Writing Log: FTL Be Damned
Thursday, half-day at NgithOwl
* Penthius freewriting, a low potential sketch of a Familia a Familia encounter.
* Lots and lots and lots of research about spaceships, and FTL alternatives.
* Posted previous writing log.
I had forgotten the level of research necessary for writing a science fiction (can I say it?) novel. It's like giving birth; there's gotta be a biological process that makes you willing to forget most of it, or you'd never be willing to do it again. This, despite me liking research and finding science interesting.
I now have three pages of notes (and at least 7 immediately linked-off articles still to read) about future spaceflight and ways to sidestep the whole "breaking the laws of physics" problem that arises when planning a setting with regular interstellar travel. The slow ships (slowships) are still able to move between inhabited planets in months, not decades or centuries. The fast ships, natch, are much better at this because they were designed for it, not rehabbed from old generation colony ships. That's just from me trying to figure out the general type of ship, not even going into deeper design issues.
The Molly Malone is an old generation colony ship that has had the faster space travel technology jury-rigged onto it, but because she wasn't designed and built to use that technology, she can't use it as fully. Therefore, she takes many months to travel between star systems, instead of the week or two that modern ships take. She's centuries old. Antiquated. The Greyhound bus of the future travel system. She's the kind of ship the poor take, or those trying to keep a low profile.
The need to visit multiple (alien- or human-) habitable planets means I have to sidestep the whole FTL problem. I'm planning on using the theoretical Alcubierre Drive AKA warp drive, in which, given currently undiscovered exotic material with certain properties, space is contracted in front of a ship and then expanded again behind it, so the ship travels within a warp bubble but is not itself going faster than light by local standards, therefore avoiding breaking the laws of physics. (The other option would be "magically" having the ships just go fast, or using wormholes--but wormholes have kinda been theoretically discredited.) Within the Alcubierre bubble, constant acceleration force of 1G using conventional thrusters could provide artificial gravity. Possibly this would result in a ship flying in circles inside the larger bubble, with periods of free fall when it rotates to accelerate in the opposite direction. Or something like that. I think it's feasible.
Most of that, of course, will remain behind the curtain. I'm not a physicist, and I lack the qualifications to write "hard" science fiction. But I need to know the underpinnings, far-fetched though they may be, in order to create a consistent world. They need to be possible, and they need to be consistent. Dear Actual Scientists, please feel free to weigh in on this hypothetical design.
The exotic matter and design of the Alcubierre drives is mostly from aliens, of which there are many species that contact has been successfully made with. That's a plot point, too, so it's not like I'm using "aliens made it" as the deus ex machina to explain space flight. Well, not only for that.
I like douglascole's idea of using a hollowed out meteoroid as a generation ship. It would have provided primitive rad shielding, some camouflage, and a lot of space. And now, retrofitted, it'll add some haunting atmosphere. I'm going to make it intentionally labyrinthine; one of the main hypothetical difficulties with generation ships is the danger of the colonists turning inward, forming claustrophobic, insular societies, and my hypothetical planners decided that creating a network of confusing labyrinths would help prevent that to a degree. I think I may also use that as a justification for windows, despite the dangers of inadequate radiation shielding or sealing issues.
The Molly Malone is a centuries-old colony ship retrofitted for passenger service, moving slowly between the stars, carrying the poor, the desperate, and the criminal. It's a hollowed-out labyrinthine asteroid haunted by the ghosts of old colonists--abandoned possessions, names carved into the walls, old crypts, and rooms nobody knows the use of anymore.
So--am I doing anything blatantly Stupid and Wrong in my worldbuilding so far? Because I like to avoid that kinda thing.
I still need to hammer out population numbers, crew numbers, crew structure, life support, hydroponics, and windows (critical plot points require window). I also need to resist the tendency to write this as "B5 on a spaceship."
(Yeah, Thursday's the last day I did writing work until today. Friday I was exhausted and having painful shoulder spasms. I pretty much came home and fell asleep. Drowsiness was one of the listed side effects of new OTC painkiller I tried. And Saturday was spent at Art-a-Whirl and then out being sociable.)
