before the cycle was ready, plus the reapers are so arrogant they probably assumed Sovereign could not fail.
@@GoNo117Actually, the Reapers don't travel 30 lightyears per day, they travel 30 lightyears in a day. There is no top speed for ME ships. They accelerate half way, then decelerate the other half. This means that FTL travel speed increases exponentially with travel time. A ship travelling 30 lightyears in a day would travel 120 in 2 days, 480 in 4 days, etc Traveling 30 lightyears in a day would mean 15 lightyears of acceleration in around 12 hours. Which equates to a rate of acceleration of around 150,000 km/s or around half the speed of light. If the Reapers maintained this constant rate of acceleration for 1.5 years, then decelerated at the same rate for just as long, they would traverse just under 18 million lightyears, or around 7x the distance to Andromeda in just 3 years.
@@christophergroenewald5847 Considering that it took the reapers 3 years to get to the milky way galaxy then you've just proven yourself wrong with that last part as there would be no reason for them to handicap their speed. Also, if you're going to get this technical you should also know it's stated that reapers travel at "nearly 30 light-years in a 24-hour period" suggesting that it isn't quite 30.
@@GoNo117 No one knows exactly where the Reapers are in dark space. Presumably they're in close proximity to the other end of the Citadel relay, however we don't know where that is. It could be floating freely out in dark space without any gravitational anchor. Considering that this relay would have probably been out there drifting for at least a couple hundred million years, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to assume that it could have drifted extremely far from the galaxy, possibly even further away than other nearby galaxies. As for speed, there Reapers are only fast in my example because of the time frame. Shorter travel times will result in slower FTL speed.
@@spartanalex9006 Some art has also put a lot of emphasis on the Geth who would of been destroyed in said ending, I personally think the game will explore their sacrifice and maybe we can bring them back.
@@TheStrayHALOMAN Shepard didn’t buy “to prevent synthetics from destroying organics, we made synthetics to destroy organics so that synthetics will never be destroyed by organics lol” bs from the star child
Fun fact, still takes ~600 years to reach Andromeda at 12Ly/day 😨
Lord Jesus 😢
Damn. Multi generational trip or finding a way to put people on ice. That’s nuts.
I’ve tried so many times to finish andromeda…. It’s infuriating that I can’t even force myself to finish it
@@yo388 yes i did it over a few years ago
@@kristopherleslie8343 I enjoy it for several hours then completely forget about it 🥲 idk why I can’t finish it
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
There's something really cool in Mass Effect that like FTL just... doesn't get anywhere _near_ as much attention as it deserves: the fact that this form of FTL isn't the only form of ship-mounted FTL drive system in the setting.
We get to see a mention of what a civilisation that isn't caught in the Reapers' trap (specifically, the Mass Relays, and the tech caches they deliberately leave untouched) does for long-range FTL.
They do what any species that got access to Eezo, but no tech cache to use as a crutch would do; they used Eezo's ability to _reduce mass_ - to in effect produce both virtual mass, and virtual _negative mass_ - to create a Warp Drive. (Or at the least, the Kett encoutered a species that did this, because they have it.)
And it's mentioned only once, as a tiny little note squirreled away in the Codex, where it gets no fanfare whatsoever, just a vague comment from SAM that essentially amounts to "Huh... that's kinda neat."
yes, another Mass Effect Lore vid. always a great privilege.
I mean iirc we see the relays being repaired in the perfect destroy ending but without the relays the species of the galaxy could only go at speeds of 15 light years a day maximum which is a snail's pace for full on galactic travel and they would need to stop quite often to discharge built up heat as I bet most ships aren't built with the relays being unavailable for travel in mind.
Something you didn't mention is that as FTL speed in mass effect is determined by acceleration, travel speeds would actually increase exponentially with travel time. A ship travelling a set distance in a day would travel four times that distance in two days.
