Oolite Engine Function Question.

[JohnnyBoy]

Alternative technobabble...

Doesn't apply to me, Disembodied -- I'm trying to do my bit for the environment. My SuperCobra runs on chicken shit.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

On another note, it would be interesting to guess what the Thargoids have purring under the hood. Their drive systems produce no visible exhaust components at all.

[JameSpal]

Alternative technobabble...

Doesn't apply to me, Disembodied -- I'm trying to do my bit for the environment. My SuperCobra runs on chicken shit.

Oh good lord, you're not one of those comet-hugging, galactic warming alarmist types are you?

Look, the scientific evidence linking quirium fusion emissions to galactic warming is tenuous at best. The Ooniverse has gone though cyclical changes forever, it's very presumptuous to think that humanoid activity could even have any effect on it.

If you had your way, we'd probably all be riding on People's Commuter Transports or ship-pooling in those dinky little hybrid power Frog Space Rikshaws.

Go back to Tiraor and organize a drum orbit.

[DaddyHoggy]

Art imitating life imitating art

[KZ9999]

The explanations of the physics of the Oolite tech has been great for me since I'm plugging away at the manual at the moment.

I did come up with an alternative to for the Torus/Hyperdrive/Galactic Hyperdrive systems that a different brand of 'handwavium.' This is just been cobbled from the rough notes I've had written so far, so please forgive the inconsistency.

Physicist believe that wormholes actually exist naturally in space, but at a sub atomic level. The fabric of 4d-space is foam of them which billions come in to existence and die in every cubic millimetre every second. The wormholes have smaller in diameter than a proton, but have lengths from a few millimetres to millions of light years. These natural wormholes exist to pass information about the nature of matter so that it maintains consistency across all points in space and time. (So an electron has the same charge and mass on Earth now as it does in Cygness cluster.)

This is actually current scientific thought.

With the application of directed gravitation fields, these wormholes can be enlarged to allow physical matter to transverse them. Within these wormhole tubes the normal laws of space time do not apply because it is part of sub-space, just as atomic rules do not apply at the fundamental matter level.

Drawn from the theory that black holes can be used to generate wormholes, as proposed by Steven Hawking.

The early development using a focused ring of high density gravity allowed for the mouth of the wormhole to be stretched open behind the craft for a few billionths of a second. As the wormhole mouth snaps back to natural size, the resulting ripple in 4d-space forces the ship forward by the length of a election. As there are billions of wormholes per mm^3 this process can accelerate the ship to respectable sub-light speeds. The down side is that the ripple effect is very weak and can be disrupted by another high density gravity field such as another ship or solar body.

Reflects the ship/station/planet/sun effect of the game

Hyperdrives use a naturally occurring 4d-space effects to provide interstellar travel. A matter moving in space produce ripples which radiate out from their position. These gravity ripples interact with each other and produce a complex pattens of frequency modulated waves. These wave pattens are unque to each star system, rather like a complex cord of notes played on a musical instrument. Wormholes act as conducter for these cords, identifying the location of the far end of each one. Hyperdrives have an encoded database of these cords and the sensors to detect them. When the drive finds a matching wormhole, it first stabilises it with a weaker strengthening gravity field while the drive charges by the fusion of qrilum fuel. The drive then opens the entire width of the wormhole to allow the ships passage. The engery that has been pumped in to it to stabilise it for several seconds, trillions of times longer than natural. Because of the massive size increase, a titanic increase of cosmic information passes through the wormhole, supercharging the local space which produces the glowing witchcloud.

Because the wormhole has to be artificiality stabilised, it is a distorted version of the natural occurrence. Pumping gravity in to it alters the permittivity of subspace within the wormhole. The greater the length of wormhole, the more gravity required to stabilised it, the denser the space of the wormhole becomes. the information transferred by wormholes has no mass, the wormhole is stable in space-time. Matter moving through it distorts it, moving the ends in space time. The direction of the travel effects the end that is moved. This wormhole mouth movement in time is further distorted as the desity of wormhole space is increased. This is why the travel through the wormhole is instant, the time shift is greater the further your travel.

Even though wormholes can be millions of ligh years in length it is the current limitation in gravitational sensors that limit the range of a hyperspace jump to just 7 years. Wormholes absorb some of the gravitational energy creates them. The fractional amount of g that remains after passing through wormholes greater than seven light years is to weak to detect.

The gravity cords is pure Handwaveium. Permittivity of free space (speed of light in a vacuum) is a cornerstone constant of the universe, so logically subspace has it's own speed limit. I included it to explain why each light year travelled squares the time taken. Current gravitational detection experiments involve 100's kg masses station 100's kms apart tied to atomic clocks to measure the minute swings of these masses. So try fitting something like that in to a Adder.

