Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:36 am
I am shamefully preforming thread necromancy to answer Arania's question about how the damn FTL device works.
The answer, of course, is that I'm not entirely sure. In the original concept, it bypassed the light barrier by momentarily converting the ship and its contents to a light stream themselves, since light of course has no problem at travelling at said speed. This would be for a very limited duration before breaking out the other side of the barrier.
Actually, missing isn't really THAT bad. Although it is quite possible that you woul end up on the other side of the universe by a missed Jump, it would be impossible to be lost in transit forever - eventually, the Jump transit would complete a full circuit of the universe (if you don't understand how this is possible, it has to do with extra dimensions) and wind up at the other side of the system, facing in.
And there aren't any systems in FL without a stellar object (otherwise they wouldn't be systems). Some of these are obscured by gasses and so forth, but I'm choosing to interpret the difficulty of seeing the various clouded suns as artistic liscence.
About the only kind of system you couldn't Jump to is one with a black hole, and in all honesty I can't think of a situation where you'd really WANT to.
The answer, of course, is that I'm not entirely sure. In the original concept, it bypassed the light barrier by momentarily converting the ship and its contents to a light stream themselves, since light of course has no problem at travelling at said speed. This would be for a very limited duration before breaking out the other side of the barrier.
Actually, missing isn't really THAT bad. Although it is quite possible that you woul end up on the other side of the universe by a missed Jump, it would be impossible to be lost in transit forever - eventually, the Jump transit would complete a full circuit of the universe (if you don't understand how this is possible, it has to do with extra dimensions) and wind up at the other side of the system, facing in.
And there aren't any systems in FL without a stellar object (otherwise they wouldn't be systems). Some of these are obscured by gasses and so forth, but I'm choosing to interpret the difficulty of seeing the various clouded suns as artistic liscence.
About the only kind of system you couldn't Jump to is one with a black hole, and in all honesty I can't think of a situation where you'd really WANT to.