Science Fiction Trivia

[RockDoctor]

OK, we've had space travel and time travel, let's try some dimensional travel.

To make this more interesting, I'm looking for SF in which dimensional travel is public knowledge in at least one of the worlds affected, bonus points if multiple worlds have public awareness of it, and it's routine and part of their economies etc., or for finding a loophole I've missed.

OK, I'm going to go up on my branch, and start to saw between the ladder and the trunk.

• Many SF universes (including at least one with SF in the universe - this one) include some sort of religion with "heaven" and "hell" alternatives for what happens to you when you leave this world. The knowledge is very definitely public. If they're not "alternative dimensions", I'm not sure what is. OK - travel is one-way ... unless you're a Buddhist or an Australian "First Nations" person zigzagging between this universe and the Dreamtime. So there's one proposition.
• Iain M.Banks Culture veers into somewhat similar territory in several parts. The in-universe races know of - and occasionally communicate with - species and cultures which have "Sublimed", which seems to involved moving into a cyberspace running on some sort of pan-galactic computing substrate. Personally, I suspect he introduced it to stop the universe being cluttered up with races that have been around for 10+ billion years and really do have the "god-like powers" tee-shirts. Oh, and very definitely {voce Leonard Cohen} "Everybody Knows". Example : The Hydrogen Sonata
• If you don't like that, then I can still take Banks/ Culture off the table with the events of "Surface Detail", where various species have a social habit of preserving the mind-state of their citizens as they approach death, and send them to eternal, never-ending and AI-personalised torment in a hell. Within these species, it is a fundamental aspect of their lives, and in the wider galaxy it is well known and considered somewhat disturbing (consider how "arranged marriage" is thought about in our society - widely known about, and for some existentially important ; for others, troublesome). As distinct from "Subliming", these not-very-virtual hellish realities run on a substantial physical computing substrate, which itself becomes spoiler territory.

[spud42]

here is a curve ball for you. It absolutely has dimensional travel in it where a majority of dimensions do know about it but a few do not. these few worlds call the travelers Demons . . .
some dimensions are technolological advances some are not. a lot of the travelers tap into energy currents in the air or the ground. some dimensions have a lot of strong energy streams some dimensions have very few. some travellers use a dimension hopper others use their own abilities which some call magic.
This is a series of 19 books i think.

Have i caught your attention yet? Wondering why i havent revealed the Author and series?

Well i'm sure you wont call it Sci-fi.

Robert Asprin MYTH seeries.......

And if that one doesnt float your boat Roger Zelazny's Nine princes in Amber series might fit the bill.

[ffutures]

Depending on your definition of "dimensional" … if it includes alternate timelines, then William Gibson's novels The Peripheral and Agency might count. In the post-jackpot* future (from our perspective), "continua enthusiasts" can interact with computer systems in their past, creating alternate timeline "stubs". It's a rich man's hobby.


*The Peripheral, William Gibson, 2014:

No comets crashing, nothing you could really call a nuclear war. Just everything else, tangled in the changing climate: droughts, water shortages, crop failures, honeybees gone like they almost were now, collapse of other keystone species, every last alpha predator gone, antibiotics doing even less than they already did, diseases that were never quite the one big pandemic but big enough to be historic events in themselves. And all of it around people: how people were, how many of them there were, how they’d changed things just by being there.

Having read the Wikipedia summary, but not the books themselves, I think they sort of qualify. Information is a legit item of trade, I suppose.

Three to go.

OK, I'm going to go up on my branch, and start to saw between the ladder and the trunk.

• Many SF universes (including at least one with SF in the universe - this one) include some sort of religion with "heaven" and "hell" alternatives for what happens to you when you leave this world. The knowledge is very definitely public. If they're not "alternative dimensions", I'm not sure what is. OK - travel is one-way ... unless you're a Buddhist or an Australian "First Nations" person zigzagging between this universe and the Dreamtime. So there's one proposition.
• Iain M.Banks Culture veers into somewhat similar territory in several parts. The in-universe races know of - and occasionally communicate with - species and cultures which have "Sublimed", which seems to involved moving into a cyberspace running on some sort of pan-galactic computing substrate. Personally, I suspect he introduced it to stop the universe being cluttered up with races that have been around for 10+ billion years and really do have the "god-like powers" tee-shirts. Oh, and very definitely {voce Leonard Cohen} "Everybody Knows". Example : The Hydrogen Sonata
• If you don't like that, then I can still take Banks/ Culture off the table with the events of "Surface Detail", where various species have a social habit of preserving the mind-state of their citizens as they approach death, and send them to eternal, never-ending and AI-personalised torment in a hell. Within these species, it is a fundamental aspect of their lives, and in the wider galaxy it is well known and considered somewhat disturbing (consider how "arranged marriage" is thought about in our society - widely known about, and for some existentially important ; for others, troublesome). As distinct from "Subliming", these not-very-virtual hellish realities run on a substantial physical computing substrate, which itself becomes spoiler territory.