Galatic hyperdrives takes the previous technology and moves it one step further. All gravity chords, belong to clusters of frequency known as octave range. These octive ranges are the the cord concept but applied to large section of the galaxy. It is belived to that are as many octaves as there are chords, so there could be 250+ galactic chart regions in the Milky Way.

When a starship hyperspaces, it tunes in to those cords within that range. The galactic hyperdrive function is to alter the tuning of the drive to a new octave range. The gh module activates the hyperdrive and retunes its system in flight to function with the new range and encodes a new cord database on the drive overwriting the old one. This is why when you use it, you only move to a new chart, but don't move relative to the position within the chart. The gh module also mixes in a special additive to the qilirum fuel to boost the power of the engine. The additive is a artificial isotope that can only be made in small quantities at great expense which is why the gh is such a expensive add on.

Mainly pure handwavium but built on the previous stuff.

As a side note. All civilian hyperspace drives have only the cords for the GCW member worlds encoded on them. This prevents people jumping in to unsafe regions, and prevent accidental contamination of other cultures before trained GCW first contact teams have studied them for a few decades. Any attemp to alter these codes will result an gravity implosion (micro blackhole) that will destroy several hundred cubic metres of space. Naturally both the Galactic Navy and the Thargoids do not have this limitation.

------------------------

Either-or it just great to have this sort of discussion in the first place because I've been given some good story ideas from what I've read so far. (This commander is a want-a-be novelist.)

[DaddyHoggy]

From one would-be novelist to another - I like your style!

I think some of this doesn't quite line up with what's already been laid down in stuff like Mutalibis but that's just massaging - tell me more (and keep up the good work)

[JameSpal]

Well, however it works, here it is at this point (still very much a WIP).





This is my thinking:

The chrome sphere is the fuel containment unit. It keeps the fuel suspended in the center of the tank (magnetically???) and the copper rings draw off only the outer most fumes (or if it's being held as a plasma, perhaps there is more of a gaseous condensation effect around the outside of the sphere and that's what is being drawn off).

The fuel is sent through tubes into the center of the black octopus in the center of the torus. This injects additional fuel into the torus reactor (?).

When the ship hyperspaces, much higher quantities of additional fuel is forced through the whole torus system and into the two engines.

The large red compressor units speed up the reaction and feed the energized Quirium into the gold tori at the rear of the engines.

The hyperspace tori are vertically positioned because they work differently than the horizontal one. The gravity distortion that pulls the ship along can be much stronger if it is created along the centerline of the torus, but it allows no room for varying frequency or polarity to provide a steering effect in any plane.

The vertically aligned tori - escpecially the tuned dual variety - take some time to function after they are activated because they must focus the gravity distortion in sufficiently to create the wormhole.

As the engines begin to focus the distortion and create the wormhole (in the last few seconds of the hyperspace count down), attempting to steer the ship by other means (such as the polarity steering effect in the main torus) can cause the vertically oriented tori to vibrate which can cause a hyperspace feedback loop in the system. Doing that can be VERY dangerous, because there is no telling where you may end up when the feedback loop is broken. For some reason, this happens most frequently when the ship's nose is rotated up, although this phenomenon has never been explained scientifically.

During normal operation, the radiation emission created by the main torus is vented through the hyperspace engine ductwork and out the back, showing itself as the familiar blue glow out the back. It's only when it forced through in sufficient quantities that it generates sufficient pressure in the system to charge the hyperspace torus.

Presumably since this is an early hyperspace capable small craft, other ships drive systems do not necessarily function in this manner.



Wow. It really hurt my head even technobabbling that much.

[Commander McLane]

Galatic hyperdrives takes the previous technology and moves it one step further. All gravity chords, belong to clusters of frequency known as octave range. These octive ranges are the the cord concept but applied to large section of the galaxy. It is belived to that are as many octaves as there are chords, so there could be 250+ galactic chart regions in the Milky Way.

When a starship hyperspaces, it tunes in to those cords within that range. The galactic hyperdrive function is to alter the tuning of the drive to a new octave range. The gh module activates the hyperdrive and retunes its system in flight to function with the new range and encodes a new cord database on the drive overwriting the old one. This is why when you use it, you only move to a new chart, but don't move relative to the position within the chart. The gh module also mixes in a special additive to the qilirum fuel to boost the power of the engine. The additive is a artificial isotope that can only be made in small quantities at great expense which is why the gh is such a expensive add on.

I have two questions here: How do you explain that the wormholes between the eight 'galaxies' were discovered at a certain point of time? And how do you explain their eventual collapse?

