On Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 7:04:49 PM UTC-7, 0something0 wrote:   
   > I had an idea for a FTL drive that does not violate casualty: make it so it   
   needs to "charge up" before jumping. Imagine a Minkowski Diagram with a light   
   cone. the path that the FTL drive would take would be a right triangle, one   
   leg on the time axis,    
   the other on the space axis(though it goes up very little on the space axis by   
   a negligible amount. The hypotenuse would be the path taken by the spacecraft,   
   and since it is inside the lightcone, the drive does not violate casualty. I   
   haven't worked out    
   the specifics yet because I want to include a time-dilation effect or some   
   other relativistic effect but the thing is rather mind-boggling.    
   >    
   > The side effects will probably be something like:   
   >    
   > while the path can be a regular right triangle, it is optimal for it to not   
   to be one because then you can load/unload cargo while "charging up" by   
   catching up to the hypotenuse(a horrid explanation)   
   >    
   > the drive will only be in use by long-lasting organizations(megacorps,   
   countries) because of the time needed to charge them up.   
      
   I'm not terribly well-versed in this stuff, but this still seems like it   
   violates causality. Even though you're staying within the original light cone,   
   you're making an FTL jump to a point that's lower on the time axis--aka: in   
   the past. The ship's light    
   cone at the point where the engine is charged is not the same as the one when   
   it's drives were first switched on. In fact, this seems worse because you're   
   traveling from even farther in the future than if you had just been able jump   
   to your destination    
   immediately.   
      
   Put it this way: Ship A has standard Fiction Drive than can accelerate to FTL   
   speeds instantly, while Ship B's drive needs to 'charge up' first. Both ships   
   are sitting at the same spacedock, preparing to make a trip to Alpha Centauri.   
   Ship B starts    
   charging for the jump, while Ship A just sits around and doesn't activate it's   
   drive until the other ship finishes charging. As a result, they both make the   
   FTL jump at the same time, and arrive at their destination at the same   
   instant. If ship A's drive    
   violates causality, why doesn't ship B's?   
      
   It's certainly an interesting concept, and could lead to some unique   
   world-building ideas. For instance, I could imagine a civilization with this   
   kind of technology setting up an FTL 'transit system' where each port has   
   multiple starships that each start    
   charging their drives an hour or so apart. Once the first wave is ready you'll   
   have ships arriving and departing on the hour, despite needing (potentially)   
   years to charge up for a jump. Of course, this would take a very long time to   
   set up and you'd    
   need a lot of ships to keep it going. (And any disruptions could take a flight   
   off the time table for generations. ie: "There hasn't been a 4:30 to Cygnus B   
   since the accident, they're still getting the replacement charged up for it's   
   first jump.")   
      
   Definitely the kind of project that lets large, enduring organizations with   
   lots of resources show off how far-sighted they are.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)