Really not very keen on any of those, I'm afraid. They're basically all single universes with inaccessible bits such as the virtual realities. Sorry, I think I'll have to say no.

here is a curve ball for you. It absolutely has dimensional travel in it where a majority of dimensions do know about it but a few do not. these few worlds call the travelers Demons . . .
some dimensions are technolological advances some are not. a lot of the travelers tap into energy currents in the air or the ground. some dimensions have a lot of strong energy streams some dimensions have very few. some travellers use a dimension hopper others use their own abilities which some call magic.
This is a series of 19 books i think.

Have i caught your attention yet? Wondering why i havent revealed the Author and series?

Well i'm sure you wont call it Sci-fi.

Robert Asprin MYTH seeries.......

And if that one doesnt float your boat Roger Zelazny's Nine princes in Amber series might fit the bill.

Those are both on the borderline between SF and fantasy, but the Zelazny probably qualifies about as well as the Merchant Prince books, so I'll accept that. Two to go.

Really amazed I'm not seeing some classic SF here, at least two series that would qualify.

[RockDoctor]

I am currently ploughing through Piers Anthony's "Split Infinity", which involves the adventure of a "Game player" transported from his home universe planet of "Proton" (MacGuffins galore) which seems to be in a 1-to-1 correspondence with an alternative universe - so far un-named. I suspect that this is the universe in which Anthony's "Adept" books, as well as "Phaze" are set - none of which I've read, but I've seen what look very much like cross-references in "Split Infinity" in the first 100-odd pages.
Taking "Phaze" as the name of this "Split Infinity" universe, I propose this as another "dimension". It isn't terribly good on the "Everybody Knows" front, but at least some people in the protagonist's original universe know about the alternate universe, and how to get there, so it at least meets the "colsely held secret" level of knowledge.
I suppose I'd better see what spoilers Wikipedia has ... Ah, the hive-mind there does cluster "Split Infinity" with several other "Phaze" and "Adept" books, but no name for the alternative universe.
Never having been a fan of PA's "Xanth" 40-odd, punishing books, I'm not sure if they qualify. I have a sneaking suspicion that they do, vaguely remembering some interaction between Xanth and our nominal Earth ; Xanth itself has some sort of relationship with PA's home state of Florida.
His "Incarnations of Immortality" series has a nominal Earth dimension, a "heaven", a "hell", and a "purgatory", between which dimensions the titular Incarnations yo-yo with gay abandon.
Is Piers Anthony culled, like an inhabitant of "The Barn"?

[Commander_X]

Piggybacking on the alternative timelines, The End of Eternity by I Asimov.
Asimov also wrote The Gods Themselves (parallel universe(s), period).

[ffutures]

I am currently ploughing through Piers Anthony's "Split Infinity", which involves the adventure of a "Game player" transported from his home universe planet of "Proton" (MacGuffins galore) which seems to be in a 1-to-1 correspondence with an alternative universe - so far un-named. I suspect that this is the universe in which Anthony's "Adept" books, as well as "Phaze" are set - none of which I've read, but I've seen what look very much like cross-references in "Split Infinity" in the first 100-odd pages.
Taking "Phaze" as the name of this "Split Infinity" universe, I propose this as another "dimension". It isn't terribly good on the "Everybody Knows" front, but at least some people in the protagonist's original universe know about the alternate universe, and how to get there, so it at least meets the "colsely held secret" level of knowledge.
I suppose I'd better see what spoilers Wikipedia has ... Ah, the hive-mind there does cluster "Split Infinity" with several other "Phaze" and "Adept" books, but no name for the alternative universe.
Never having been a fan of PA's "Xanth" 40-odd, punishing books, I'm not sure if they qualify. I have a sneaking suspicion that they do, vaguely remembering some interaction between Xanth and our nominal Earth ; Xanth itself has some sort of relationship with PA's home state of Florida.
His "Incarnations of Immortality" series has a nominal Earth dimension, a "heaven", a "hell", and a "purgatory", between which dimensions the titular Incarnations yo-yo with gay abandon.
Is Piers Anthony culled, like an inhabitant of "The Barn"?

