Senses as Superluminal Speeds

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

To clarify:

 

I wasn't suggesting FTL as part of the build:

 

I was using it as an example of something that works on an extremely large scale but remains relatively inexpensive because it is designed with the idea of _only_ working at that scale.

 

That is to say that "smallest unit" of FTL is really, really big.

 

You might consider something along those lines with the "space travel sonar" bit:

 

Simply build something akin to sonar, but it _only_ works on the cosmic scale. A bit of handwaving in the eyes of some, I'm certain, but FTL itself shows that such a thing is not without precedent.

[casualplayer]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Depending on the character I would define the sense differently. Captain Marvel, with his Cosmic Awareness, just "knows." Silver Surfer probably senses the distensions in space that mass creates and surfs the event horizon. Gladiator has belief-driven abilities and just plows on through because he thinks he would notice anything worth noticing.

 

We tend to use analogies to the senses that we are familiar with but when you get into off-the-chart speeds optometry no longer applies. Do you grok what I'm getting at?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

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.

 

Tracking sounds good to me in that situation.

 

Another option, for the situation where 'hyperspace' is a seperate dimension a la B5, where you can interact with others there but also travel huge 'real world' distances is buy EDM instead of FTL. You interact normally in hyperspace and move normally but that movement has a huge 'real world' distance effect.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

We tend to use analogies to the senses that we are familiar with but when you get into off-the-chart speeds optometry no longer applies. Do you grok what I'm getting at?

 

LOL. I'd rep for the additional Heinlein reference, but apparently I can't quite yet.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

One way to do this, mechanically, is to say that ships travelling at FTL are in "hyperspace" or "warp space" and simply buy their senses with "transdimensional"(hyperspace to real space/real space to hyperspace)--that would enable them to detect objects in real space and to detect objects moving at FTL speeds. For long distance FTL scans, I'm guessing Clairsentience, with or without megascaling, would be most appropriate.

 

You probably want some combo of the generic EM spectrum senses (radar, radio, IR, UV, visible spectrum, maybe x-ray), plus a fairly broad detect(life, energy, matter, gravity), with discriminatory and analyze. Then you could take these with megascaling, or else use them through a megascaled Clairsentience.

 

Sfx could include tachyons, quantum entanglement, tiny micro-probes sent out at FTL velocities, psionic "far seeing", etc.

[dmjalund]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

detecting photons is not that difficult going FTL (compered to going FTL in the first place).

You however may have some difficulty telling the photons of things in front of you from those that have been emitted from the items behind you - as you overtake them.

 

everything you see would seem to be coming from ahead

[SteveZilla]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

detecting photons is not that difficult going FTL (compered to going FTL in the first place).

You however may have some difficulty telling the photons of things in front of you from those that have been emitted from the items behind you - as you overtake them.

 

everything you see would seem to be coming from ahead

 

But you could tell apart the things behind you from the things in front of you by the redshift/blueshift on the photons.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Yes, but only retroactively. Moreover because you'd already have overtaken the photons at the time of perception they would appear to be both ahead of you AND behind you.

 

Purple shift?

 

Of course there is also the problem of getting impulses through your nervous system fast enough: you'd need superluminal nerves too

[Jagged]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

I thought the problem was if you travelled towards a source of light at the speed-of-light the light still reached you at the speed-of-light not twice the speed-of-light?

 

Although I suppose if you are travelling FTL then all bets are off? I wonder if the bookies know?

[SteveZilla]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Yes, but only retroactively. Moreover because you'd already have overtaken the photons at the time of perception they would appear to be both ahead of you AND behind you.

 

Purple shift?

 

Of course there is also the problem of getting impulses through your nervous system fast enough: you'd need superluminal nerves too

 

Quantum Tunneling nerves!

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds

 

Quantum Tunneling nerves!

Either that, or quantum entanglement.