Wednesday, 11 March 2020

Space Hazards

"Margin of Profit," two versions.

Torres lists space hazards:

In Un-Man... p. 108
meteors
dust clouds
rogue planets
hostile natives
warped space
hard radiation

In The Van Rijn Method, p. 142
meteoroid swarms
infrasuns
rogue planets
black holes
radiation bursts
hostile natives

As I understand it, all space is warped by gravity so what is the "warped space" that would have been a hazard?

3 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

Poul's Technic-series hyperdrive is destabilized by -very- curved space, and space is in fact more sharply curved near massive objects. ( That's what gravity is, basically.)

Hence FTL ships in that imaginarium can't emerge near planets or very close to stars without great danger. This is, incidentally, very convenient plot-wise if you want planets to be analogous to islands in a sea with respect to trade and war.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And we see Dominic Flandry taking advantage of that in A CIRUCS OF HELLL as he escaped Talwin with Ydwyr the Seeker as his hostage. A smaller FTL boat like Flandry's scoutboat was apparently better able to endure being near masssive objects deeply warping space near them.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

SMS,
OK.
PS.