Senses as Superluminal Speeds

[Naanomi]

What kind of sense would a character need to navigate while using FTL travel? Sight wouldn't work, since you move faster than the light you'd use to see... and space doesn't have a lot of light anyways.

 

It would have to be very very rapid and have a huge amount of Megascale to be of any use... no good sensing stuff as you fly into it!

 

Thoughts?

[Nevenall]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

I bet there's something in the Ultimate Speedster about this I'll look later.

Honestly though, unless this is a hard science fiction campaign, I wouldn't worry about it much.

Maybe just by Navigation for FTL and call it good.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

To actually work faster than light, it would require some kind of sense based on either tachyons or quantum entanglement. Those are the only ways that any information can be transmitted faster than light. (In the real world, physicists are divided on whether tachyons actually exist, and don't really believe that quantum entanglement can be harnessed in any useful manner. But for purposes of a story, you don't have to stick too closely to what's realistic.)

 

Perhaps more convenient is to declare that the character actually slips into a parallel universe that interacts with ours on certain levels, but where either time goes by much more slowly or light moves much more quickly (or, most likely, both).

[prestidigitator]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

We can't presume to know how light would function for us if we moved faster than the speed of light because moving at such speeds is impossible according to the current models of how light and matter work. So I wouldn't be so quick to say sight wouldn't function. If you wanted to be hard science enough for that assumption, you'd have to work pretty hard to justify moving faster than the speed of light in the first place.

 

As for more gamey considerations, I'd probably give most ships some MegaScale (or a lot of Telescopic) on their Senses (sensors). That and/or a little Rapid should do the trick. At the speed of light in our solar system, you'd have a couple minutes between major obstacles (assuming you wouldn't try weaving between moons and asteroids at FTL speeds, and would instead attempt to avoid solid bodies). The faster you went, the larger the set of obstacles it would seem logical to stay away from, of course.

 

If you really wanted to do the work, you could figure out how long it would take the ship to travel the distance at which it could perceive a significant-sized obstacle with zero range+size penalty. If that's less than a Phase, increase the Sense's Telescopic modifier or MegaScale. Remember that FTL Travel has, at the very best, a very crappy Turn Mode, so sticking Rapid in there and hoping to be able to maneuver at smaller time units than a few Phases is probably not a good idea. Instead, maybe add in a second mode of movement for maneuvering in "tight spaces".

[torchwolf]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Interesting questions - if you are looking for rationales, the tachyon and/or quantum mechanics are probably good candidates. Some kind of mass detection principle might be useful, but would probably have to be combined with either of those.

The rationales for FTL travel, FTL sensors and FTL weaponry/targeting impact on each other; if FTL sensing is possible using, say, tachyon-based radar, then any missiles need to have those sensory packages installed as well as their own FTL unit, but any beam weapons would also have to be tachyon-based - assuming FTL combat can take place at all.

 

In case of mechanics, I agree with the above posters, plus you could also consider a Mega-scaled Clairsentience sense that has range enough to let you detect objects in the distance in sufficient time to react.

 

In any case, whether you build it with Enhanced Senses or Clairsentience, you might want to consider the implications on "travel safety". If you have only a Turn or less to react when you get sensory input, FTL travel will be considered to be risky in general; if you get info at least several minutes or more ahead, FTL travel will seem to be no more risky than oceanic travel.

[ideasmith]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

I would be running superhero genre. Such characters as the Flash and Silver Surfer see fine at FTL speeds. I would rule that you see fine at FTL unless a Limitation or Disad says otherwise.

[Naanomi]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Active Tachyon 'Sonar' is what I was thinking... or some sort of 'Fine Gravity Detection'

 

Or I guess I could go the Dune route and have... precognitive danger sense or something.

[JmOz]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

I would be running superhero genre. Such characters as the Flash and Silver Surfer see fine at FTL speeds. I would rule that you see fine at FTL unless a Limitation or Disad says otherwise.

