this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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In sci-fi no one ever acknowledges that strapping a faster-than-light engine to an asteroid would be a very simple and effective weapon for destroying planets. I guess this is an anti-trope since it's never used, but that seems like the logical use for warp drives in sci-fi. It's an easy analogy for mutually assured destruction
Any time it's not super well explained, I just always assume FTL engines are utilizing some method of spacial distortion rather than actually accelerating an object to such speeds. Like I kind of feel like if you plot a course and there's a planet in between you and your target coordinate you'll just most likely go "through" it via kinda going around it through spacial fuckery
If we can only accelerate mass to relativistic speed by removing the effective mass. To get a Atsterorid up to C it would have to be effectively masless. To make a warp speed projectile would have to involve some crazy math so the tidal forces don't just shear it appart. Like the hyperfast low mass atoms hitting the decelerating atoms at the front of the object.
In enders game the AI would feather the FTL drives so that ships effectively stopped instantly as mass returned regular physics decelerated the object down to speeds available to regular physics. Which is a little handwavy but not actually that bad