[Captain Hesperus]

We are rapidly approaching Professor Munchausenisms here......

Captain Hesperus

[Selezen]

Some fantastic writing here and some ace drawings!

Can I throw in my tuppence worth? No? Well tough, I'm going to anyway.

This article was my first attempt at explaining some of the hyperspace theories... http://hughesd.co.uk/elite/hyper_fuel.asp

I have two questions here: How do you explain that the wormholes between the eight 'galaxies' were discovered at a certain point of time? And how do you explain their eventual collapse?

Can't answer the first question, but my theory is that the discovery was based on Thargoid technology, since they are far more advanced in the use of hyperspace travel.

The collapse is dealt with in my "extended" timeline (the secret stuff from stories I've done). It is engineered deliberately to seal off Galaxy 1 when the non-humanoid lifeforms depart that sector for thier own safety (which is why there are no non-humans in Frontier).

JameSpal's diagrams are awesome! My one criticism is that there is a trend to assume that engines are cosntructed rather like rockets. This need not be the case. In Elite, the hyperdrive needs no engine outlets and it is unlikely that the system drive uses some sort of reaction-based travel. As mentioned, it is more likely to be a gravitic drive which would react with the gravitational fields of the surrounding space. This would probably work kind of like a windmill, using gravitational forces instead of wind to power a generator and create power and thrust. As such it is more likely that the outlets in the rear of ships are exhaust ports for plasma and heat venting: part of the cooling system.

The hyperspace engines would more likely be some sort of artificial wormhole generator, and as such would not need to dominate the outer structure of the ship. The internal arrangement would not necessarily be particularly grand either, since the only components necessary to create the hyperspace transfer "gate" would be the quirium tank, a reaction chamber and an emitter array. Navigation and thrust could theoretically be achieved via the same gravitational forces used to power the system drive (since no-one has argued that gravity doesn't affect all layers of space).

The arrangement of the engines could therefore be a lot smaller than represented by JameSpal (although admittedly the Cobra 1 is an old ship). For example I envision the drive sector of the Cobra III taking up about a quarter of the length of the ship with only the quirium storage tank stretching a little further into the central cargo area to accommodate the use of a fuel scoop. I have a folder from the 80s kicking about with some old diagrams I did on this (and I'm frantically trying to remember it all)...

Hope that's of some use!

[Commander McLane]

I have two questions here: How do you explain that the wormholes between the eight 'galaxies' were discovered at a certain point of time? And how do you explain their eventual collapse?

Can't answer the first question, but my theory is that the discovery was based on Thargoid technology, since they are far more advanced in the use of hyperspace travel.

The collapse is dealt with in my "extended" timeline (the secret stuff from stories I've done). It is engineered deliberately to seal off Galaxy 1 when the non-humanoid lifeforms depart that sector for thier own safety (which is why there are no non-humans in Frontier).

I know your timeline. My question is to KZ9999's explanation of how intergalactic travel works. Because in his explanation I don't see anything anymore that could be 'discovered' or collapse in the first place. Which is why I don't see at this point how his technobabble could be reconciled with your timeline. If he is right with his gravity cords and octave ranges, then there is nothing that could get sealed off or 'collapse' IMHO.

So either his TB-explanation is wrong, or I would like to know how he explains the 'discovery' of the wormholes and their collapse within his technobabble. And this is why I asked him.

[Selezen]

I know your timeline. My question is to KZ9999's explanation of how intergalactic travel works. Because in his explanation I don't see anything anymore that could be 'discovered' or collapse in the first place. Which is why I don't see at this point how his technobabble could be reconciled with your timeline. If he is right with his gravity cords and octave ranges, then there is nothing that could get sealed off or 'collapse' IMHO.

So either his TB-explanation is wrong, or I would like to know how he explains the 'discovery' of the wormholes and their collapse within his technobabble. And this is why I asked him.

The "discovery" could always be possible, since discovery involved finding out that something's there that one didn't know about before.

The interesting thing about Z9999's theory (Correct me if I'm wrong) is that gravitic expansion of the atomic structure means that matter would essentially be travelling "inside" atoms! Maybe that gives us another theory as to what Quirium actually is: an engineered isotope of Hydrogen (Fuel) with improved atomic bonding that can be expanded to a higher level than standard fuel without compromising the structural integrity of the atom itself? Distance travelled is therefore a factor of how many quirium atoms have to be expended in this manner to facilitate travel.

