FREAK'N SPACE TRAVEL!!!

[Pechvarry]

On a related note, I was thinking about Space Travel when I first read Allow of Law's Ars Arcanum. I fully expect feruchemists storing warmth to function in very thin space suits, and definitely expect a character to Tap breath when their suit runs out of air.

If nothing else, I expect invested Scadrians to at least wear a decent winter coat when they launch themselves off the planet.

[ulyssessword he/him]

I don't think that steel pushes would have any effect over astronomical distances, they drop off to nothing in far less than the diameter of a city, which is tiny compared to space. The only (metallic arts) way I could see steering working is through introducing momentum to a closed system using iron Feruchemy. As for calculating complex equations, compounded mental speed, anyone?

[Inkthinker]

I was about to say, steel pushes against what?

Even if you dropped a coin (or whatever) and pushed on it, you would end up pushing the coin away more than moving yourself, because the coin's mass is significantly smaller than your own.

As pointed out, Brandon is very much against "screw the rules, we have magic" as a line of reasoning. If anything, magic is treated more like "physics we don't fully understand". Magic has rules, and half the fun is in finding ways to make things work within the rules.

I do really really look forward to the day when Brandon writes about the use of Push and Pull in a zero-gee environment. THAT is gonna be wicked.

Now, tapping Breath or Warmth as a means of assisting survival outside of an atmosphere... that I can definitely see working. You'd still need a suit to shield you from radiation and such, but you might not need as much of that bulky exo-gear that bog-standard humans require.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I was about to say, steel pushes against what?

Even if you dropped a coin (or whatever) and pushed on it, you would end up pushing the coin away more than moving yourself, because the coin's mass is significantly smaller than your own.

As pointed out, Brandon is very much against "screw the rules, we have magic" as a line of reasoning. If anything, magic is treated more like "physics we don't fully understand". Magic has rules, and half the fun is in finding ways to make things work within the rules.

I do really really look forward to the day when Brandon writes about the use of Push and Pull in a zero-gee environment. THAT is gonna be wicked.

Now, tapping Breath or Warmth as a means of assisting survival outside of an atmosphere... that I can definitely see working. You'd still need a suit to shield you from radiation and such, but you might not need as much of that bulky exo-gear that bog-standard humans require.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean as well, but I have always understood Steelpushes and Ironpulls to be straight action-reaction events between the Allomancer and the target, exactly the same as if they had physically pushed/pulled on that target. In fact, as far as I've seen, they are actually preserve the energy of the Allomancer-target system. Therefore, it would function in space identically to a system where astronauts have exceptionally long arms that can only grip non-aluminum-alloyed metal. Which is still cool, by the way. Safety lines? Oxygen? Who needs them? Lurcher/Gasper Twinborn for the win.

My mental model is such that Allomancers imparts some measure of their inertia to their target, that inertia either heading in the exact direction of the target (from the center of gravity of the Allomancer) for a Push or in the exact opposite direction of the target for a Pull. The duration (proportional to the strength) of the Push/Pull determines the amount of inertia imparted.

When the object is anchored such that it cannot move, the Allomancer simply keeps imparting their inertia up to and including the point where he/she can actually perceive the effects. They can achieve special effects with anchors because the object in question remains "in range" of the Allomancer, and can serve as an "interia-sink" as far as the frame of reference of the Allomancer goes. Similar to the space-walk example, this is the same effect that you could see with someone who had infinitely long arms in a world without anchors.

EDIT: To Illustrate

50 Kg Coinshot/Lurcher, situated to East of target

5 Kg target, unanchored, at rest relative to the Allomancer

Coinshot:

To impart 10 Km/hr of West velocity to the target, the Coinshot will impart 1 Km/hr of East velocity to themselves.

To impart 20 Km/hr of West velocity to the target, the Coinshot will impart 2 Km/hr of East velocity to themselves.

Lurcher:

To impart 10 Km/hr of East velocity to the target, the Coinshot will impart 2 Km/hr of West velocity to themselves.

etc.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Cuaiir he/him]

Had a thought: what about a mass driver system to launch people into space, but instead of using electromagnets and a magnetic capsule you used Coinshots and Lurchers (inside a capsule) to move the capsule along its path. Since the path is basically a long metal tube attached to the ground that eventually arcs towards space, your Allomancers will move long before the path does. Make your capsule out of a low-density, high-strength plastic, and you could accelerate to speeds of roughly twenty thousand miles per hour (10.5 km/s, taken from the article).

This would solve a lot of the speed issues, and assuming you get some zinc Compounders working on calculating your flight, you may even be able to get places in a reasonable time frame.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Cuaiir

[Wispsy he/him]

errr if u notice people pushing on coins and bullets, they dont really move at all until it hits the ground..

and why use wayne as an example of healing with gold, miles could take that pain np!

[Kurkistan he/him]

errr if u notice people pushing on coins and bullets, they dont really move at all until it hits the ground..

and why use wayne as an example of healing with gold, miles could take that pain np!

A U.S. Quarter weighs 5.670 g, while a 110 pound person weighs 50 Kg, aka 50,000 g. 5.67/50000 = 0.0001134 = %0.01134.

