FTL

Anyone who has dipped into one of my books would be aware I do not write ‘hard’ science fiction. Which is not to say I write science fantasy—I do attempt to drop in somewhat believable technology and even explain it (after a fashion). This brings us to the question of faster than light (FTL) travel. Einsteinian physics assures us this is impossible and hard SF writers tended to work with that for a long time. Not all of them, to be sure; some ingenious workarounds were created.

I didn’t bother with much in the way of explanations in ‘Alienese.’ I simply posited a race of aliens who could jump anywhere in the universe by thinking of it. Other, not so gifted races could ‘follow’ them once they opened a way. That whole gift of teleportation is pretty much the concept around which the plot is constructed.

But I went with a ‘jump drive’ concept for my Jack Mack novels (‘Among the Many Worlds’ and ‘Jumping Jack’). This also required a certain amount of brain power, whether human or that of an advanced artificial intelligence. That latter is a fairly recent development; until recently, trained operators were necessary to ‘aim’ a jump drive.

The drive operates via an element of super-massive material, which brings with it a number of technical problems. Most notably, its gravity field—which is more or less what makes the drive work—can crumple a ship in which it is installed, if it is too large. Thus, there is an upward limit for how big jump ships can be. The mass (although they are typically a tiny filament) definitely has an effect on acceleration and deceleration. One doesn’t install a jump drive in a small fighting craft. It would make it much too slow for combat (but Jack pilots one modified so for a reconnaissance mission in ‘Among’).

Now do I get into all the ‘scientific’ explanations of how it works? Definitely not. There is an entire technology range built around ultra-massive elements in the Jack Mack books. They are essential to making just about everything work, and the mining and trading of them is a big factor in holding the many worlds together. I could see a much more insular society otherwise.

And one with less conflict. Several recent technological advances (such as the AI-controlled jump drives I mentioned) have led to the war in the first two books. In warfare, too, the peculiarities of the jump drive lead to certain tactics. For one thing, it is impossible to control where in a system one will land in a jump. A fleet is likely to be scattered throughout a system’s space, some closer to the sun, some further out, and likely enough to be on opposite sides of it. So we have small-scale raids, mostly, rather than invasions. Shipping is targeted, not planets.

It can also be mentioned that jumps become increasingly dangerous with distance, so most are from one neighboring system to another. The need to hop from system to system has its effects on military tactics. I do get into that in the books—and will undoubtedly continue to expand on jump drives and the rest of the technology in future novels. But faster than light travel is possible in them; that’s the central point from which all the rest comes.

(reposted from the older site)