By following that formula, you would be correct - there would be no way to collapse the wormhole network because there IS no wormhole network - the IGH would simply be using these cords to travel through. However, the cord theory isn't substantiated by the scene in TDW where the Faraway system has to manage hypertravel... It also may be contradicted in the scene where our heroes have to travel to a system not on the hyperspace charts - it would be a pretty specialised job to program one in - one would have to know the structure or properties (not sure what to call them) of the cord.

Collapsing these wormholes would be impossible as they are described as a naturally occurring phenomenon. However, a replacement idea could be found in that the IGH will not function any more due to problems with the refining of Quirium or some fundamental change in the cords and octaves. Maybe a supernova breaks the chain of chords or something?

As stated by Z999 it's all handwavium - we're trying to marry up his handwavium with my hare brained ideas and there may not be any way to sufficiently manage it. Both have merit though. I especially like the atomic theory elements. There's something really cool about travelling inside atoms.

[DaddyHoggy]

As stated by Z999 it's all handwavium - we're trying to marry up his handwavium with my hare brained ideas and there may not be any way to sufficiently manage it. Both have merit though. I especially like the atomic theory elements. There's something really cool about travelling inside atoms.

Like the scene in a Discworld novel where Twoflower is holding a genie's lamp, a genie's lamp which he, Rincewind and the genie are travelling inside of...

[Cmdr Wyvern]

We are rapidly approaching Professor Munchausenisms here......

Captain Hesperus

I think we passed the point of no return awhile ago, back when somebody added a hot cup of tea to the witchspace drive at Xeer.

The Infinite Improbability Drive has clearly been engaged.

[KZ9999]

I thought I should fill in the holes that other commanders spotted in my science.

Firstly I haven't married my stuff to the works like 'Mutalibis' because I'm still working my way through it. Once I've been to 'digest' it, my physics will marry up with it.

Humanity discovered Wormhole technology. There are already have experiments which point to the fact that gravity may be 'distorted' by electro-magnetic fields, in the real world, and we have 'known' about wormholes since the 1980's.

Discovery of the 8 'galaxies' at one time can be explained by the following factors. The development of the hyper complex and expensive isotope additives needed to turbo charge a hyperdrive. The complexity of 'tuning' the engine to find a usable star system is measured in the gogleplexs of chords. This is why while there were 10'000's of survey ships sent out during the brief expansion period, only 8 viable hyperdrive octaves have been found. When the GCW formed, they decided to ban all independent star mapping as too risky, but they are still exploring even now. Rumours circulate that they are currently surviving a 9th chart for colonisation.[There is meant to a 9th galaxy found in various Acorn Elites.]

The Galaxies never collapsed, the new expanding human domains of the Federation and Empire simply removed the hyperdrive chords from all starships in their space and band all knowledge of the Galactic Hyperdrive. The systems are still there, current ships are unable to tune their sensors to find them.

The systems listed in the charts are only the ones recognised by the GCW. (This is why we never see Earth, because it isn't a member of the GCW.) There could be hundreds of worlds in between the ones we see. It could very well be that all 8 charts may exist intermingled with each other within the same larger block of space and that the charts represent the tuning of the drive, and not the physical location in space.

The natural wormholes mouths are simply smaller than protons but they are not physical in nature. In 'reality' they exist more as an absence of physical nature, being the holes in the fabric of space after all. Because they do not have a 'real form,' they are not limited by the rules of fundamental matter. When a ship traves in a wormhole, is not moving in a sub-atomic space, it's travelling in an absence of space which removes the C limit. As I mention earlier, pumping gravity in to it alters the permittivity of subspace within the wormhole. The greater the length of wormhole, the more gravity required to stabilised it, the denser the space of the wormhole becomes. ... Matter moving through it distorts it, moving the ends in space time. The direction of the travel effects the end that is moved. This wormhole mouth movement in time is further distorted as the density of wormhole space is increased. This is why the travel through the wormhole is instant, the time shift is greater the further your travel.

As a side note, ships need a separate engine system to provide navigation and thrust. A side effect of the Tourous system is that it perpetually has to generate an gravity bubble for the fusion technology to work. This bubble anchors the ship in 4d-space, so they stand still the minute ship no longer directs thrust. My vote for the engine system is a mixed ion/plasma systems because they need very little fuel to produce quite effective thrust and change colour depending on the type of fuel used. [Genuine Science Fact!]

Anyhow, this stuff was created from notes I worked on for a RPG I was working on that got canned when my group imploded. None of it actually will make to the revised form of the manual, as it is being refocused on game-play not background. I just though it would add it to the debate.

AS a strange side note, I happen to have my TV on as write this post. It's showing the BBC sitcom 'Hyperdrive' and this episode features the greatest doomsday weapon in the universe, which strangely looks like a Corlis Station.