Fold drive

[Guest]

The one campaign that I played in that we ended up in Phase World utilized a version of the fold drive.

It was a super-combined version of MiO, Star Wars, Dune and dash of Bucky O'Hare, so it was pure lunacy (the protagonists in the campaign were a mutant octopus and mutant muskrat).

The year was like 10000 something and the fold systems were only available on starships big enough (think flagship size) to house the drive mechanism (which we never really bother to elaborate on - I want to say it had something to do with creating a singularity). Thus, for non-light-distance travel you had much more conventional means of getting around.

Now, the reason that the two in question ended up in Phase World in the first place was that they had "stolen" (they were trying to escape a base and got on the first ship that would fly) a prototype that housed a "functional" fold-system in a much smaller version - like one that would be a medium transport or something to that effect. I say "functional" because the thing kicked them out of their home dimension and dropped them in the Phase World dimension, thus making them very confused fish-out-of-water.

They ended up selling the ship to Naruni because: 1) they were getting a bad feeling about it (I am thinking that the ship will come back to haunt us should we ever continue that campaign, sort of like in Event Horizon - our GM hates us for making him continue this lark of a campaign and thus we try to make each other miserable... It's great...), 2) they didn't have any usable currency and 3) they are not exactly what I would describe as particularly moral beings. Case in point - during one game, my player buddy (who is not what I would describe as a rule Nazi - he knows just enough to get by and has to be corrected from time to time) grabbed the book, flipped to the alignment section and quoted, "Seldom! SELDOM kills for pleasure!!" Truly some class acts...

So from our campaign Naruni has the (for them) very alien prototype of something that might not really function the way it is supposed to - but it is a fold-system of sorts.

God I miss playing in that campaign...

[glitterboy2098]

fold drives operate by tunnelling through multi-dimensional space. the old example of the peice of paper is still the best. take a sheet of paper, put dots on it, one in each corner. that is normal 3D space. each dot might be seperated by millions of miles in reality.

now crumple the paper up. the dots are now much closer, if you can leave the paper and jump the gaps. thats 4D space. the more dimensions you add, the tighter the ball gets, reducing the distance even further.

thats how fold drives work, by exploiting the natural curves of multi-dimensional space.

contra-gravity drives 'warp' space, their gravitic output altering the curves of space. imagine this like squashing or twisting the crumpled paper.

contra gravitic drives mess up the natural folds the Fold drives rely on, and the constant use of CG drives means that space is being altered as the ship jumps, which is rather like if you were to leap off a building to land in a net, only to find the net was moved away seconds after you leaped.

as a result, attempting to fold in a universe with extensive use of CG drive technology means you have a much higher chance of arriving where you didn't intend to go.

to paraphrase Schlock Mercenary, your drives are fine, the universe is broken.

[glitterboy2098]

yeah, the repression feilds were what got me on the track for the explanation i use.

a repression feild is where the fabric of the universe has permanently been distorted, and a CG drive can't create a localized distorsion capable of imparting momentum. rather like how if you stretch rubber too often, it won't return to it's orginal shape.


otherwise, it was technobabbling in what i had already defined for the drives of the 3G's to explain the connection.

[Esckey]

Its one of the Next Gen ones, believe a late episode. Second or 3rd last season perhaps

[DhAkael]

fold drives operate by tunnelling through multi-dimensional space. the old example of the peice of paper is still the best. take a sheet of paper, put dots on it, one in each corner. that is normal 3D space. each dot might be seperated by millions of miles in reality.

now crumple the paper up. the dots are now much closer, if you can leave the paper and jump the gaps. thats 4D space. the more dimensions you add, the tighter the ball gets, reducing the distance even further.

thats how fold drives work, by exploiting the natural curves of multi-dimensional space.

contra-gravity drives 'warp' space, their gravitic output altering the curves of space. imagine this like squashing or twisting the crumpled paper.

contra gravitic drives mess up the natural folds the Fold drives rely on, and the constant use of CG drives means that space is being altered as the ship jumps, which is rather like if you were to leap off a building to land in a net, only to find the net was moved away seconds after you leaped.

as a result, attempting to fold in a universe with extensive use of CG drive technology means you have a much higher chance of arriving where you didn't intend to go.

to paraphrase Schlock Mercenary, your drives are fine, the universe is broken.

Never thought of it that way...damn! I'm gettin' senile in my old age
Best answer for why d-fold drives are buggered in Tri-Gal space I've heard so far

[devillin]

Its one of the Next Gen ones, believe a late episode. Second or 3rd last season perhaps

Yeah, supposedly the overuse of high warp speeds was causing holes in space. The Federation and signatories were supposed to restrict the use of warp speeds to WF5.

[Esckey]

Which seems odd cause they tend to cruise at Warp 5.