OK... given I've accepted the Merchant Princes and Nine Princes series I suppose I can accept this, although it's well on the border between SF and fantasy. which leaves one to go.

[ffutures]

Piggybacking on the alternative timelines, The End of Eternity by I Asimov.
Asimov also wrote The Gods Themselves (parallel universe(s), period).

OK, The End of Eternity only has one active timeline at a time really, so I'm not inclined to accept that, but The Gods Themselves certainly qualifies, since you have one universe strip-mining another for energy. We have our fifth answer, and you have the poisoned chalice!

There were two series I REALLY expected to see here - Keith Laumer's Imperium novels, and H. Beam Piper's Paratime series, both of which had worlds with their entire economies built on buying and selling materials from other dimensions. But never mind, maybe they'll come up another time.

[Cholmondely]

Piggybacking on the alternative timelines, The End of Eternity by I Asimov.
Asimov also wrote The Gods Themselves (parallel universe(s), period).

OK, The End of Eternity only has one active timeline at a time really, so I'm not inclined to accept that, but The Gods Themselves certainly qualifies, since you have one universe strip-mining another for energy. We have our fifth answer, and you have the poisoned chalice!

There were two series I REALLY expected to see here - Keith Laumer's Imperium novels, and H. Beam Piper's Paratime series, both of which had worlds with their entire economies built on buying and selling materials from other dimensions. But never mind, maybe they'll come up another time.

I was wondering about Beam Piper - but it's not another dimension, is it? The same dimension but different times/probabilities. The planet Earth is there in every jolly one of them.

[Commander_X]

OK, The End of Eternity only has one active timeline at a time really, so I'm not inclined to accept that, [...]

I'd disagree that there's one active timeline. It's true, the main narrative occurs about/in Eternity itself, but there are parts that concern the "real" humanity; where with each intervention of the overall seeing Eternity, there was a different version of the humanity outside (i.e. an alternate reality), which we get the chance to actually meet several times.

<eeny, meeny, miny, moe-ing through the candidate questions>

Ok, as in our favorite game here, in many sci-fi works, the ships capable of (inter)galactic space travel have the means to do that available on themselves.
I'm looking for five examples where this is not the case, i.e. the long leap between two locations is made through means external to the ship. The regular rule -- one example per author and/or universe/series.
I'm not looking for a one time/accidental event, but for a regular usage pattern.

[ffutures]

OK, starting with the low-hanging fruit again - Babylon Five has "Jump Gates" which are basically portals into hyperspace. It looks like this is fairly low tech since the Mimbari and several other races have ships which can get into and out of hyperspace without the gates. Earth's ships cannot.

[RockDoctor]

Ok, as in our favorite game here, in many sci-fi works, the ships capable of (inter)galactic space travel have the means to do that available on themselves.
I'm looking for five examples where this is not the case, i.e. the long leap between two locations is made through means external to the ship. The regular rule -- one example per author and/or universe/series.
I'm not looking for a one time/accidental event, but for a regular usage pattern.

OK, I may be misunderstanding the question here.
Are the targets ships (/ species / technologies) that don't produce a Handwavium-plated Unobtanium Warp Drive, but instead have to launch their interstellar empires through normal space - if using somewhat exotic technologies? Or are we looking for technologies where the drive tays at home? Or both?... Guidance, please.
I'll elucidate the question by dissecting bits of Niven's "Known Space" with the Hot Needle of Enquiry:

