The Worms Go In, the Worms Go Out
Help me, o my LJ friends whose physics-kung-fu is greater than my own!
I have a SF story idea in my mind, beating at the doors and waiting to get onto paper. I want it to be relatively hard SF, with the spacecraft and other science and technology reasonably extrapolated from real physics. I also want interstellar travel on a dramatically reasonable, well within a human life timescale.
Yes, I know the two are generally considered contradictory. I am willing to use a little fantasy technology for the purposes of story. What I want to avoid, however, is setting up a lot of implications that tear the setting apart. The kind of fridge logic where the reader ends up thinking, "Hang on a minute -- If this culture can do X, shouldn't they also be able to do Y, and therefore neatly avoid that section of the plot?"
From what I've read and managed to understand, it looks like the least offensive way to go is with some kind of wormhole-based technology. I like this, from a dramatic point of view. First, it places reasonable limitations on interstellar travel, limiting the field of play in a way that (for practical purposes) makes space smaller than it actually is. This is good because it makes scenarios about a government hunting fugitives that much more plausible. It also allows the government to set up semi-efficient roadblocks, and gives us a set of restrictions upon which to hang tactics.
Here's what I have in mind so far:
The major civilization is between type 1 and type 2 on the Kardashev scale. They're capable of exploiting the energy and resources of a planet efficiently, but haven't quite got the knack of utilizing a whole solar system. Moving asteroids around and basic terraforming, sure. Manipulating stellar masses, no. The main reason for this is that I don't want them to have magic technology, see the comment on fridge logic above.
Here are some facts about the world I want to create:
Transit between established interstellar colonies is relatively fast (weeks or months instead of decades or centuries), but the expansion of the network of colonies (i.e. the time it takes to open up a new star system to exploitation) is realistically slow (decades or centuries).
Departure points from any given system are small areas of space, allowing the government to monitor entrance or egress from the system.
There is no artificial gravity or FTL communication.
The main characters come into possession of a spaceship from a type 2 (or better) civilization, allowing them to somehow cut corners or bend the rules a bit, thus staying one step ahead of the government.
I've thought of two ways to do this:
Either: Wormholes are somehow constructed with both ends in the origin system, where point A is placed in a stable orbit and point B is moved to the desired destination via slower-than-light (30-50% c) transport. I don't know exactly how this would work. While I'm accepting that it will eventually come down to "It just does, now read the rest of the story," I don't want to stretch credibility too far. The wormhole shortcuts are stable "tunnels" connecting point A in orbit around one star with point B in orbit around another. A given system may have a small number (three? four?) wormholes, making the "map" of the civilization something like a group of spheres connected by tubes. To get from one side of the civilization to another, one might have to traverse several systems and make several wormhole jumps.
Or: Temporary wormholes are generated by a group of artificial satellites. This gate can connect to any other gate in the system, but the satellites establishing the point B gate have to be deployed via slower-than-light means, as above. One can travel, then, from any one system to any other system in the network, crossing the entirety of known space in one hop. There is no need of a map showing how the systems connect to one another, since every one is right next door to all the others.
However, I ran into three problems with the second idea: If they can whip up a wormhole on demand with existing technology, why don't they have artificial gravity or something like it? Second, if the wormhole is generated at point A, how do you link it to point B without some kind of FTL communication? Third, I can accept creating the energy needed to establish a wormhole as a major effort of a type 1 civilization. But generating a new wormhole every day seems a bit much.
So my questions to you all (and thank you for reading through all of this):
How far from plausible are these ideas?
Which sounds better to someone with more hard science than I have?
I need language to describe whatever technology I invent in a way that links (however tenuously) the tech to plausible science, with a minimum of obvious phlebotinum. Suggestions?
What happens if someone enters the wormhole from point A while someone else enters it from point B? Is this best summed up as, "boom?"
Where should I go to read up on this kind of thing myself, keeping in mind that the only hard science I've gotten since basic undergraduate courses are what I've seen on the Discovery Channel and read on the internet?