* Penthius freewriting, a low potential sketch of a Familia a Familia encounter.
* Lots and lots and lots of research about spaceships, and FTL alternatives.
* Posted previous writing log.
I had forgotten the level of research necessary for writing a science fiction (can I say it?) novel. It's like giving birth; there's gotta be a biological process that makes you willing to forget most of it, or you'd never be willing to do it again. This, despite me liking research and finding science interesting.
I now have three pages of notes (and at least 7 immediately linked-off articles still to read) about future spaceflight and ways to sidestep the whole "breaking the laws of physics" problem that arises when planning a setting with regular interstellar travel. The slow ships (slowships) are still able to move between inhabited planets in months, not decades or centuries. The fast ships, natch, are much better at this because they were designed for it, not rehabbed from old generation colony ships. That's just from me trying to figure out the general type of ship, not even going into deeper design issues.
The Molly Malone is an old generation colony ship that has had the faster space travel technology jury-rigged onto it, but because she wasn't designed and built to use that technology, she can't use it as fully. Therefore, she takes many months to travel between star systems, instead of the week or two that modern ships take. She's centuries old. Antiquated. The Greyhound bus of the future travel system. She's the kind of ship the poor take, or those trying to keep a low profile.
The need to visit multiple (alien- or human-) habitable planets means I have to sidestep the whole FTL problem. I'm planning on using the theoretical Alcubierre Drive AKA warp drive, in which, given currently undiscovered exotic material with certain properties, space is contracted in front of a ship and then expanded again behind it, so the ship travels within a warp bubble but is not itself going faster than light by local standards, therefore avoiding breaking the laws of physics. (The other option would be "magically" having the ships just go fast, or using wormholes--but wormholes have kinda been theoretically discredited.) Within the Alcubierre bubble, constant acceleration force of 1G using conventional thrusters could provide artificial gravity. Possibly this would result in a ship flying in circles inside the larger bubble, with periods of free fall when it rotates to accelerate in the opposite direction. Or something like that. I think it's feasible.
Most of that, of course, will remain behind the curtain. I'm not a physicist, and I lack the qualifications to write "hard" science fiction. But I need to know the underpinnings, far-fetched though they may be, in order to create a consistent world. They need to be possible, and they need to be consistent. Dear Actual Scientists, please feel free to weigh in on this hypothetical design.
The exotic matter and design of the Alcubierre drives is mostly from aliens, of which there are many species that contact has been successfully made with. That's a plot point, too, so it's not like I'm using "aliens made it" as the deus ex machina to explain space flight. Well, not only for that.
I like douglascole's idea of using a hollowed out meteoroid as a generation ship. It would have provided primitive rad shielding, some camouflage, and a lot of space. And now, retrofitted, it'll add some haunting atmosphere. I'm going to make it intentionally labyrinthine; one of the main hypothetical difficulties with generation ships is the danger of the colonists turning inward, forming claustrophobic, insular societies, and my hypothetical planners decided that creating a network of confusing labyrinths would help prevent that to a degree. I think I may also use that as a justification for windows, despite the dangers of inadequate radiation shielding or sealing issues.
The Molly Malone is a centuries-old colony ship retrofitted for passenger service, moving slowly between the stars, carrying the poor, the desperate, and the criminal. It's a hollowed-out labyrinthine asteroid haunted by the ghosts of old colonists--abandoned possessions, names carved into the walls, old crypts, and rooms nobody knows the use of anymore.
So--am I doing anything blatantly Stupid and Wrong in my worldbuilding so far? Because I like to avoid that kinda thing.
I still need to hammer out population numbers, crew numbers, crew structure, life support, hydroponics, and windows (critical plot points require window). I also need to resist the tendency to write this as "B5 on a spaceship."
(Yeah, Thursday's the last day I did writing work until today. Friday I was exhausted and having painful shoulder spasms. I pretty much came home and fell asleep. Drowsiness was one of the listed side effects of new OTC painkiller I tried. And Saturday was spent at Art-a-Whirl and then out being sociable.)