Surprise! Tomorrow you wake up, and you get a call from your friend telling you to turn on the news. You follow his instructions, and you see that an obscure scientist has invented warp drive, and made it applicable to modern day technology. To prove that his device works, he travels with a reporter to a planet orbiting a star thousands of lightyears away, and then comes back. The technology is cheap and extremely powerful. How does this change human society? What happens next?
That would mean.....a slew of people would take the opportunity to go into that planet, lessening the world's population, which most seem to be complaining about, pillage from that planet, conquer and divide! I don't think humans actually can "change"so much but maybe through an integration with other beings from other planets (and if that's even possible!) then there are possibilities of a different kind of human society.
That depends on several factors. Intellectual property- has he patented it? If so, hes in the money, becasue he'll control interstellar travel for a few years. If not, hordes of people and corporations will be trying to replicate it. If its buildable out of easily acquired stuff, then again, loads of people and companies will be trying to build one and bug off. There would be a worldwide demand for materials for spaceships, or at least bubbles capable of holding air, with radiation sensors and windows. However, if, as is more likely, it is made using scarce material, eg anti matter and, say ruthenium, then it will be very expensive to build, and only gvts and large corporations will try to build them. Then the race will be on to find new planets to explore an take over as the new landlord, or asteroids stuffed with heavy metals. Take a look at teh american west, settled by people looking to make their fortune, and oddball groups wanting their own space, and frontiersmen who are only happy on their own, trying to live their own life even as they are dependent upon the civlisation they left behind. There will be some fightng and unexaplined dissappearances of smaller interests out in the vastness of space, although how much depends on the cost of the technology, cheap, and lots of people will go and many die, expensive, and fewer will go and turn pirate or anything else. either way, there will ultimately be a sudden exodus of humans to the stars, with the possibility of meeting/ exterminating/ causing us to be exterminated by, aliens we meet. It will also cause a massive panic in Physics departments across the planet, and spur on outsiders, from the cranks to the peopel with different but yet unproven theories. It will also encourgae a new spate of tv shows, on teh difficulties facing colonists, teh thrill of following a search party looking for new planets, etc. All in all it would give us a kick up the pants, and also lead to a great deal more confusion in the short term.
I really dont think we should be trying to attract atention at this stage of the game and a warp engine would be the biggest flare there is. The next month we have some conquistadors at the door demanding our riches and women.
The money that is being invested into space exploration would definitely increase. I do not understand why physicists would panic, how ever it would be done it is still going to follow the laws of physics (not necessarily known laws though). It would open up new frontiers to research. I think it would be the biggest innovation since the wheel. If this drive it so cheap it would definitely be utilized by the militaries of the world. Imagine firing a hyperphotonic bullet at a person (or a tank for that matter). A single bullet traveling that velocity would rip right through ANY armor. The shockwave would create a vacuum inside the tank and any people inside would be ripped throught the hole. Scary thought. Many cults and groups of people who do not agree with the norms of society (ie. hate groups) would want to create their own worlds. I would ordinarily agree with letting them do this, but at hyperphotonic velocities it would be impossible to create an "early warning detection system". What is to keep people who think we are all inferior from moving to another planet, loading their ship with nucs and putting it on autopilot back to Earth? The ship itself would do massive damage to the Earth no matter how small it was. Imagine the crater a 15 ton ship traveling faster than the speed of light would leave. I realize this should probably be in another thread , but I am just curious - would accelerating to FTL velocities have the same effect on the fabric of space that supersonic speeds have on our atmosphere? A "photonic boom"? - KitNyx
I understand that FTL travel is impossible...the question was not how, or when, or can , but what if. It is a totally hypothetical question and it was stated as such. I understand any answer to the question is pointless, but it is still interesting to think about (to me anyway). - KitNyx
Hypothetical questions are not my thing. I don't really like to waste time on things that can't be done but rather on things that could be possible.
What if you rip off a hunk of spacetime and bring it with you? Inside you have zero momentum but you can still move by pasting it to a different part of space. No speeding tickets at all. Just "poof" and your somewhere else.
cosmictraveler - That is your decision and I respect it as such. If you do not want to participate in a particular discussion, do not. Remember though, once peoples ideas of physics said that people would never be able to fly, and we found a way. I recognize that certain ideas are very unlikely ever to produce fruit (like FTL travel), but I also know that we (the human race including myself) do not have a complete understanding of the laws of the universe. Our ideas on what is possible and what is not are changing faster than we can keep up with. Perhaps one day we will find a loophole in the set laws for the universe that will enable us to transfer information at faster than than light speeds. I do not know. Maybe, maybe not. Lack of plausability does not prove impossibility. Clockwood - Have you ever read Eon by Greg Bear? The book describes a scenario very similar to the one you mentioned. - KitNyx
Hey, everyone...sorry for sounding preachy...do whatever you want. Who am I to tell you how to think or how to act...I just get caught up sometimes. - KitNyx
I don't think this would really happen because it would probably be kept a secret for as long as possible, while those in power use their advantage to gain much more of an advantage as they can. However this is not the point here, I know. Man travels to the outer edges of the universe and discovers whether 'God' exists or not.
Perhaps the first thing that would happen is a soil organism from the planet will travel back to Earth on the reporter's shoes, and infects him when he takes them off... when he dies the organism is isolated by a germ warfare laboratory and developed into a virulent killer- against which no defense is possible. An accidental epidemic wipes out the population of the Earth and the only survivors are a group of explorers using the FLT technology to explore the universe- the Earth is now no place to come home to, so they must continue to explore until they find a new home for mankind. Heh- this is fun. _________________ SF worldbuilding at http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