The assumed FTL speeds for mass effect ships in 24 hours are 12 ly for civilian ships, 13 for the Tempest, 15 for military ships (a bit higher for the Normandy) and 30 for the reapers.
In 48 hour this jumps to 48 ly for civilian ships, 52 for the tempest, 60 for military ships and 90 for reapers. Civilian and military ships tend to top out at these speeds since due to static build-up, they can't maintain constant FTL for longer than two days. The the Tempest and the Reapers could theoretically continue accelerating in definitely. In fact, based on the time it took for the Reapers to reach the milky-way and assuming that they never once stopped, I have calculated that the distance to their location in dark space is more than twice that to Andromeda and they crossed it in two years. Considering that they typically reach the galaxy through a mass relay floating independently in dark space rather than conventional FTL, this is not beyond possibility.
As for why the Andromeda arks took so long, the simple explanation is fuel consumption. The arks fueled themselves for their journey by using buzzard ram scoops to gather hydrogen for their fusion plants. I believe these are the four big spikes that sticks out the sides of the ship's. And as seen, these are generally closed during ftl travel. It's unclear why, maybe their too fragile, exten beyond the ftl bubble, or maybe it's just impossible to capture hydrogen at those speeds. Either way, the only way for the arks to refuel would be to drop out of FTL every now and then during the journey and spend some time traveling at sublight speeds while refueling. This would have delayed them significantly.
Just finished my insanity playthrough of the trilogy, what perfect timing.
I always enjoy hearing about the different ways sci-fi stories have long range space travel. FTL, NLS, hyperspace, slipspace, etc
Keep the mass effect videos coming love it ❤
Just wanted to say I’m loving this Mass Effect video series you have been pushing out lately. Keep them coming!
Love this mass effect stuff, dude. A real man of genius
Element Zero (0); realistically, this is the most realistic way FTL could be achieved in real life; having an exotic form of matter of which its mass 'flips' to negative when an electric charge is applied. Now, this is assuming the inertial mass is the 'mass' that is affected (generally, inertial mass and gravitational mass are assumed to be the same thing, but if such an element as element zero were to exist, then it 'may' behave in a way that exposes an inherent difference between inertial mass and gravitational mass; however, if no such difference exists in nature, then no 'exposing' would occur, and _m_ would simply change to _-m_ in the equations F = GMm/r^2 and F = ma
Thus, in a gravitational field, a negative mass would behave as GM(-m)/r^2 = -ma GM = r^2 a, which is the same as a positive mass.
This is because the negative mass would have the force from the gravitational field applied in the opposite direction; but since the mass is negative, it responds by accelerating in the opposite direction to the applied force, thus making it accelerate in the direction as a positive mass would accelerate
It gets interesting when you apply a non-gravitational mass (or if the inertial mass and gravitational mass are not equivalent.
What about a chemical charge
I farted
I love the fact that youre branching out into other universes!
I think youll love to cover Alien, especially with Romulus coming out soon
I love these Mass Effect videos! Please keep them up!
Wicked video mate
Hey Mister 00, I’d like to hear more about Dark Energy and how one of the original lore purposes for the Reapers was to prevent the acceleration of entropy
Absolutely love youemr mass effect content please keep it up and whats the chances of getting ship/class of ship breakdowns for mass effect?
Your description of it accelerating and decelerating is identical to how it works in the game elite dangerous. When inside a system the fsd (frame shift drive) will fold space around the ship and the thrusters will accelerate the ship constantly like in "the expanse". Halfway to your destination your reverse thrusters fire and decelerate the ship to sublight speeds before collapsing the field around the ship. This allows for no time dilation and faster than light in system.
From system to system the fsd instead folds space on front of the ship, creating a temporary worm hole between systems and the ship traverses it near instantly. It does have a light bending effect as you describe as well while in "witch space".
Larger ships operate on similar principles but with more brute force. Smaller ships open a hole while larger ships tear open a hole and witch space along with electrical discharges pour out of the opening.
