Does this sound plausible?

Lyra Jean · Mar 24, 2010

My mom and I are writing a science-fiction novel. It is about a generational colony ship. While there is no cryo so everyone stays awake. They are able to communicate with Earth by sending messages through man made wormholes. These wormholes are not large enough for the ships themselves to go through though. But it does allow for pretty much instantaneous communication. It has led to a new space race with colonization of an extra-solar planet as the prize.

Since this invention leads to the space race I want to sound believable without too much hand waving. So here it is. It's going to be in the first chapter and it's the scientist who invented or made the discovery explaining the process to a news reporter. So it's on like the 6 o'clock news. I haven't actually fleshed out the scene yet. This is the bare bones my mom researched and wrote up.

Background. People think of space as a vaccuum. It's not really, it's made up of what we call black matter because we don't know what it's made of at this point. It may not be 'made of anything, but is probably the stuff of space-time itself. We can detect it though. If you take a laser with a frequency if 10^-15 or higher out beyond the gravitational pull of the Earth- moon system and fire it into space, the beam of light will not travel in a straight line. It assumes a slightly wavering path. From this we see a structure that resembles beer foam. It is this aspect of space that keeps everything from falling together. We'll get back to this later.

The aspect of space that is important to us though is a black hole. It is formed when a star rotates on it's axis (spins) fast enough to contract. As it contracts, the gravity well gets steeper, meaning the gravity gets stronger. The back hole will eventually pull other matter into it. Where does this 'stuff' go? According to Stephen Hawing, it will eventually be squeezed into a baby universe. Now people, spaceships, or anything else we send through one looking for a shortcut to another star will not survive the trip, because what emeges into this baby universe is not an identicle item, but subatomic particles and the energy they once contained, plus whatever enegy they accumulated as a result of their speed through the black hole. The path between two black holes is called a worm hole.

Eventually this energy is squeezed back into our universe through another black hole. How does this help us with communication then? By using a particle accelorator of sufficient size, we can shoot a lithium beam through a black hole and be able to detect where this energy comes out. In this way we can modulate the beam, rather like morse code and send signals back into our universe. In this way they will be detected at the point of origin rather than have to travel all the way through the beer foam of our universe and thus be able to 'beat the speed of light limitations.

By having a particle accelerator on the earth as well as our starship, we can acheive near instantaneous communications.

I didn't really think this would go in SYW but if it does belong there rather than here feel free to move it mods. Thanks!

cameron_chapman · Mar 24, 2010

My only question would be, is this really necessary to the story? Do I need to know how this invention works in order for the rest of the story to work? Or do I just need to know that it does work?

It feels too much like an info dump at the moment. It's the kind of thing I would skip over when reading.

Kitty Pryde · Mar 24, 2010

It certainly made my eyes cross, and I love all things science fictional. Are you familiar with the ansible? It may make things easier for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible

Lyra Jean · Mar 24, 2010

cameron_chapman said:
My only question would be, is this really necessary to the story? Do I need to know how this invention works in order for the rest of the story to work? Or do I just need to know that it does work?

It feels too much like an info dump at the moment. It's the kind of thing I would skip over when reading.

Legitimate question so please don't take this as golden word syndrome and my becoming defensive because I'm not. lol.

Answer: It's on the news because the MCs twin sister is really keen about the colonization thing and really wants to do it. While the MC not so much. But because her sister is really into it she decides to go along with it since they only have each other as family.

So it would go into characterization and showing how the device works. We are also going to rewrite it a bit and probably cut some of it out. I just wanted to know if it sounded plausible. So this is not the finished scene which is why it's here and not SYW.

We are only in the rough draft stage so if we feel it has to be cut out during the rewrites or, if you know ever gets in front of an agent, and they say it has to go then yeah we have no problem in cutting it out. We thought that since it is science fiction and not fantasy we thought it should have like some science in it.

Lyra Jean · Mar 24, 2010

Kitty Pryde said:
It certainly made my eyes cross, and I love all things science fictional. Are you familiar with the ansible? It may make things easier for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible

Wasn't that used in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series? At least near the end of the series or something. Thanks for the link. I'll post it on the private blog my mom and I are using to write the story. I have no problem using a trope already created. We don't want to reinvent the wheel.

Smiling Ted · Mar 24, 2010

Lyra, you're getting the worst of both worlds with that explanation.
The readers who don't care about the handwaving will find it tedious.
The readers who do care will find it unbelievable, because you've gotten the real physics fundamentals incorrect. For instance:
Astronomers refer to "dark matter," not "black matter."
Dark matter is believed to be simply matter we can't detect, not an integral part of space time.
Black holes aren't formed by the rotation of a star (intense rotation might cause a star to disintegrate, but not implode).
And so on.

Kitty Pryde's ansible suggestion might be a way to go for you.
Or you can check here for communications that other SF writers have used.

Bottom line - it takes someone who knows science to come up with a plausible way to violate it.

Lyra Jean · Mar 24, 2010

Smiling Ted said:
Lyra, you're getting the worst of both worlds with that explanation.
The readers who don't care about the handwaving will find it tedious.
The readers who do care will find it unbelievable, because you've gotten the real physics fundamentals incorrect. For instance:
Astronomers refer to "dark matter," not "black matter."
Dark matter is believed to be simply matter we can't detect, not an integral part of space time.
Black holes aren't formed by the rotation of a star (intense rotation might cause a star to disintegrate, but not implode).
And so on.

