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Sep 24, 2018 · When it comes to writing science fiction, the idea of finding a way to move humans through the universe at incredible speeds is nothing new. The earliest mention of the "faster-than-light travel” (it’ll be abbreviated as FTL from this point on!) idea in science fiction was in Camille Flammarion’s “Lumen,” written in 1872.
Physics tells us nothing can go faster than light. But with wormholes — shortcuts, basically — spacecraft could enter and exit at sub-light speeds. That makes them a perfect fit for any fictional...
- Bob Al-Greene
- bob@mashable.com
- Hyperdrive. Popularized by Star Wars and used extensively in fiction, a hyperdrive enables a spaceship to travel at FTL speeds by entering another dimension known as “hyperspace.”
- Jump Drive. Image Source: Battlestar Galactica Season 2, Episode 19. Seen in such works as Battlestar Galactica, a jump drive allows for instantaneous teleportation between two points.
- Wormholes. Image Source: Stargate franchise. A wormhole, as seen in the Stargate franchise, allows for near-instantaneous travel across vast distances. Wormholes may be naturally-occurring or man-made, but are almost always temporary and serve as tunnels through spacetime.
- Slipstream. Image Source: Andromeda. The concept of slipstream can be found in such works as Star Trek, Doctor Who, and the Halo video game franchise, but there is no widely-agreed upon definition of what slipstream is or how it works beyond it being a means of FTL.
- Warp Drive
- Hyperspace
- Wormholes
- Hyper Jumps
- In Conclusion
With the exception of the two of you giggling up there at the corner on the ceiling, everybody in sci-fi is familiar with Star Trek and its warp drive through the use of ‘dilithium crystals’. Depending on which generation you belong to, the special effects vary, but the basic idea is the same. You start up your warp drive and break through the ligh...
Hyperspace is an old idea in science fiction, encouraged by the fact that it’s a real mathematical concept. Although it sounds interesting, in mathematics hyperspace simply refers to a set of dimensions beyond the normal three spatial directions (left-right, forward-backward, up-down), so we can talk about a hypersphere or a hypercube in four (or m...
Wormholes are usually described in terms of shortcuts across space by folding it. The key here is that if you take two points that are separated by, let’s say, five feet on a single very large sheet of paper, you can bring them closer together by folding or bending the sheet of paper until the two points are almost touching. So if a fast snail who ...
Another version of FTL is simply called the jump or hyper jump. Here you simply fire up your jump engine and are transferred instantaneously to somewhere else. This often includes ideas about the energy required for your jump drive going up as the mass of your ship and the distance jumped increases. This form of FTL is used in the ‘reimagined’ late...
Using FTL in science fiction isn’t really that difficult. Unless you want to make the nature of the FTL a fundamental part of your story, you simply have to make sure to use the right techno-jargon in the right way. The only exception to this is if you want to bring in the fact that FTL leads to the possibility of cause-and-effect breaking down and...
- Advanced Technology. Often, science fiction universes have technologies that are beyond what humans are capable of doing at the present, such as the iPad-like devices used in mid-nighties science fiction shows.
- AI Artificial Intelligence. These are human-created intelligent beings that live in a virtual environment such as on a computer. Hal from 2001 is iconic in this regard.
- Alien. A creature not from Earth. Or at least not from where your protagonist is from. Writing TIP: Aliens that look and act human are easy to relate to.
- Android from the Greek meaning like a human. These are artificial life forms that are constructed to resemble a human and act like one. They can be made from any material even organic material like flesh.
Jun 20, 2024 · Traveling back in time is a staple of science fiction movies. But according to Einstein, it's a physical possibility that's truly allowed.
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Oct 20, 2019 · They'll call FTL travel by different names, use varying pieces of technology to utilize it, and be totally unique in how they make it appear. For today, we're going to go over the best sci-fi methods of FTL travel. Read on if you want to find out which movies and series handled it the best.
