Jump to content

(Theory) How FTL travel will work in the Cosmere


cpw2007

Recommended Posts

5 minutes ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

thought: What about a large bendalloy bubble being canceled out in a small area by a cadmium bubble, allowing the person in the middle to act as normal compared to the rest of the universe?

Yep, this is primar idea about scadrian FTL drive. More even, not one but many Bubbles staced.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Yep, this is primar idea about scadrian FTL drive. More even, not one but many Bubbles staced.

Building on this, the best theories we've developed over years of discussion is that since the speed bubbles warp time, they're also warping space (thank you, Einstein, for that realization). As a result, nesting bubbles can be used to create a area of compressed space in front of a space ship. This compressed area means that there's less distance to the target location, and thus you can get there faster. The difficulty is going to be attaching the bubble to spaceship's reference frame rather than the planet's, but since you can put speed bubbles on trains, it seems that having sufficient mass allows it to happen, so it might not be as difficult as we think. Either way, we're pretty positive that's how it'll be done.

 

(Also, yes, I know I'm oversimplifying things in regards to the spacial compression. That was the intent.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

The difficulty is going to be attaching the bubble to spaceship's reference frame rather than the planet's, but since you can put speed bubbles on trains, it seems that having sufficient mass allows it to happen, so it might not be as difficult as we think. Either way, we're pretty positive that's how it'll be done.

It probably partially depends on the view of the one creating the speed bubbles, just like spanreeds depend on the users considering themselves in the same frame of reference

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought on not just FTL, but on near-instantaneous teleportation: Spiritual realm has no distance, only connection. So if people could find an easy way to hop into it, (not via perpendicularity) They should be able to use the connection to travel from one place to another almost instantaneously, bypassing space altogether, similar to what cytonics do in the cytoverse with the nowhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

Thought on not just FTL, but on near-instantaneous teleportation: Spiritual realm has no distance, only connection. So if people could find an easy way to hop into it, (not via perpendicularity) They should be able to use the connection to travel from one place to another almost instantaneously, bypassing space altogether, similar to what cytonics do in the cytoverse with the nowhere.

This is how Oathgates work. They create a mini perpendicularity which moves everything on the platform into the Spiritual and then due to the Connection between the Oathgates they can transport to another one. At least, that's how I understand it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Wandering Shade said:

This is how Oathgates work. They create a mini perpendicularity which moves everything on the platform into the Spiritual and then due to the Connection between the Oathgates they can transport to another one. At least, that's how I understand it.

Yea, I know, but I mean using this to go from one planet to another nearly instantaneously.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Harrycrapper said:

Is there WoB on that? Seems like that would take a serious amount of Nicrosil to pull off. 

Spoiler

TheFulgid

Could you Invest... Could you use a nicrosil metalmind to Invest the sort of Investiture enough that you could open a Perpendicularity up to the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'll just say it this way. Enough concentrated Investiture in one point is going to pierce the Realms, no matter what form it takes. 

TheFulgid

...So, it doesn't have to be a nicrosil metalmind.

Brandon Sanderson

No. 

TheFulgid

Okay... But it could be?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That is theoretically possible. 

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:
  Hide contents

TheFulgid

Could you Invest... Could you use a nicrosil metalmind to Invest the sort of Investiture enough that you could open a Perpendicularity up to the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'll just say it this way. Enough concentrated Investiture in one point is going to pierce the Realms, no matter what form it takes. 

TheFulgid

...So, it doesn't have to be a nicrosil metalmind.

Brandon Sanderson

No. 

TheFulgid

Okay... But it could be?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That is theoretically possible. 

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

 

Yea the way he answers that tells me it's possible, though not at the convivence level of an Elsecaller(I was thinking more along the lines of an Allomantic ability). Though this might have some serious utility in making perpendicularities on worlds that don't have them or to make/reinforce a beachhead on a hostile world. I do still think it would take enough resources that it wouldn't be a super common occurrence. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, it's theoretically possible, but that could mean "if you Compounded nicrosil for years and had a metalmind the size of a building to store it all in".

Dalinar is bonded to the largest Splinter of Honor, and he seems to be using a specific power to Unite the Realms. I think just passively creating a Perpendicularity would require a ridiculous amount of Investiture ... they generally seem to be the collecting power of a Shard - or, I guess, in Patji's case an Avatar?

And Scadrial is relatively low-Investiture among the major Shardworlds... I think it would take a lot of Compounding to reach even the Investiture level of your average Radiant (Radiant healing seems comparable to what Miles has, and for the Radiants that's basically a side effect vs. his primary power in Miles' case).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Yeah, it's theoretically possible, but that could mean "if you Compounded nicrosil for years and had a metalmind the size of a building to store it all in".

Brandon generally indicates when something is unlikely, here he just says it's possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/16/2022 at 4:28 PM, Frustration said:

Componding Nicrosil.

So, Nicrosil can pierce the realms, but I am guessing it would take massive amounts of investiture and therefore massive amounts of Ettmetal. So, Scadrians will be a step behind and be using less efficient methods to reach the cognitive realm, most likely. Using Nicrosil sounds really cool, but I would imagine there are better methods and if Scadrial wants to engage in the cognitive realm, they would likely import other tech from other planets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/18/2022 at 9:03 AM, Frustration said:

What makes you say Ettmetal is required?

I would guess that it is not required. It is more of a hunch. Ettmetal seems to provide airships with power. The power comes from investiture. (wave hands in an inarticulate gesture because I didn't really give it any more thought but I think it will likely be used as an alternative to spending years storing investiture through feruchemy)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/14/2021 at 11:27 AM, HSuperLee said:

Honestly I feel like going FTL in the cognitive realm would be overkill, considering that most of the planets are in walking distance to eachother. Plus, as much as we've tended to see CR physics as similar to PhR physics, I feel like things such as Lasting Integrity show us that they're really not, and as such I fear for what effects getting up to relativistic velocity would do in that realm. I do agree that transportation through the CR would be very useful, but I don't see why anything beyond car or train speeds would be very necessary. Plus a big advantage that the PhR has is the fact that the CR compresses locations without minds, meaning that if you wanted to stop by a moon in an uninhabited solar system to grab a refill of hydrogen for fuel, you kinda can't do that in the CR, as said location doesn't really exist there.

I definitely think Scadrians will probably be the first to really discover FTL, since it seems like the temporal metals are going to play a significant role in it. It might even be that the "warp drives" used by all people of the Cosmere end up being metallic-arts technology that gets traded for other resources or equipment. Sanderson has said that there will be a lot of sharing of tech during the space age, so I imagine Scadrian Drives will likely be very common.

I am not sure if any other magic systems will also be able to develop FTL or not though. However, I do agree that the Rosharan magics will be very significant in terms of power supply, since the Bondsmiths seem to be able to just conjure their respective lights and infuse them into gemstones or radiants at will, without even doing the whole perpendicular opening thing. I even made a comment at one point about the Sibling unmanifesting Urithuru and then remanifesting in orbit as a massive ship or space station that could then act as a fueling dock for Rosharan ships (assuming that at that point in time getting light and spren off of Roshar will be a well-known and common phenomenon).

I don't see that as different physics, outside of magic being basically an extension of physics in the Cosmere. I see it as them somehow building it to mimic gravitation and/or adhesion. As we know that they are very associated with both, especially Adhesion, and can use Adhesion. So yeah, is likely due to that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...