Kitty Pryde's ansible suggestion might be a way to go for you.
Or you can check here for communications that other SF writers have used.

Bottom line - it takes someone who knows science to come up with a plausible way to violate it.

Thanks! I'll let her know. She doesn't belong to AW. This is actually the type of answer I was looking for. I think we might go with the ansible or something from the link you put down.

We don't want to reinvent the wheel and we definitely don't want to get the science wrong.

Polenth · Mar 24, 2010

I'd be fine with mini-wormholes being used to transmit data. I'm not fine with the explanation because of the science holes. I think this is a time where not over-explaining is the way to go. Don't give people enough science to pick it apart.

bettielee · Mar 24, 2010

Truthfully, I don't think you need to explain how it works. We all know wormholes from Star Trek. It's great that you have an idea how it works - I have an IDEA how my car works, but truthfully, I don't know how it works... and making my eyeballs vibrate won't show me anything about your character...

sorry!

**hugs?**

Pthom · Mar 25, 2010

It just happens I am reading Crossfire by Nancy Kress, in which several thousand people are on a deep space mission to colonize a remote planet. It's a one-way trip, due to time dilation. They communicate with Earth via a device they call "quee" (short for quantum entanglement, see). This is, like the ansible, not a new idea, and it is every bit as plausable.

However, Kress tosses a monkey wrench into the idea. Because the quee depends on physical particles that share paired energies, and because they have a limited amount of them, their communication with Earth (and vice versa) is also limited. One day, instantaneous communication with Earth will no longer be possible.

And that is another interesting idea: that whatever it is that allows you to apparently violate the laws of physics (transporters, faster-than-light travel, time travel, what have you) depends on a substance or energy that is not infinite. Once you use it up, you get no more.

knight_tour · Mar 25, 2010

One thing I have always thought about with generations ships: one ship can set out first but is limited to the speed that it can achieve at that point, so a ship setting out later can actually reach the final destination sooner due to newer technology. It would be funny for a generation ship to arrive at it's destination planet only to find out humans have had a colony there for decades already!

Liosse de Velishaf · Mar 25, 2010

Pthom said:
It just happens I am reading Crossfire by Nancy Kress, in which several thousand people are on a deep space mission to colonize a remote planet. It's a one-way trip, due to time dilation. They communicate with Earth via a device they call "quee" (short for quantum entanglement, see). This is, like the ansible, not a new idea, and it is every bit as plausable.

However, Kress tosses a monkey wrench into the idea. Because the quee depends on physical particles that share paired energies, and because they have a limited amount of them, their communication with Earth (and vice versa) is also limited. One day, instantaneous communication with Earth will no longer be possible.

And that is another interesting idea: that whatever it is that allows you to apparently violate the laws of physics (transporters, faster-than-light travel, time travel, what have you) depends on a substance or energy that is not infinite. Once you use it up, you get no more.

Card's ansible works by quantum entanglement, doesn't it?

Lyra, if you want to keep the wormholes, google "The Light of Other Days". It uses wormholes to send information based on the Casimir force.

Smiling Ted · Mar 25, 2010

knight_tour said:
One thing I have always thought about with generations ships: one ship can set out first but is limited to the speed that it can achieve at that point, so a ship setting out later can actually reach the final destination sooner due to newer technology. It would be funny for a generation ship to arrive at it's destination planet only to find out humans have had a colony there for decades already!

That was the idea of "Far Centaurus," a classic novella by A.E. Van Vogt.

Ambri · Mar 25, 2010

One thing I have always thought about with generations ships: one ship can set out first but is limited to the speed that it can achieve at that point, so a ship setting out later can actually reach the final destination sooner due to newer technology. It would be funny for a generation ship to arrive at it's destination planet only to find out humans have had a colony there for decades already!

Arthur C. Clarke did a story with exactly that premise. Sorry, can't remember the title for the life of me, I read it quite a while ago.

The one who "invented" the ansible, or at least coined the term, was Ursula LeGuin in The Dispossessed (which I think won a Hugo or something.) I do like the idea of using tiny wormholes to communicate with Earth, but I agree: make sure your explanation is accurate. The oposite of a black hole, where stuff would theoretically come out the other end, is a white hole.

Liosse de Velishaf · Mar 25, 2010

Ambri said:
Arthur C. Clarke did a story with exactly that premise. Sorry, can't remember the title for the life of me, I read it quite a while ago.

Alastair Reynolds also used the trope, and had an enormous slow ship used as a habitat, with swarms of tiny, FTL-driven craft that followed it around.

Smiling Ted · Mar 25, 2010

Charles Stross twisted the trope a little - in one of his stories, the colony ship was a virtually infinite habitat for AI personalities that was almost entirely disconnected from the external universe.

Pthom · Mar 25, 2010

Then, there's Greg Bear's Eon, but I digress.

JayG · Mar 26, 2010

Use it, don't explain it.

dpaterso · Mar 26, 2010

knight_tour said:
One thing I have always thought about with generations ships: one ship can set out first but is limited to the speed that it can achieve at that point, so a ship setting out later can actually reach the final destination sooner due to newer technology. It would be funny for a generation ship to arrive at it's destination planet only to find out humans have had a colony there for decades already!

Hah! My first Sci-Fi novel, circa 1974. Major suck factor. Tho' not influenced by anything I'd read.

-Derek

Smiling Ted · Mar 26, 2010

At the risk of repeating myself, anyone interested in writing about colony ships (or incluing, for that matter) should consider reading Heinlein's "Universe."

Does this sound plausible?

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