Monday, 3 October 2022

Phase

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER EIGHT.

Poul Anderson describes interstellar warfare:

"Shuttling in and out of quantum multi-space at thousands or even millions of times a second, a ship under hyperdrive is essentially untouchable by an ordinary weapon." (pp. 280-281)

"Only when the drives of two vessels are in phase do they become solid, vulnerable, to each other." (p. 281)

DC Comics had a multiverse where the universes were separated not by dimensions but by phase. They occupied the same four-dimensional space-time but vibrated at different rates. By changing his vibrational rate, a character with super-speed disappeared from one universe and appeared in another. If such vibrational universes existed, then the hyperdrive spaceships of Anderson's Technic History would pass through or enter them whenever they pass light speed.

Someone on Earth-Prime, where there are no superheroes, shouts, "Look up in the sky. It's...it's nothing..." Superman has just passed between universes.

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