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Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**Well, I don't see any justification that hyper-anything (speed, space, gates, etc.) is possible. Although it does make for good SF, how would it happen? Can we really go over 300 million meters per second? If we could manipulate time, we could theoretically tesser to other places...but we can't manipulate time. It is somethingwe have essentially created, and if you really think about it, you start wondering about it. Does it actually exist? Or is it just in our imaginations, a tool to make life easier?
But then, we live in a three-dimensional world, and don't really understand time, the "fourth dimension". It's too much to get your head around, really.
**
Actually, there are good theoretical models for manipulating time. Get 3 massive neutron stars, line them up, spin them at a high fraction of the speed of light and you should be able to form a closed loop of time round them. All to do with knocking over light cones. There are a few others. Some require different universes, however.
Don't make assumptions about the human race's understanding of physics. There are a few physicists hanging around here, so ask them questions instead. We'd be happy to help :^)
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- Shields (realisticly, these aren't too likely)
Actually, shields could be built using magnetic fields, or possibly by manipulating gravity. Deflecting charged particles is easy in terms of concept. Gravity could deflect anything, at a strong enough level. Alternatively, you could have a magnetic bubble around your ship, with an outer envelope of plasma which you use to disrupt/incinerate incoming fire.
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- Little blast weapons (in reality, these would probably be considered unfeasible in favor of steady streams, i.e. beams)
In a sense, steady beams are in fact blast weapons due to the dual wave/particle nature of everything :^) If you're not using light, then you're going to end with little blasts anyway and plenty of things are suited to that. Charged particles of various varieties, accelerated to high speed or excited to high temperature, would do a good job.
On a very practical side, in terms of providing power to weapons, ammo usage, stress on components, etc. small blasts rather than sustained beams are quite appealing. On a related note, lasers are horrendously inefficient. We're talking single figure percentage when you go from electrical power in to laser power out. It's also a lot easier to get higher damage from other weapon types at the moment. Could well be true in the future. Where lasers would excel is PD work and targeting specific ship systems once defences are down. Blinding sensors for instance.
You also get big problems using beams at long range due to diffraction. The beam spreads out and loses focus. There are physical limits on how much you can do to fix this, depending on the size of your firing aperture, due to quantum mechanics. The bigger the aperture, the less spreading you'll get, but the less concentration you'll be starting off with.
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