Didn't realize how well this was designed until now.
I never understood why when there is a limit in which a ship can be built, they suddenly have the capability to build the Nexus which is15km long and why then did they even need six ark ships?
I got 10.8 Ly/day (to 1dp) for the ark ships by doing 2500000 (Ly) ÷ 634 (years) = 3943.21766562 (which is Ly/year) and then 3943.21766562 (Ly/year) ÷ 365 (days in a year) = 10.8033360702 (Ly/day). If I did anything wrong please feel free to let me know. I was inspired to do this from what defeatSpace said. Also keep in mind idk if the ark ships also had to stop to let out heat that built up.
Unlike Normandy and Tempest the arks are not stealth so they wouldn't be storing any heat. Though like the Tempest the arks have massive capacitors to store and use the static buildup since they couldn't discharge into the empty dark space between galaxies.
So how far did the reapers have to travel on FTL from dark space after the Citadel didn't activate as a relay?
Also there is thought to be as many stars in the vast darkspace between galaxies as there is in galaxies themselves, they are just so spread out. Did the reapers have a star system/ home planet they hibernated on?
How long did it take Sovereigns signal to reach them? If it only took them three years to get to earth from darkspace, why did Sovereign try and manoeuvre allies for centuries, or should we not think about it too much? Vigils words not mine!
For the first one if we assume that they travel 30 Ly/day non stop for 3 years then it would be around 32,850 light years. We have no evidence for the second bit and for the third bit they didn't want to invade before the cycle was ready, plus the reapers are so arrogant they probably assumed Sovereign could not fail.
@@GoNo117Actually, the Reapers don't travel 30 lightyears per day, they travel 30 lightyears in a day. There is no top speed for ME ships. They accelerate half way, then decelerate the other half. This means that FTL travel speed increases exponentially with travel time. A ship travelling 30 lightyears in a day would travel 120 in 2 days, 480 in 4 days, etc
Traveling 30 lightyears in a day would mean 15 lightyears of acceleration in around 12 hours. Which equates to a rate of acceleration of around 150,000 km/s or around half the speed of light. If the Reapers maintained this constant rate of acceleration for 1.5 years, then decelerated at the same rate for just as long, they would traverse just under 18 million lightyears, or around 7x the distance to Andromeda in just 3 years.
@@christophergroenewald5847 Considering that it took the reapers 3 years to get to the milky way galaxy then you've just proven yourself wrong with that last part as there would be no reason for them to handicap their speed. Also, if you're going to get this technical you should also know it's stated that reapers travel at "nearly 30 light-years in a 24-hour period" suggesting that it isn't quite 30.
@@GoNo117 No one knows exactly where the Reapers are in dark space. Presumably they're in close proximity to the other end of the Citadel relay, however we don't know where that is. It could be floating freely out in dark space without any gravitational anchor. Considering that this relay would have probably been out there drifting for at least a couple hundred million years, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to assume that it could have drifted extremely far from the galaxy, possibly even further away than other nearby galaxies.
As for speed, there Reapers are only fast in my example because of the time frame. Shorter travel times will result in slower FTL speed.
Let's get a commander shepard in me3 vs masterchief from infinite
How is the destroy ending canon?
The Teaser for the next one showed all the Reapers being dead and no Synthesis halo on Organics.
@@spartanalex9006 Some art has also put a lot of emphasis on the Geth who would of been destroyed in said ending, I personally think the game will explore their sacrifice and maybe we can bring them back.
@@TheStrayHALOMAN Shepard didn’t buy “to prevent synthetics from destroying organics, we made synthetics to destroy organics so that synthetics will never be destroyed by organics lol” bs from the star child
@@Cabbage22927 Yeah I know but that has nothing to do with any endings.
@@spartanalex9006No it showed a few dead reapers and a destroyed mass relay. That doesn’t immediately mean that the destroy ending is the canon one.