[KLM]

Later - in the Voyager era - they used modified drives, which
do not damage subspace (or do less damage).

Adios
KLM

[Marrowlight]

What's with all of the guest posts I'm seeing - did someone get banned/delete their account or can guests actually post?

[glitterboy2098]

You certainly have that figured out!

thank you. it comes from knowing WAY too much pointless technobabble.

But still, couldn't some genius come up with some fine tuning so it actually work? Tune to the harmonics of this universe.

in theory, but you'd need sensors able to measure the multidimensional shape of the entire universe in realtime. the kind of techlevel Clarke's law would dictate 'is indistinguishable from magic.'

so for most 3G's groups, it's unlikely. prometheians, dominators, or K!zon might have it though. but they're unlikely to share.

One of the books state that it is because the anti-matter reaction become unstable when the fold process is underway, how about changing the power generator? In that case, a protoculture type engine should technically work better than a anti-matter generator, no?

didn't know about that, but it makes some sense. the properties of the anti-matter and the feilds containing it would depend on the spacetime it exists in a fold warps and then LEAVES that space time, so the properties change.
why protoculture works better than anti-matter is unknown, but IMO since the properties of protoculture energy are unique, it's not too big a leap to assume that it has a synergy effect going.

but you'd still run into the navigation problem.

[glitterboy2098]

but you'd still run into the navigation problem.

Navigation is always a problem unless one can put an all-seeing crystal ball onboard that can at least sense up to 1 light-year around the vessel in all 3 axis, while travelling FTL.

funny you should say that. i've always seen 3G's FTL as a straight line affair, with ships having to come out of FTl to change course.
the only sensor you need is a gravity sensor, so don't get ripped out by a gravity feild.

a concept borrowed heavily from Known Space, where the sensor was a spherical display depicting stars as thick lines approaching and passing the ship.

[Borast]

I personally don't think that there should be much effect to a fold drive due to the use of a Contra-Grav drive.

After all, it doesn't use gravitation - at least to my understanding. I look at it as a working in a similar manner to a traction drive - it "grab" onto space-time "here," then reaches out to "grab" space-time "there," pulls them together, then releases the hold it has on "here," and instantly appears "there."

[KLM]

I blame the Cosmic Forge for Fold Drive being erratic.

Maybe the Megaverse Builder (which I do not have)
might have clues about it?

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

I personally don't think that there should be much effect to a fold drive due to the use of a Contra-Grav drive.

After all, it doesn't use gravitation - at least to my understanding. I look at it as a working in a similar manner to a traction drive - it "grab" onto space-time "here," then reaches out to "grab" space-time "there," pulls them together, then releases the hold it has on "here," and instantly appears "there."

do you understand the idea of einstienian space warping?

Gravity in any form Distorts space. if you distort space, you create gravity.

a traction drive 'grabs' a peice of space and pulls it through the drive. to do so you end up warping space ahead of the ship, creating a gravity effect. in a sense, a traction drive always falling forward.

the 'grabbing' process warps the fabric of space, which would change the multi-dimensional shape of the universe.


the only drives that wouldn't cause space warp problem are drives like Ion, Plasma, Fusion, NERVA, ect. drives that rely on chemical reactions or the expelling of reaction mass.

"inertialess" drives that don't require reaction mass ALWAYS rely on the alteration of the fabric of space, and would mess up a fold drive.


a contra-grav drive uses gravity. it uses reverse gravity. it warps space opposet the effect of normal gravity.

if you imagine space a sheet of rubber, gravity pulls it down, creating a funnel. anti-gravity or contra-gravity would push it UP, creating a hill.

so a contra-grav drive is actually the opposet of a traction drive, always 'falling down' a gravitic 'hill' behind it.

[glitterboy2098]

it does. to quote a wise old sage "you'll find many truths you cling to depend greatly on your point of veiw."

a fold drive removes you from one point in the univserse, and deposites you in another. to do so it travels outside the universe in a way. since one cannot travel through a true nothingness, it has to be moving through another dimension.


remember though, 'dimension' in this case has two definitions. the first is the 'alternate reality' idea, the second is an area of measuremnt like length/width/height.

both apply to fold drives. it has multiple dimensions in the measurment sense, (length/width/height/?/?/?...ect.), and as such qualifies as another reality for use 3D beings.

[KLM]

a fold drive removes you from one point in the univserse, and deposites you in another. to do so it travels outside the universe in a way. since one cannot travel through a true nothingness, it has to be moving through another dimension.

Except if it folds space, like a sheet of paper, and the ship, like a
spider clinging to the sheet, climbs/crawls from point A to point B,
(before folding the sheet, those were a bit away from each other),
and at a time, the spider has four legs holding to point A and four legs
to point B...

So, maybe a starship using fold drive appears to exist for a short while
in two positions simultaneously.

Or maybe not.

Adios
KLM