 

Actualy flash becomes color blind when he runs approaching the speed of light, and a EDM power kicks in when he goes faster (I am a geek)

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

While it wasn't my favorite movie, or even example of the genre, I rather like the Star Wars approach: pick a clear course before you head out and hope for the best. You know-- something about bouncing into a sun or something like that.

[torchwolf]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Active Tachyon 'Sonar' is what I was thinking... or some sort of 'Fine Gravity Detection'

Or I guess I could go the Dune route and have... precognitive danger sense or something.

There was a recent Star Hero thread about building an "otherspace" hyperspace, that touched on this (the Dune route), where we also talked some about Larry Niven's idea of psionic starship piloting (which goes along the same lines).

[Naanomi]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

While it wasn't my favorite movie' date=' or even example of the genre, I rather like the Star Wars approach: pick a clear course before you head out and hope for the best. You know-- something about bouncing into a sun or something like that.[/quote']

 

The character in question is a FTL traveling species that kind of roams the galaxy Space Nomad style. Preplanned paths and clear courses are not exactly what I was looking for. In some settings, FTL Navigation is the order of the day for this sort of thing.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

....there is no necessary connection between Sight (the power) and its effects and limitations and sight (the real world ability) and physics.

 

So, Sight, with some Lims and Adders would work IMO.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

You're right, of course. Shortly after posting that, I was realized it was totally inappropriate to the question (unless you're trying to keep the population very low) and I wanted to edit it out and offer something better, but unfortunately, I couldn't find it again

 

I have two possible suggestions, but I'm not sure either of them would work.

 

First off, there's the rubber science route: building off the theoretical model that birds can sense magnetism in the earth (to be clear, it's not my theory; it's just something I stumbled across in a documentary on migration), could your characters have some sort of "special sense" that enables them to detect some sort of "hardwired" grid-system laid over the universe? Riding Ley lines of something similar?

 

Then there's the semi-mystical route: every mote and particle gives off some kind of "life signature" that weaves a glorious tapestry of indescribable color and perfect sound yadda-yadda-.... That is to say that stars and planets and other hazards do not just reflect light, but give off a marked "I am here, and this is me, and there is no other like me in all the known universe" signature that becomes perceivable (to those able to detect it) when one crosses the magical C-threshold. Something beyond light and sound, that connects to the soul (or the pons, or the thalamus, or whatever works best for you). Perhaps minor or "dead" obstacles such as debris or ships can be "sensed by omission" as they block input from whatever is behind them.

 

I had a third suggestion, but I'm not sure how to express it, but let's generalize it this way and hope I can sort of get the point across:

 

You are currently perceiving reflected light and bounced or emitted sounds and the touch of whatever you bump into (going further into minutia, we end up with "all sense are touch," but that's going a bit beyond the game, I suppose).

 

Here's the thing:

 

Light, sound, etc-- are all composed of physical matter on some level. Thus, they cannot be made to actually "disappear." Certainly you can travel faster than they can (in a fictional setting, I mean). The light of the sun that we see now left what? Thirteen minutes ago, something like that? The light we see of stars far away left them hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago.

 

Yet it continues to exist in the space between its source and the point at which it is too broken up to continue to hold a waveform.

 

The idea here is simply that even as you head toward superluminal, you are still interacting with that light / radio signal. Perhaps your eyes can see it. The only reason that we expect to be blind at such a speed is because some math says so. Until we manage to actually _do_ it, we'll never know for sure that we can or can't. Certainly the light is still there to _be_ seen.

 

Now certainly super-C speeds are going to require some rubber science, but let's say you want to stop short of the superballs of that last suggestion and stay in somewhere between "comfy matress" and "Nerf."

 

Now as noted, the light (and what-have-you) is still there. You're characters are passing through it. Consider a touch-based analytical, discriminatory sense:

 

You can tell roughly how far away a sound is when you hear it. You can tell (roughly) how hard the wind is blowing when you feel it. Perhaps this race of creatures can do the same with starlight and radio waves and what-have-you. They feel it against their skin / bones / psyche / special receptor neurons for this purpose as they move through it, and can infer from the heat / color / pressure / ticklishness of the sensation how far away it is, how fast it (or they themselves) is moving, what's over to the left, etc.