If you accelerate a Quarter to 1,225.044 Km/hr (speed of sound at sea level on Earth), you will create an opposite reaction of 1,225.044 Km/hr * .0001134 on the Allomancer. That's 0.13891999 Km/hr of velocity for the Allomancer. I'm pretty sure that an Allomancer could just not notice that, and/or lean slightly against it.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Musicspren he/him]

I do really really look forward to the day when Brandon writes about the use of Push and Pull in a zero-gee environment. THAT is gonna be wicked.

The enemy's gate is down! Pull yourself down!

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

The enemy's gate is down! Pull yourself down!

It'll be like Bean's deadline - invisible and totally awesome.

[ulyssessword he/him]

Another way of dealing with the isolation of space: Dump all of your memories of the trip into copperminds, so you only remember the last few days. Your attitudes are based on memories (maybe), which wouldn't be too bad if you only remembered a week of isolation at any given time.

[happyman he/him]

This is an interesting thread; the sheer physical limits of what would be possible can be mitigated enormously by Allomancy. I'm seriously impressed.

On the other hand, I have to agree that using Allomancy to keep yourself alive in space is probably more expensive and difficult than figuring out how to make a simple pressure suit. Sure, people on Scandrial might be able to send Allomancers/Feruchemists into space earlier than we could because not as much protection is needed if they use their abilities effectively, but having a mechanical backup would probably be necessary for long-term operations.

And absolutely none of this solves the faster-than-light problem. We probably don't have all the pieces we need yet.

Edited December 9, 2011 by happyman

[Pechvarry]

I seem to remember Brandon mentioning that he chose his Alloy of Law protagonist's powers because they would be important to how things will unfurl in the mistborn universe. I suppose it's possible he was talking about Wayne, but I was under the impression at the time that he meant the main-main character, which I now know to be a pusher/skimmer.

I actually believe both will be important to space travel somehow, though. Especially if they discover a way to invest objects -- feruchemic spaceships. But I'm not going to get too carried away thinking about fighter jets which can store weight while tapping speed and Pushing off of launchpads.

[Thor he/him]

I was about to say, steel pushes against what?

Even if you dropped a coin (or whatever) and pushed on it, you would end up pushing the coin away more than moving yourself, because the coin's mass is significantly smaller than your own.

As pointed out, Brandon is very much against "screw the rules, we have magic" as a line of reasoning. If anything, magic is treated more like "physics we don't fully understand". Magic has rules, and half the fun is in finding ways to make things work within the rules.

I do really really look forward to the day when Brandon writes about the use of Push and Pull in a zero-gee environment. THAT is gonna be wicked.

Now, tapping Breath or Warmth as a means of assisting survival outside of an atmosphere... that I can definitely see working. You'd still need a suit to shield you from radiation and such, but you might not need as much of that bulky exo-gear that bog-standard humans require.

As for the first term, Kurkistan has pointed out that you do feel a slight push/pull by using Steel or Iron Allomancy, it is (usually) completely negated by air resistance and the friction between the ground and the Allomancer's shoes/feet. However, in space, one could use an ion drive-like propulsion system using Coinshots to throw bits of metal "behind" the ship...the only problem is that ion drives take FOREVER to speed up, as they do not impart much momentum to the ship. However, once you get it up to speed, it can stay at that speed for a long time, as does everything in space. (The Voyager spacecraft use ion-drives. It's taken a LONG time, but they are cruising pretty darn fast, atm. However, they did make good use of gravity assisted propulsion, which is easily done in solar systems with very large planets (or use the star...even if it is dangerous). Of course, 60000 km/hr seems pretty fast, but it isn't even close to being fast enough for intersystem travel.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Thor

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Regarding propulsion: is it such an odd idea that they would use actual rockets, but just not need nearly as much fuel, since they would be cheating with time on the journey?

Also, I am curious whether you need enough Sliders to cover the full area of the ship, or just enough to form a "layer" of bubbles on its outer surfaces.

[Inkthinker]

I expect most solutions involve using technology as we know it, and then just augmenting that with allomancy/feruchemy, etc.

So for instance, you wouldn't want to entirely forego a space suit (thought with the right powers you might, for a little while), but you could totally use allomancy to make a space suit less of a bulky, uncomfortable affair.

For instance, storing breath not to avoid air supply altogether, but to make it last longer.

[lordofsoup]

I believe that the Apollo missions averaged somewhere around 7 miles per second while going to the moon. At this speed it would take months to get to mars, and Earth and Mars are fairly close by on the grand scale of our galaxy. If you could up it to somewhere around 10000 miles per second, it might be reasonable. Obviously no where near the speed of light, but still pretty dam fast.

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

Anything beyond our solar system, they'll be using the FTL method Brandon has mentioned.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

So, apparently, time bubbles can only be anchored to the surface of a planet. This eliminates the presumed method of space travel.

My new theory: an Alcubierre Drive, with Weight Compounders (some of them Surging vast amounts of weight, others filling weight in combination with either "Investure" metalminds or Hemalurgic augmentation to reach negative mass) providing the requisite folding of spacetime. All of them would (through Hemalurgy) have both Iron and Steel Allomancy, allowing them to keep the forces exerted on the ship constant, and avoid tearing it apart.