• Early on, Niven's protagonists started to launch probes, then colony ships using the "Launching Lasers" on Mercury ("Ethics of Madness", & <i>passim</i>). That's an unrealised but not "exotic" technologywhich "stays at home", external to the ship.
• Later (per-timeline, and per-vessel), the vessels started to use locally generated energy ("crystal iron fusion tubes") to power really big lasers pointing out of the back, ejecting photons with momentum, and getting drive thanks to Newton-3. Those require other unrealised but not particularly "exotic" technologies - except for the compact fusion generators, which may be "exotic", but are still on board the vessel.
• Later still, the Hoominz encounter the Kzinti, who propel their craft at sub-light (high, but not "exotic" speeds) using a "gravity planar" drive (low energy, c-limited, but very definitely "exotic". and do it so ubiquitously that they've forgotten the "Kzin Lesson" (that a reaction drive is a weapon in proportion to it's effectiveness as a drive). But the Kzintosh still have to follow their prey "around the galaxy", unable to short-circuit the fight by Handwaviumly plating the word "shazam".
• Well before then, the Puppeteers brought several "reactionless" "inertialess" drives from the Outsiders. Being a one-stop violation of Newton-3, I think these are probably quite exotic, but still beats moving a star through "hyperspace", which the Puppeteers consider a (being polite) unjustifiably hazardous undertaking - even for deranged lunatics.
• Also roughly contemporaneously with the start of Hoomin Interstellar Colonisation, Brennan the "Protector" set of from Kobald (leaving some "exotic" devices behind for an interstellar war of the ramrobots. The rams themselves are neither exotic, nor "stay at home", while Brennan used them to do things which were quite relativistic.
• Very late on in Known Space, several times (Beowulf+Elephant to the "exotic star ; "Colonist" exploration team returning to Hearth in the "...Worlds" story arc) the human (-ish) protagonists get a velocity and/ or distance piggyback from the "Outsiders" for (various reasons). As exotic as any other "reactionless" "inertialess" drives, but the drives certainly did not stay with the piggyback ships after re-deposition into Einsteinian Space.
• Finally, on the return from "Ringworld", Carlos Wu, Speaker-to-Animals and Nessus (less one head) got out of the "Ringstar's gravity well using inertia and jumping falling "off the edge" of the rotating Ringworld" to acquire 770 km/s of tangential velocity ; not "exotic", but arguably "stay at home" (the velocity source stayed on the Ringworld, arguably in the shape of the Liar's acceleration scar).
• One step beyond finally, Carlos and Acolyte and a very unwilling Hindmost) took off in a purloined Ringworld, using a fusion / laser drive powered by an alternative formulation of the Ringworld's laser anti-meteor defence. No more "exotic", intrinsically, than any other reaction or laser drive, but definitely not "stay at home". Later, using the Ringworld's intrinsic systems (the "super conductor grid") as a hyperdrive shunt was both "exotic" and not "stay at home".

Which of these concepts is a viable solution to your challenge because they involve wiggling around in Einsteinian space, not a hyperspace shortcut ; which are viable solutions because the propulsion system "stays at home" instead of travelling with the vessel ; and which are not viable for not having one or both property?

[Commander_X]

OK, starting with the low-hanging fruit again - Babylon Five has "Jump Gates" [...]

They are our #1.

[...]

• Very late on in Known Space, several times (Beowulf+Elephant to the "exotic star ; "Colonist" exploration team returning to Hearth in the "...Worlds" story arc) the human (-ish) protagonists get a velocity and/ or distance piggyback from the "Outsiders" for (various reasons). As exotic as any other "reactionless" "inertialess" drives, but the drives certainly did not stay with the piggyback ships after re-deposition into Einsteinian Space.

[...]

To make a short answer to a long question, I'd take this as #2

[ffutures]

And more low hanging fruit - the Mass Effect series of computer games has long-range interstellar travel via a network of Mass Relays. Since there are relatively few mass relays compared to the number of stars most ships are capable of FTL flight (about twelve light years per day) to move from a Relay to nearby planets and close solar systems, but it's nowhere near as fast as using a Mass Relay. Civilization is concentrated around the relays, with more remote systems rarely visited.



Mass relays function by creating a virtually mass-free "corridor" of space-time between each other. This can propel a starship across enormous distances that would take centuries to traverse, even at FTL speeds. Before a vessel can travel, the relay must be given the amount of mass to transit by the ship's pilot before it is moved into the approach corridor. When a relay is activated, it aligns itself with the corresponding relay in the network before propelling the ship across space. At the other end, vessels have no specific exit points, emerging randomly around the relay with positional "drift" of many thousands of kilometers being common. It would thus take an impractical amount of time to mine or trap a relay effectively.

https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Mass_Relay

https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/FTL

[Commander_X]

And more low hanging fruit - the Mass Effect series of computer games has long-range interstellar travel via a network of Mass Relays. Since there are relatively few mass relays compared to the number of stars most ships are capable of FTL flight (about twelve light years per day) to move from a Relay to nearby planets and close solar systems, but it's nowhere near as fast as using a Mass Relay. Civilization is concentrated around the relays, with more remote systems rarely visited.
[...]

#3 with a heartfelt given MBP for the top example I had in mind with this question.

Although I still "see" 4 easy targets, wondering what the last two hits will be about.

[spud42]

Stargate? in all its guises?