 

Certainly, this model can be shot down with "but the star might not be there anymore" or "they might hit something relatively new that hadn't been around long enough to reflect to their starting point," but to that I offer this:

 

It's really no more than a street sign or a distant building coming into view, then into focus. When you leave Chicago, you can't see the sign for Ten Mile in Detroit. You can't even see Detroit! But as you get closer, new things come into view, then into focus, etc.

 

Same thing with a "new sun" or a new whatever else. Unless it got here within the past few minutes, it will have been reflecting / broadcasting / blocking something long enough to become visible as the character approaches. Certainly there is the chance for _something_ to just "pop up," maybe a starship falls out of hyperspace or something, but that's rather analogous to driving. For every ten million commuter miles driven without incident, one guy gets blindsided when a deer leaps onto the road in front of him.

 

Any of these work for you?

[prestidigitator]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Touching ( ) on a slightly related topic, do you think we should by default make the Hearing Group no-range like the Touch Group (or maybe even inherently Linked to Touch) in space for most campaigns? Heh heh.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

technically, all senses are touch. Obviously that doesn't do us a lot of good game-flavor-wise, so let's not mess too much with "commonly accepted definitions."

 

What I was thinking was a special "perceive at Super-C" sense that was either

 

1) built as a touch-based sense (accurate, but disturbingly expensive when you factor in the amount of range and probably mega-scaling)

 

or

 

2) bought as a special sense, period: "superluminal navigation" or something, with the SFX defined as the ability to interpret the various forms of radiation that the character was passing through.

 

Either or.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

ARGH!

 

I just got what you were asking! :rofl:

 

And yes: if you're outside an atmosphere, you're only going to "hear" through direct conduction of something solid, so.....

 

[EDIT] But I think this should really only apply per-situation, as opposed to an over-all "this is how hearing works" type of thing.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

I had a third suggestion, but I'm not sure how to express it, but let's generalize it this way and hope I can sort of get the point across:

 

You are currently perceiving reflected light and bounced or emitted sounds and the touch of whatever you bump into (going further into minutia, we end up with "all sense are touch," but that's going a bit beyond the game, I suppose).

 

Here's the thing:

 

Light, sound, etc-- are all composed of physical matter on some level. Thus, they cannot be made to actually "disappear." Certainly you can travel faster than they can (in a fictional setting, I mean). The light of the sun that we see now left what? Thirteen minutes ago, something like that? The light we see of stars far away left them hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago.

 

Yet it continues to exist in the space between its source and the point at which it is too broken up to continue to hold a waveform.

 

The idea here is simply that even as you head toward superluminal, you are still interacting with that light / radio signal. Perhaps your eyes can see it. The only reason that we expect to be blind at such a speed is because some math says so. Until we manage to actually _do_ it, we'll never know for sure that we can or can't. Certainly the light is still there to _be_ seen.

 

Now certainly super-C speeds are going to require some rubber science, but let's say you want to stop short of the superballs of that last suggestion and stay in somewhere between "comfy matress" and "Nerf."

 

Now as noted, the light (and what-have-you) is still there. You're characters are passing through it. Consider a touch-based analytical, discriminatory sense:

 

You can tell roughly how far away a sound is when you hear it. You can tell (roughly) how hard the wind is blowing when you feel it. Perhaps this race of creatures can do the same with starlight and radio waves and what-have-you. They feel it against their skin / bones / psyche / special receptor neurons for this purpose as they move through it, and can infer from the heat / color / pressure / ticklishness of the sensation how far away it is, how fast it (or they themselves) is moving, what's over to the left, etc.

 

Certainly, this model can be shot down with "but the star might not be there anymore" or "they might hit something relatively new that hadn't been around long enough to reflect to their starting point," but to that I offer this:

 

It's really no more than a street sign or a distant building coming into view, then into focus. When you leave Chicago, you can't see the sign for Ten Mile in Detroit. You can't even see Detroit! But as you get closer, new things come into view, then into focus, etc.