Failing that, just take a whale, use Hemalurgy to allow it to Compound Oxygen, Energy, Wakefulness, Heat, Health, Weight, and Physical Speed, and then start filling it with Attribute Spikes, until the whale grows large enough for whatever crew you have in mind. Then hollow it out (don't worry - with this much Preservation in it, the whale would be nigh immortal even without Gold Compounding), put people (including the Rioter or Soother who controls it, and backups who can assume control later if there's an accident) inside, and fire the whale (or, really, the Leviathan) into space at the greatest speed you can. If Physical Speed is a fact of how the body actually interfaces with time, rather than of how the muscles work (and I don't think that's unreasonable, given the way that Weight functions without other physical changes), a Compounder with a large enough supply of Steel could break the speed of light, while the ability to alter their weight lets them avoid being pulled off course, then reduce their weight and Pull onto a planet once they've reached their destination.

Failing both of those things, use stored Connection to befriend some passing Seventeenth Shard types, and ask them how they manage.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I like the whale idea, the whale idea is frigging awesome.

[ulyssessword he/him]

My new theory: an Alcubierre Drive, with Weight Compounders (some of them Surging vast amounts of weight, others filling weight in combination with either "Investure" metalminds or Hemalurgic augmentation to reach negative mass) providing the requisite folding of spacetime. All of them would (through Hemalurgy) have both Iron and Steel Allomancy, allowing them to keep the forces exerted on the ship constant, and avoid tearing it apart.

If it is possible for a feruchemist to get negative mass, getting up to light speed would be extremely easy, and wouldn't require warping space-time in such a dramatic fashion. All that would be required is to get the feruchemists to cancel out the mass of the ship, then provide a minimal amount of propulsion to reach relativistic or FTL speeds. This is similar to how a few types of Sci-Fi drives work, including the ones from Mass Effect.

Edited December 16, 2011 by ulyssessword

[Deus Ex Biotica]

If it is possible for a feruchemist to get negative mass, getting up to light speed would be extremely easy, and wouldn't require warping space-time in such a dramatic fashion. All that would be required is to get the feruchemists to cancel out the mass of the ship, then provide a minimal amount of propulsion to reach relativistic or FTL speeds. This is similar to how a few types of Sci-Fi drives work, including the ones from Mass Effect.

Sure, but cancelling the mass of an entire ship requires a lot more mass manipulation than the relatively small amount of negative mass required to start folding spacetime in a (mostly) empty vacuum, under ideal conditions.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

P.S. And now I can't stop picturing a fleet of Hemalurgic Whales fighting against Sovereign. I hope you're happy.

[.S.A.M.K.M]

In the other stories, there are ways to create objects of power, aon dor were made into light fixtures and so forth, stormlight was fuel for fabriels and soulcasters, statues and objects could be awakened, so i wonder if the future ftl ship could be able to mimic the metalic arts.

Bendalloy speeds up time in an immovable bubble, so i wonder if in the vaccume of space would this be different. Also that wont be the only ability they will attempt to mimic, they will need assistance to actually moving the ship, so pulling, pushing, and storing weight, speed, warmth, breath and energy. It will require som pieces of the ruin and presevation, possibly som hemutology to give objects power.

Will this lead to a space race with other shards worlds, as they attempt to create ships capable of flying.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

I am not convinced that it follows that Metallic Arts could impart power to non-living things just because other magics systems (admittedly, all the ones we know of) can. The Metallic Arts tend to mimic biology (Allomancy mimics metabolism, Hemalurgy mimics grafting, and Feruchemy just lets you store up the attributed of life), and all their uses which we have seen so far flow directly from a living entity which possesses them. Sure, it would be possible to go beyond that (and I am certain that, in spite of my misgivings, Brandon Sanderson could make such an expansion of the magic awesome), but it would step outside of everything we have ever known or seen of Allomancy, and probably involve copious speculation on whether the cognitive aspects of inanimate objects have Spiritwebs¹, what exactly "Investure" has to do with the unique "Preservation-ness" inherent in humanity², Or just outright stepping outside anything we have a lead on beyond the name³.

Looking back at that paragraph, I see it might sound awfully rude - it isn't meant to be. I love peeking in at that kind of speculation, but it's hard to make solid conclusions, or try to guess the scientific workability, when it's founded in things we don't really know.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

¹: If they did, of course, one could spike a metal ship just the same as they might my whale.

²: Put another way, could a sufficiently large metalmind filled with Investure by a Keeper who was operating at 0% Identity eventually become a sentient being in and of itself, and one with enough of a tie to Harmony to learn the Metallic Arts?

³: Like, say, "A ship made from Sazedium."

[Aiken Frost he/him]

I think people lost it in the RPG thread, so I'm reposting it here:

Guys, have you noticed this bit in the Bendalloy section?

A physical attack made through the bubble, whether held or thrown, is robbed

of its kinetic energy, often with an audible “pop.”

Could this be what we are looking for when trying to figure the FTL space travel thing?

[Deus Ex Biotica]

That still requires the bubble to move with the ship, right?