In several works by Poul Anderson, there is interstellar travel but slower than light. Is this because faster than light travel is impossible or only because a means of FTL travel has not been discovered/invented? When reading such a work, we assume that the impossibility of FTL is one of its premises and, indeed, the invention of an FTL drive near the end of the
Harvest of Stars Tetralogy or of
Genesis would be discordant and would seem inconsistent. So the laws of physics differ in different fictional universes. Of course. There are fictional universes where magic works. And when multiple universes are found to coexist in a single multiverse, their physical laws continue to differ. Thus, both Valeria Matuchek, daughter of a werewolf and a witch, and Nicholas van Rijn, from a relativistic universe where FTL is possible but only by many rapid quantum jumps, visit the inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix. Thus also, mythical beings and ordinary people from a universe just like ours visit Neil Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End. We want to read long series set in both of these inns but we can't have everything.
2 comments:
Science fiction is science -fiction-. Attempts to predict future technologies are usually wrong -- hence all the stories with computers the size of mountains.
Attempts to predict cultural, political and social change are even worse, because confirmation bias and motivated reasoning work their insidious magic.
Back in the 1950's Heinlein predicted flying cars and widespread casual nudity... but his stories still had men commuting in the flying cars, and coming home to nude housewives.
And of course there's also the fact that we can't predict the future because the future isn't -set-.
It's highly contingent and dependent on unpredictable accidents. The king gets stomach ulcers and dies...
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Besides what Stirling so ably said, I would argue, as regards THE HARVEST OF STARS timeline, that FTL technology has simply not yet been discovered/invented. Ever since I've heard of Alcubierre's theories about how FTL just might be theoretically possible, I've not been willing to completely give up hope that might someday become a real technology.
Mr. Stirling: Or a series of truly appalling coincidences has Archduke Francis Ferdinand's car stalling directly in FRONT OF GAVRILO PRINCIP!!!
Ad astra! Sean
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