 

Same thing with a "new sun" or a new whatever else. Unless it got here within the past few minutes, it will have been reflecting / broadcasting / blocking something long enough to become visible as the character approaches. Certainly there is the chance for _something_ to just "pop up," maybe a starship falls out of hyperspace or something, but that's rather analogous to driving. For every ten million commuter miles driven without incident, one guy gets blindsided when a deer leaps onto the road in front of him.

 

Any of these work for you?

I like this. Almost like some kind of cosmic, passive sonar using light/radio waves instead of sound and basing it on Touch instead of Hearing or some such.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Thanks. It was my personal favorite as well (it's the way that starships work in my own campaign), but I wasn't really sure what it was that the original poster was looking for in terms of "feel."

[Sean Waters]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

I would sidestep the issue completely: if I had a GM who was likely to make me explode every time I turned on my FTL, in space mind you, I'd take an advantage on FTL equivalent to 'safe blind teleport', and assume the reason I arrived OK was because whatever mechanism I use to FTL travel has safeties (possibly senses useable for that purpose only) built in.

 

Mind you most GMs are not going to make you hit stuff except if it is really importantt o the plot.

 

Of more 'interest' is that you are (say) flying from Earth to Pluto, at FTL and, but something interesting is happening on Jupiter: can you spot that as you go past? Personally I doubt it anyway. Space is big. Huge. Even if you were doddering past at 30mph you probably wouldn't spot something happening on Jupiter.

 

Another option, if you seek some sort of realism, is to buy FTL with a Requires roll (astrogation) and side effects (Side effects being you stop somewhere unexpected and possibly also take damage).

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Agreed. I was under the (possibly completely wrong) impression that the original poster was looking for a SFX or "explanation" of just how the "light speed driving sense" might actually work-- you know: the rubber science of it all.

[Naanomi]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

I was looking for both actually... some rubber science to hand wave it all away, and how to actually build such a sense if you felt you needed it for some reason.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

I see.

 

Well the first two I suggested I believe had build ideas with them.

 

The third one is essentially Sonar, based on touch, megascaled (to accomodate for tremendous speeds, You could alternatively follow the model of FTL in the older editions:

 

rather than megascaling, you simply declare that "this is the scale at which this works; it doesn't work at "normal" speeds, and essentially not have to buy the additional megascale).

 

If you want to get specific, consider adding Discriminatory or other appropriate advantages.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Note also that FTL Travel is NOT FTL Flight: it does not specify whether you actually pass through the intervening space: the way you go there might not be ANYTHING in the way, even if 'actual' space between you and your destination is littered with planets ans such. You might make a quantum hole in reality here and emerge from it there, and you have only travelled your own length in doing so.

[Naanomi]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Note also that FTL Travel is NOT FTL Flight

 

Very true, and if you are, some defenses against the terribly dangerous space dust and gasses might be in order as well FTL travel takes things so far out of the scale of the rest of the game, even mega-scaled up, that it is hard to compensate for with the rest of the system.

 

The main time I could ever see it even being an issue is when two FTL things (ships, superheros, whatever) are trying to interact while going comparable, still FTL speeds. If ship A took off 1 turn before you, they could be 1000 light years away before you get an action to start following them... makes a pursuit hard without specialized senses. Though, typing that out makes me think that 'tracking' on whatever space sense you use would help that situation greatly.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

The main time I could ever see it even being an issue is when two FTL things (ships' date=' superheros, whatever) are trying to interact while going comparable, still FTL speeds. If ship A took off 1 turn before you, they could be 1000 light years away before you get an action to start following them... makes a pursuit hard without specialized senses. Though, typing that out makes me think that 'tracking' on whatever space sense you use would help that situation greatly.[/quote']

 

Depends. Some versions might have to do with traveling through alternate dimensions/universes/whatever. Like Heinlein's N-dimensional travel. In that case interaction might very well be possible. Star Trek seems to ignore the implausibility of interaction at warp speeds as well, so it's probably not that big of a stretch in cinematic play.