One idea of mine, which has probably been used before at some point, is the 'wormhole field'.
In a setting where technology does not afford utter control of space and time, wormholes can only be opened wide enough to allow the passage of a molecule at most. Therefore, ships have a system which prepares a coherent field of wormholes, one for each molecule of the ship, all headed toward a destination point appropriate for that molecule. When all the wormholes are located, they are simultaneously widened and the whole ship is transported to its destination.
-Proteus
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Thiotimoline being an imaginary substance that disolves before you add water to it.
The initial substance is introduced in the article "The Endochronic properties of resublimated Thiotimoline" reprinted in The Early Asimov volume one.
The explanation of the space travel application is covered in "Thiotimoline to the stars", reprinted in "Buy Jupiter".
Basically it works by counteracting the time dilation effects that occur at near light speeds, so that time on board a ship and time on earth continue to run at the same rate. You activate Thiotimoline by being very certain that you are going to add water to it, but never actually doing so, which causes the Thiotimoline to travel to the future looking for water.
Originally posted by Proteus I just love wormholes.
One idea of mine, which has probably been used before at some point, is the 'wormhole field'.
In a setting where technology does not afford utter control of space and time, wormholes can only be opened wide enough to allow the passage of a molecule at most. Therefore, ships have a system which prepares a coherent field of wormholes, one for each molecule of the ship, all headed toward a destination point appropriate for that molecule. When all the wormholes are located, they are simultaneously widened and the whole ship is transported to its destination.
-Proteus
You need to check Schlock Mercenary's Teraport. Basically what you're saying, and what I was going to post before you mentioned that.
In the Schlockiverse, they had big wormholes, but the wormgates require big, massive structures call wormgates that have to be put into place manually (Or rather, they fly them sub-light. You'll notice the problem that can cause. Plus considering each system has one, and they handle all the system's traffic, and that they're not really replaced, they are biiiig). They're all part of an ancient network that's grown over time that now spans a large part of the known galaxy, to give you an idea of how long they've been working on it ('they' being a specific race that gets most of their power, unsurprisingly, from owning the gate network). The teraport shows up slightly through the strip, and can be used to freely go anyway. Bet you can think of what kind of events that sets in motion. The wormgate network is also cool, for reasons you'll see if you bother to read through the strip.
I think the book was called "Five-twelfths of Heaven" (or possibly nine) - it has been years since I read it.
You went FTL by getting closer to Heaven, which made the crew and the ship slowly turn transparent, so your captain was a buncha bones and organs wandering.
Pretty much the only thing I can remember about the book, TBH.
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A: A fact.
'star-hopping'
Simply enough, you take the vessel, align yourself with two stars: the one you're near, and one where you want to go. Now, go REALLY fast straight down the 'line'. Using gravity and acceleration to reach a point that is, to the universe outside the gravity well, superluminal. At which, dump a large sum of mass or graviton particles behind the ship. Suddenly- you're gravity well vanishes, and you're still FTL. You enter a 'ghost' universe, where most mass/energies of the physical world cease to be. Only gravity and time still work, and even those are weaker. When you get to the destination star, the gravity after passing through the star 'pulls' you into normal space.
However, the problems are imense. A: miscalculate speeds, you splash into a ball of nuclear fire. B: miscalculate angle, you can't escape the accelerated state. C: innacurate star-chart, you miss, see 'B'. D: run into unexpected gravity mass, drop out too soon. Take a very long detour. E: underestimate mass, see 'B'. F: Forget to adjust for change in star locations (after all, the light you see is likely centuries old) again, see 'B'.
Needless to say, FTL was NOT popular.
Originally posted by NPC betty what is the most flamboyant yet reasonable idea for an FTL drive ever? by reasonable i mean something that isnt pure comedy (like the infinite probbility drive from HItchikers)
Okay so now Anti Gravity Drives that rely on a Cat and a piece of buttered toast
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Flamboyant... I'll give you flamboyant... the last two of Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" series feature an FTL drive that kills the crew stone dead. It's only used because there is also a sort of weird-ass parasite that can resurrect the dead (at some cost, and its existence is tightly wound up with the main plot so I'm not going to say anything more about that).
As for "reasonable", there are some pretty severe limits to just how reasonable an FTL scheme can be. I'll settle for "internally consistent and somewhat thought-through". Smart authors figure out what sort of grand strategic effects they want and design their FTL scheme as a means to an end.
Originally posted by Leif Flamboyant... I'll give you flamboyant... the last two of Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" series feature an FTL drive that kills the crew stone dead.
And at the end of the series, you learn that the true power behind faster-than-light travel is....Love.
Aww.
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