I have a SF story idea in my mind, beating at the doors and waiting to get onto paper. I want it to be relatively hard SF, with the spacecraft and other science and technology reasonably extrapolated from real physics. I also want interstellar travel on a dramatically reasonable, well within a human life timescale.
Yes, I know the two are generally considered contradictory. I am willing to use a little fantasy technology for the purposes of story. What I want to avoid, however, is setting up a lot of implications that tear the setting apart. The kind of fridge logic where the reader ends up thinking, "Hang on a minute -- If this culture can do X, shouldn't they also be able to do Y, and therefore neatly avoid that section of the plot?"
From what I've read and managed to understand, it looks like the least offensive way to go is with some kind of wormhole-based technology. I like this, from a dramatic point of view. First, it places reasonable limitations on interstellar travel, limiting the field of play in a way that (for practical purposes) makes space smaller than it actually is. This is good because it makes scenarios about a government hunting fugitives that much more plausible. It also allows the government to set up semi-efficient roadblocks, and gives us a set of restrictions upon which to hang tactics.
Here's what I have in mind so far:
The major civilization is between type 1 and type 2 on the Kardashev scale. They're capable of exploiting the energy and resources of a planet efficiently, but haven't quite got the knack of utilizing a whole solar system. Moving asteroids around and basic terraforming, sure. Manipulating stellar masses, no. The main reason for this is that I don't want them to have magic technology, see the comment on fridge logic above.
Here are some facts about the world I want to create:
Transit between established interstellar colonies is relatively fast (weeks or months instead of decades or centuries), but the expansion of the network of colonies (i.e. the time it takes to open up a new star system to exploitation) is realistically slow (decades or centuries).
Departure points from any given system are small areas of space, allowing the government to monitor entrance or egress from the system.
There is no artificial gravity or FTL communication.
The main characters come into possession of a spaceship from a type 2 (or better) civilization, allowing them to somehow cut corners or bend the rules a bit, thus staying one step ahead of the government.
I've thought of two ways to do this:
Either: Wormholes are somehow constructed with both ends in the origin system, where point A is placed in a stable orbit and point B is moved to the desired destination via slower-than-light (30-50% c) transport. I don't know exactly how this would work. While I'm accepting that it will eventually come down to "It just does, now read the rest of the story," I don't want to stretch credibility too far. The wormhole shortcuts are stable "tunnels" connecting point A in orbit around one star with point B in orbit around another. A given system may have a small number (three? four?) wormholes, making the "map" of the civilization something like a group of spheres connected by tubes. To get from one side of the civilization to another, one might have to traverse several systems and make several wormhole jumps.
Or: Temporary wormholes are generated by a group of artificial satellites. This gate can connect to any other gate in the system, but the satellites establishing the point B gate have to be deployed via slower-than-light means, as above. One can travel, then, from any one system to any other system in the network, crossing the entirety of known space in one hop. There is no need of a map showing how the systems connect to one another, since every one is right next door to all the others.
However, I ran into three problems with the second idea: If they can whip up a wormhole on demand with existing technology, why don't they have artificial gravity or something like it? Second, if the wormhole is generated at point A, how do you link it to point B without some kind of FTL communication? Third, I can accept creating the energy needed to establish a wormhole as a major effort of a type 1 civilization. But generating a new wormhole every day seems a bit much.
So my questions to you all (and thank you for reading through all of this):
How far from plausible are these ideas?
Which sounds better to someone with more hard science than I have?
I need language to describe whatever technology I invent in a way that links (however tenuously) the tech to plausible science, with a minimum of obvious phlebotinum. Suggestions?
What happens if someone enters the wormhole from point A while someone else enters it from point B? Is this best summed up as, "boom?"
Where should I go to read up on this kind of thing myself, keeping in mind that the only hard science I've gotten since basic undergraduate courses are what I've seen on the Discovery Channel and read on the internet?