Withdrawing from comparisons between multiple future history series, we appreciate specific details in a single future history instalment although here again we can find some comparisons. When the Nomad spaceship, the Peregrine, departs from a planetary system, the ship cannot enter hyperspace until the gravitational field is sufficiently weak. That is fairly standard and certainly applies to the different kind of hyperspace in Poul Anderson's later Technic History. In the Peregrine, human bodies experience:
"The indescribable twisting sensation of hyperdrive fields building up..." (p. 57)
I have read that or something like it elsewhere although maybe not in the Technic History?
In the Peregrine, a telepath senses cerebral emissions but cannot interpret characteristic individual patterns and this corresponds exactly to how telepathy operates in the Technic History - excepting only Aycharaych, the universal telepath. Characters in different series cannot know how close they are to each other. Sundered by their alternative histories, they are nevertheless united in their creator's and readers' imaginations.
7 comments:
"the ship cannot enter hyperspace until the gravitational field is sufficiently weak"
I rather like the variation of cannot enter hyperspace unless the gravitational field is sufficiently *strong*. So FTL space ships have to go close to a star, or maybe a super-Jupiter planet to enter hyperspace. Then the author can chose, can they only *leave* hyperspace in a strong gravitational field. All these options give interesting effects on how trade and war occur.
Kaor, Jim!
That one is not familiar to me. Which SF author used that idea?
Ad astra! Sean
Karl Schroeder used that in "Permanence". This also included the idea of there being enough brown dwarfs around that STL travel to settle planets orbiting them was practical before that FTL method was found. However, the brown dwarfs didn't produce strong enough gravity to allow that FTL method to be used *from* them. All leading to interesting complications in interstellar relations.
There were a few short stories in Analog by other other author that also used the idea of hyperspace being reachable only *close* to a star.
Doesn't Pournelle's Alderson drive, if that is what it is called, involve flying close to a star?
Kaor, Jim!
Intriguing, I like that idea of Karl Schroeder. And Paul's comment reminded me of Pournelle's equally interesting Alderson Drive.
Ad astra! Sean
My recollection of the Alderson drive in the CoDominium and Empire of Man stories is that the Alderson points tended to be several Astronomical Units from the *center* of its star. In "The Mote in God's Eye" there was an Alderson point to get from a Red Giant star to 'the Mote'. Since a Red Giant has expanded to be several AU in radius the relevant Alderson point is now *inside* that star. However, for main sequence stars with habitable planets the Alderson points are well outside the star.
Kaor, Jim!
That fits what I recall. Somehow, when a ship reaches an Alderson point it's able to go FTL to another Alderson point.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment