The Mass effect

[SiuiS]

Hi folks!

Long story short, game series allows for FTL travel by reducing the mass of an object, making it easier to accelerate towards and beyond light speed.

But... Just doing the numbers in my head, and based on being told that light speed woul require infinite energy to achieve as the energy requirements escalate far faster than the gain from putting in said energy... A dreadnought weighing kilotons would require infinite energy to hit light speed. Reducing that dreadnaught's mass to that of a grain of sand would still require infinite energy.

Am I missing something? There's more to this than just the mass, as even removing the fuel weight issue you have to be at full bore for who knows how long to get there.

[Caesar]

The only point you are missing is that it is a video game which merely wants to drape itself in the semblance of reasonable suspension of disbelief regarding physics.

Accelerating any amount of mass to c, regardless of how miniscule, requires infinite energy. Just big things will hit the wall much faster.

Point in case: We can easily accelerate electrons to highly relativistic speeds (but not c), while heavy ions require much more power input to achieve lower energies. Both end up going really, really, really fast tho. See CERN for more details.

[SiuiS]

They did a pretty good job though, which is why I'm scratching about the hat. I'm missing something I saw earlier.

Would a negative mass Resuce the energy requirement to a finite amount?

And why is the speed of light c? The letter choice always struck me as weird.

[Gitman00]

And why is the speed of light c? The letter choice always struck me as weird.

You might as well ask why the ratio between the diamater and circumference of a circle is π. It's just an arbitrary symbol.

[Eldan]

Two possible reasons are usually given.

One is that in some 19th century works on physics an unknown constant "c" was used, which was discovered to show up in several formulas and always had a similar value. It was later discovered to be the speed of light.

The other possible explanation is that it comes from the Latin celeritas, speed.

Edit: I had to google this one, but apparently the Greek letter Pi is because it's the first letter of hte word περίμετρος, perimetros, perimeter.

So, these letters were usually chosen for a reason.

[LaZodiac]

Well the way it works is that the Mass Effect, the way it works, just over rides those problems. It works because it does.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

It's all handwaved, by never explaining exactly what Element 0 does. The whole point of it is "somehow, we can't be bothered to figure out the specifics, this element changes the laws of physics as we understand them".

Scifi almost never manages to have a satisfactory explanation for space-travel for me, so it's better if they roughly handwave it.

[Eldan]

Well, apparently, it also creates localized gravity, or whatever they choose to explain psychic powers with.

[SiuiS]

Celeritas, Hm? I figured it was from a word, I just couldn't figure out how C worked for light. Didn't consider speed.


And while the How of how eezo causes the mass effect wasn't explained, the effect itself was; a current passing through it can either increase or decrease mass in an area based on the strength of the current. That's not too bad as scifi goes. It's a fun explanation for a single change, namely "the speed of light is unimpeachable".

The formula for light speed as I recall is parabolic in output, in that any theoretical body above c will have just a hard a time decelerating to c as an sub-c body would have accelerating. Physicists seem to accept this. So one would think the math could be extrapolated and considered valid, which is why I was asking about negative mass. Although I guess non-existent mass might be sufficient? Ah well. I'll probably end up wiki-walking to get the formulas to run myself, if I can.


Well, apparently, it also creates localized gravity, or whatever they choose to explain psychic powers with.

The creation of motive impulse has always been Space Majicks, admittedly.

[Eldan]

How would that change the speed of light, though? Even an incredibly small mass can't be accelerated to c without infinite energy. Just closer to it.

It would have to reduce mass to 0. Which causes all kinds of problem on its own. Conservation of energy, for one? Where does the mass go?

And yes, c is not just light speed. It's the speed of waves in general, as far as I remember.

[Traab]

It's all handwaved, by never explaining exactly what Element 0 does. The whole point of it is "somehow, we can't be bothered to figure out the specifics, this element changes the laws of physics as we understand them".

Scifi almost never manages to have a satisfactory explanation for space-travel for me, so it's better if they roughly handwave it.

Thats because if they could come up with a satisfactory explanation for ftl or other interstellar travel, they wouldnt be sci fi writers, they would be world famous nobel prize winning jillionaires for having solved the greatest hurdle to space travel ever known. Any sci fi explanation will require either phlebotinum, or at best fridge logic level pseudo science like "the mass effect" stuff that sounds good on the surface, but anyone with actual knowledge in the field would eye roll at it instantly, and everyone else will only buy it as long as they dont think about it.


It would have to reduce mass to 0. Which causes all kinds of problem on its own. Conservation of energy, for one? Where does the mass go?

The reduction in mass is transferred into energy which is used to propel the ship ftl. Duh. :smalltongue:

[Liffguard]

Eh, it's not worth looking too deeply into it. All scifi FTL basically translates to "because it does, damnit!" That said, they handwave the infinite energy problem by saying that element zero can reduce an object's mass to negative mass, which is at least a real theoretical physics concept though I'm sure it doesn't work as presented.

[NerdyKris]

They did a pretty good job though, which is why I'm scratching about the hat. I'm missing something I saw earlier.

Would a negative mass Resuce the energy requirement to a finite amount?

And why is the speed of light c? The letter choice always struck me as weird.

It does induce a negative mass. That's the explanation given in the first game. The effects of running a current over Element 0 creates a field that reduces mass to a negative number, allowing it to achieve greater than light speeds, although still with a practical limit. The Reapers use a different method to go even faster, and the Mass Relays use an advanced method that can't be duplicated.

But as it was pointed out, you just have to accept that. (And that it gives people telekinetic powers) It's just the device the series uses to allow for interstellar travel. It's not meant to be an actual description of how to achieve FTL speeds. It's not like we can even argue for or against it, since the concept of "negative mass" has no basis in our current understanding of physics. Apparently, yes it does That's why the series considers it a turning point in the advancement of any civilization that discovers it.

On a side note, there's some biology stuff that doesn't make sense in the series as well. My girlfriend who was a biology major and going through veterinary school was ranting about the codex entries for Asari and Salarians having nonsense in them. You have to accept that there will be mistakes. The story is about the characters, not the science.

[shawnhcorey]

Would a negative mass Resuce the energy requirement to a finite amount?

No, quanta with negative mass would be repelled by quanta with positive mass but still must travel slower than light.

And quanta with imaginary mass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon) would always travel faster than light.

[SiuiS]

The number of people who seem to think I believe that we can achieve faster than light tracks is both hilarious and appalling. All I asked was whether any amount of mass would require infinite energy for light speed, and what negative mass would theoretically accomplish.

And the reason I ask this is because... Without the actual equation, negative mass doesn't seem helpful. It just means you'd need negative energy to achieve light speed, which means you slow down to speed up? That's silly.

Mass 0 seems to be the theoretical sweet spot, as it then requires functionally no energy to get to light speed. But that's weird, too.

And the element zero stuff can also increase mass, so it's not cut and dried to assume it always induces a negative mass state. But that's probably best left for the mass effect thread proper; I posted this here because this is the area for physics and such.


No, quanta with negative mass would be repelled by quanta with positive mass but still must travel slower than light.

And quanta with imaginary mass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon) would always travel faster than light.

Sweet! Thanks for the link.

[shawnhcorey]

Mass 0 seems to be the theoretical sweet spot, as it then requires functionally no energy to get to light speed. But that's weird, too.

A quantum with no mass must travel at the speed of light, no faster, no slower. It requires no energy to do so because travelling at the speed of light is a property of the quantum.


And the element zero stuff can also increase mass, so it's not cut and dried to assume it always induces a negative mass state. But that's probably best left for the mass effect thread proper; I posted this here because this is the area for physics and such.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

[Flickerdart]

Where does the mass go?
Eezo-powered bags of holding.

[Caesar]

A quantum with no mass must travel at the speed of light, no faster, no slower. It requires no energy to do so because travelling at the speed of light is a property of the quantum.


It gets even weirder than that if you put things into the perspective of the photons. Because time stops completely at c, the entire path of the light beam occurs simultaneously. As far as the photon is concerned, it only exists at one point and all of space-time is wrapped around this point. Talk about being the center of the universe! (Disclaimer: special relativity doesn't actually provide a description for this reference frame, as it is mathematically undefined just like a mass singularity inside the event horizon of a black hole.)

[Bryn]

Some spacetime metrics in general relativity, like the Alcubierre metric (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive) and some sorts of wormhole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole), permit effective faster-than-light travel, but all the metrics we've found which do this require negative energy density somewhere (ie negative mass) when you put them through Einstein's field equations. However, even if there's such a thing as negative mass, there are a lot of problems that mean they're not really plausible; additionally, as far as I understand it, FTL travel still introduces all sorts of iffy causality problems. Then again, so does general relativity itself to some extent (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#GenRelGTR)...

[shawnhcorey]

Sorry but wormholes do not allow for faster-than-light travel. A wormhole is a shortcut; the distance thru it is shorter than the distance around. But you still must travel slower than light thru it.

[noparlpf]

Basically, it's soft sci-fi/pseudoscience. They figure if they throw around a few big words and say SCIENCE at the end, people will buy it.

Then there's the other type of pseudoscience, where they explicitly state that physics works differently, but don't satisfactorily explain how. I need to get over it, but I really want them to include at least a basic physics textbook with their work explaining exactly how physics is different in their universe. Unfortunately, not many authors have doctorates in physics and could work out an alternate system.

[Bryn]

Sorry but wormholes do not allow for faster-than-light travel. A wormhole is a shortcut; the distance thru it is shorter than the distance around. But you still must travel slower than light thru it.
Indeed, and if you're inside an Alcubierre bubble, you are locally travelling slower than light. This is why I said 'effective' faster than light travel in both cases: you can travel between points connected by a wormhole through the wormhole faster than light travels outside a wormhole, but slower than light travelling through the wormhole. (I'm not really sure what happens to a light ray inside the alcubierre metric. Hopefully it won't be hard to find a lightlike geodesic here...)

[shawnhcorey]

Indeed, and if you're inside an Alcubierre bubble, you are locally travelling slower than light. This is why I said 'effective' faster than light travel in both cases: you can travel between points connected by a wormhole through the wormhole faster than light travels outside a wormhole, but slower than light travelling through the wormhole. (I'm not really sure what happens to a light ray inside the alcubierre metric. Hopefully it won't be hard to find a lightlike geodesic here...)

What I find strange is that people always assume that the distance thru a wormhole is shorter. There is no guarantee of that.

[Eldan]

I suppose that if there were multiple wormholes that could actually be reliably explored, people would simply discard the useless ones that offer no advantage.

[Kindablue]

What I find strange is that people always assume that the distance thru a wormhole is shorter. There is no guarantee of that.

Those detours through the razorwire filled S&M dimensions are hell. I mean, literally. They're hell.

[kurokotetsu]

Well, my thought os ME (apart from being a, "yeah, technobabble" explanation) wouldn't give FTL, but something very interesting non-the less, constant acceleration without energy or momentum change.

If negative mass is considered to be negative on all accounts (inertial and gravitational, as it seems to be with normal mass) then the force between a positive and negative masses (of the same scalar value) would do some interesting stuff. While the gravitational force would be repulsive between them, the negative mass would move towards the positive mass under a repulsive force (because inertial mass is also reverted, see the momentum of each particle). Also, if both masses are accelerating the same and had the same relative speed in the beginning, the momentum of the whole system would be unchanged, even with that constant acceleration of both particles independently. Also no energy would have to be applied to the system to get that acceleration. It is "free". A fascinating idea, that would indeed be a turning point in a lot of things, but it would not grant FTL (the system would keep accelerating but it would take forever to achieve c, let alone surpass it).

And yes, the Laplace Transform of mass shows us that is "imaginary" mass which may travel FTL, not negative or any other real value of mass. And 0 mass particles can't be "stopped", they must travel at c, while the transforms don't work on objects travelling at that light (so we don't know if there is "time dilatation" or anything, because the system can always be reversed, so for a particle travelling at c it is like if every one else is travelling at that speed, breaking relativity). Also there are a lot of problems with FTL with our current understanding (causality being one).


What I find strange is that people always assume that the distance thru a wormhole is shorter. There is no guarantee of that.The idea would be to "create" the wormhole so assure that the distance is smaller.

I really want to see if Alcubierre is giving the course this year. Maybe I can talk to him about his idea.

[Gitman00]

Edit: I had to google this one, but apparently the Greek letter Pi is because it's the first letter of hte word περίμετρος, perimetros, perimeter.

Huh. Learn something new every day.

[The Succubus]

Those detours through the razorwire filled S&M dimensions are hell. I mean, literally. They're hell.

Liberate tutemet ex infernis....

[Mewtarthio]

Did they ever explicitly say that eezo gets you to superliminal speeds by just decreasing the mass of the ship? I figured it just screwed around with gravity to create an Alcubierre drive or something like that.

[Kindablue]

Liberate tutemet ex infernis....

My Latin's terrible—that means "come closer," right?

[lunar2]

question. light does not always travel at 186,000 miles per second. it always travels at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. however, certain very dense materials can slow light down considerably, and particles with mass can sometimes move faster than light through those materials.

now, the actual question. what happens if light travels through an area of space with negative density? does light speed up? and if light can travel at greater than 186,000 miles per second in that area, couldn't particles with mass do so, as well, as long as they are still going slower than the light in that area?

we see that the mass relays create a bubble of some sort around the ships they are accelerating. maybe they are creating an area of extreme negative density.

[shawnhcorey]

question. light does not always travel at 186,000 miles per second. it always travels at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. however, certain very dense materials can slow light down considerably, and particles with mass can sometimes move faster than light through those materials.

now, the actual question. what happens if light travels through an area of space with negative density? does light speed up? and if light can travel at greater than 186,000 miles per second in that area, couldn't particles with mass do so, as well, as long as they are still going slower than the light in that area?

we see that the mass relays create a bubble of some sort around the ships they are accelerating. maybe they are creating an area of extreme negative density.

Yes, that's the warp theory. By reducing the energy of space that surrounds the ship, its time is sped up and it travels faster than light relative to an outside observer. However, as far as anyone inside the ship is concerned, it is still travelling slower than light.

[Siosilvar]

Did they ever explicitly say that eezo gets you to superliminal speeds by just decreasing the mass of the ship? I figured it just screwed around with gravity to create an Alcubierre drive or something like that.

IIRC there's a codex description that mentions light traveling faster inside a "bubble" of some sort, so they would be Alcubierre drives. [EDIT: or "warp drives" if we're going with that term, which is more general]

[lunar2]

Yes, that's the warp theory. By reducing the energy of space that surrounds the ship, its time is sped up and it travels faster than light relative to an outside observer. However, as far as anyone inside the ship is concerned, it is still travelling slower than light.

so the mass effect drives could be warp drives. warp drives based on phlebotinum, but warp drives, nonetheless.

[SiuiS]

Did they ever explicitly say that eezo gets you to superliminal speeds by just decreasing the mass of the ship? I figured it just screwed around with gravity to create an Alcubierre drive or something like that.

I recall something about not super luminal speeds but about hacking what the numerical value of luminal velocity is. basically;


question. light does not always travel at 186,000 miles per second. it always travels at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. however, certain very dense materials can slow light down considerably, and particles with mass can sometimes move faster than light through those materials.

now, the actual question. what happens if light travels through an area of space with negative density? does light speed up? and if light can travel at greater than 186,000 miles per second in that area, couldn't particles with mass do so, as well, as long as they are still going slower than the light in that area?

we see that the mass relays create a bubble of some sort around the ships they are accelerating. maybe they are creating an area of extreme negative density.

This. Although the massive reduction of mass for acceleration is very important.

Of course, it gets more silly from there, as localized distortions of spacetime which allow fictional teleportation across short distances by creating the illusion of not traveling part of the instance by bringing points of time together. But in general, acceleration from reduced mass is their thing and the alcubierre(?) bit is probably as close as they get to an actual explanation.

I just figured "space gets so unheavy you move through it easier" was silly, as far as asking nerds how something works.

[warty goblin]

Nothing that contains a man-portable weaponized black hole gun should be taken remotely seriously anyway. It's not like the math showing one of those is useless is particularly inaccessible either; it doesn't even require calculus.

[arguskos]

My Latin's terrible—that means "come closer," right?
It's a line from the movie Event Horizon. Basically, it means "liberate yourself from hell". Liberate (liberate) tutumet (an emphatic form of tu, meaning you) ex (from) infernis (inferno/hell).

Huzzah! My Latin training is getting me somewhere!

[lunar2]

Nothing that contains a man-portable weaponized black hole gun should be taken remotely seriously anyway. It's not like the math showing one of those is useless is particularly inaccessible either; it doesn't even require calculus.

black hole gun? haven't seen that one. even the dreadnoughts are just big particle accelerators (I.e. something you would actually see in space based weaponry).

[Bryn]

question. light does not always travel at 186,000 miles per second. it always travels at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. however, certain very dense materials can slow light down considerably, and particles with mass can sometimes move faster than light through those materials.

now, the actual question. what happens if light travels through an area of space with negative density? does light speed up? and if light can travel at greater than 186,000 miles per second in that area, couldn't particles with mass do so, as well, as long as they are still going slower than the light in that area?

Refractive index n=c/vp isn't density, and doesn't depend only on density. It's a large-scale description of how light is interacting with the material; on a very small scale, light is travelling at the same speed as ever, but (very roughly) the interaction of light with charged particles causes it to effectively slow down if you look at it on a large scale.

I don't know about the details, but apparently it is possible to have a refractive index less than 1, or even negative (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/305/5685/788.full), even without exotic matter. This is apparently the case for X-rays near resonant frequencies of some materials, including water, though I can't find a good source discussing this.

This might seem to contradict special relativity, but the refractive index is frequency-dependent, and only the phase velocity, vp=ω/k, not the group velocity vg=∂ω/∂k, is ever greater than c. (ω and k is the usual notation for the angular frequency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_frequency) and wavenumber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavenumber) of a wave). If you want to describe a light pulse carrying information, you have to superpose waves to form a wavepacket (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavepacket), and the centre of a wavepacket travels at the group velocity. So if something changes, news of that change can't reach anyone faster than a light pulse in a vacuum even if n(ω)<1 for some frequency components.

The refractive index of some sort of exotic matter with negative mass density would depend on the microscopic details of the material, and I think (though I don't have time to see how negative mass would affect the various scattering mechanisms we can describe) that it wouldn't help you send information faster than c.

[kurokotetsu]

question. light does not always travel at 186,000 miles per second. it always travels at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. however, certain very dense materials can slow light down considerably, and particles with mass can sometimes move faster than light through those materials.

now, the actual question. what happens if light travels through an area of space with negative density? does light speed up? and if light can travel at greater than 186,000 miles per second in that area, couldn't particles with mass do so, as well, as long as they are still going slower than the light in that area?

we see that the mass relays create a bubble of some sort around the ships they are accelerating. maybe they are creating an area of extreme negative density.While the exotic matter (and negative energy density) is a requirement for and Alcubierre drive, the existence of exotic matter doesn't affect Relativity, so no, the light inside the bubble nor outside travels faster than the standard c. The edges of the bubble though are probably more troublesome, but I think it would distort light rather than "speed it up", as 3x10^8 m/s. To an outside observer it may "look" (if you can see the inside of the bubble, which I doubt) faster, in the same sense thet it looks faster to someone looking at a vehicle move. Also, energy density (or mass density) doesn't necessarily affect the speed of light in such a material (but we are talking about a vacuum as you are talking about the space around the ship), or at least isn't the fundamental factor, as describe by Bryn.

The negative energy density also is a necessity of an Alcubierre metric, but I doubt it is the only derivable metric form similar conditions. I guess they are going with the idea that creating exotic matter in such a way that the Alcubierre metric applies, but if that accelerates the ship is arguable in the strict mathematics of the business (as far as I can see) .

[Karoht]

Query: What if this Mass Effect merely changes particles into radiation (waves) but somehow maintains it's cohesion as a particle? The particle is still a particle, has all the same properties, interacts the same way, it's just now a wave (therefore having no mass) in the shape of a particle.

In other words, perhaps the Mass Effect changes mass into something more closely resembling photons.


However it achieves the effect of lower mass, the lower mass could also potentially allow the warping of space more easily. Less energy required due to lower mass? Combined with the ability to move at (supposedly) light speed or very close to it, the two together would make for a possible FTL system.

[kurokotetsu]

Query: What if this Mass Effect merely changes particles into radiation (waves) but somehow maintains it's cohesion as a particle? The particle is still a particle, has all the same properties, interacts the same way, it's just now a wave (therefore having no mass) in the shape of a particle.

In other words, perhaps the Mass Effect changes mass into something more closely resembling photons.


However it achieves the effect of lower mass, the lower mass could also potentially allow the warping of space more easily. Less energy required due to lower mass? Combined with the ability to move at (supposedly) light speed or very close to it, the two together would make for a possible FTL system.Waves have mass too. All "particles" in physics are also waves, not only mass-less ones. Refer to DeBroglie's thesis that goes about the limit (afterwards used by Thompson) that electrons need to refract.

But, if your idea is that the particles lose all their mass, while remaining somehow functionally the same, it still wouldn't account for FTL, just as mentioned before, they would travel at the speed of light.

The less mass (this is a little bit of speculation) also would allow better warping of space, as the bubble is probably determined by the size of what it encloses, not the mass of said object. You are warping an area of spacetime, so if the object is massive of masslless seems irrelevant.

[shawnhcorey]

You are warping an area of spacetime, so if the object is massive of masslless seems irrelevant.

You are warping a volume of space, so if the object is massive of masslless seems irrelevant.

or

You are warping a hyper-volume of spacetime, so if the object is massive of masslless seems irrelevant.

[kurokotetsu]

You are warping a volume of space, so if the object is massive of masslless seems irrelevant.

or

You are warping a hyper-volume of spacetime, so if the object is massive of masslless seems irrelevant.Was using a simplification of one space dimension and one time dimension, as the idea is the same to demonstrate the concept, but if you want to get technical, yeah, the warping is of a hyper-volume in four dimensions.

[scurv]

They did a pretty good job though, which is why I'm scratching about the hat. I'm missing something I saw earlier.

Would a negative mass Resuce the energy requirement to a finite amount?

And why is the speed of light c? The letter choice always struck me as weird.

tachyon is the partical that would emulate, It comes with a whole host of issues as any devote of string theory could tell you.

[Eldonauran]

I find myself oddly intrigued by this thread, even though most of the language is way over my head. I'm a layman, at best, as far as this goes.

Right now, we are 'close' to pinpointing the higgs boson, correct? The particle that is supposed to be responsible for giving things mass.

What if the Mass Effect was a form of energy that only interacted with the higgs boson or was a form of energy that could be directed to only interact with the higgs boson? It could go a long way towards explaining why it allows FTL travel.

Suppose you could use this energy to add and subtract mass from an object, either storing the mass in (or pulling from) a seperate location, whether that is 'subspace' or a different dimension.

How would an object interact with the world without mass? Would the laws of physics even apply?

[kurokotetsu]

I find myself oddly intrigued by this thread, even though most of the language is way over my head. I'm a layman, at best, as far as this goes.

Right now, we are 'close' to pinpointing the higgs boson, correct? The particle that is supposed to be responsible for giving things mass.

What if the Mass Effect was a form of energy that only interacted with the higgs boson or was a form of energy that could be directed to only interact with the higgs boson? It could go a long way towards explaining why it allows FTL travel.

Suppose you could use this energy to add and subtract mass from an object, either storing the mass in (or pulling from) a seperate location, whether that is 'subspace' or a different dimension.

How would an object interact with the world without mass? Would the laws of physics even apply?This is pure speculation on my part. A massless object would interact similar to how a photon (particle of light) or gluon (other mass less particle) interact (probably). They are well known and studied in subatomic levels (particle physics small) and photons are pretty studied from a macroscopic level too, but there are a lot of unkown areas in how light "perceives" things (does it perceive time dilatation? in other words does it see everyone travelling at a different time as do other travelling objects). We do not have a model of things moving at that speed, but we know certain things. We know that gravity affects them (if the only thing that they do is travel at light speed and not do the warp travel). If only the mass is changed, electromagnetism would probably still affect it too (so it could crash with an object in it's path). Mass isn't the only way that things interact.

Also, our current understanding states that changing the mass (positive negative or zero) there wouldn't still be FTL. All those masses move at c at most and lower most of the time. No matter how it changes mass. (Although for changing a Higgs Boson, it could be something similar, as the only thing that affect a Higgs Boson that is known is itself).

[HairyGuy4]

Hi folks!

Long story short, game series allows for FTL travel by reducing the mass of an object, making it easier to accelerate towards and beyond light speed.

But... Just doing the numbers in my head, and based on being told that light speed woul require infinite energy to achieve as the energy requirements escalate far faster than the gain from putting in said energy... A dreadnought weighing kilotons would require infinite energy to hit light speed. Reducing that dreadnaught's mass to that of a grain of sand would still require infinite energy.

Am I missing something? There's more to this than just the mass, as even removing the fuel weight issue you have to be at full bore for who knows how long to get there.

I feel the need to point out, they call it science Fiction for a reason...

Now back to your regular scheduled technobabble.

[Coidzor]

And here I thought it was a sort of aimed controlled fall through space time.

[Kindablue]

I feel the need to point out, they call it science Fiction for a reason...

Now back to your regular scheduled technobabble.

Quite a large portion of the modern world was pure science fiction just a few decades ago. This is entertainment, but it doesn't have to be cheap or meaningless.

I only played (part of) the first game and I didn't realize the mass effect had anything to do with the faster than light travel until I opened this thread. I thought it was a Ludlum thing, like they thought of a cool title first and never bothered to change it later.

[warty goblin]

Quite a large portion of the modern world was pure science fiction just a few decades ago. This is entertainment, but it doesn't have to be cheap or meaningless.


It also contains a race of all-female blue space strippers. When it comes to being cheap and meaningless, technobabble is the least of Mass Effect's worries.

[Karoht]

And here I thought it was a sort of aimed controlled fall through space time.
"This isn't flying at FTL, it's just falling with style!"
"To infinity, and beyond!"

[Kindablue]

It also contains a race of all-female blue space strippers. When it comes to being cheap and meaningless, technobabble is the least of Mass Effect's worries.

I mean that it's too easy to hand wave away the more out there ideas in fiction as being impossible nonsense without ever contemplating their real world value. We could have the blue space strippers in as little as fifty years.

[Kneenibble]

It's a line from the movie Event Horizon. Basically, it means "liberate yourself from hell". Liberate (liberate) tutumet (an emphatic form of tu, meaning you) ex (from) infernis (inferno/hell).

Huzzah! My Latin training is getting me somewhere!

I was reading through this thread without anything to contribute except interest, however please note one minor correction: it's libera te not liberate. The sentence doesn't work otherwise.

[lunar2]

@blue space strippers. idk. a mono gendered race that reproduces by altering select portions of their genetic material based on the electrical impulses of an adjacent nervous system, while strange, is certainly not impossible.

also, it's implied in ME:2 that they don't actually look quite so much like humans as they seem. there's a table full of mixed species guys in a bar admiring a stripper, when they each notice that asari look remarkably like their own race. it's not improbable that the way asari are represented in the games is not how they actually look, but how humans perceive them to look.

the biggest issue i have is that once again, about 3/4 of the species in the galaxy live longer than humans (iirc only salarians and vorcha have shorter natural life spans).

[warty goblin]

@blue space strippers. idk. a mono gendered race that reproduces by altering select portions of their genetic material based on the electrical impulses of an adjacent nervous system, while strange, is certainly not impossible.

That the species is mono-sexed isn't implausible. That they're mono-gendered, and that gender happens to be all two flavors of nerd fantasy is pretty cheap.


also, it's implied in ME:2 that they don't actually look quite so much like humans as they seem. there's a table full of mixed species guys in a bar admiring a stripper, when they each notice that asari look remarkably like their own race. it's not improbable that the way asari are represented in the games is not how they actually look, but how humans perceive them to look.
This sounds like a black hole of stupid fandumb. Also, it's Mass Effect - the only species that aren't extremely humanoid are jokes.


the biggest issue i have is that once again, about 3/4 of the species in the galaxy live longer than humans (iirc only salarians and vorcha have shorter natural life spans).
When it comes to plausibility issues, I'd think brain waves conveying meaningful genetic level information across species that evolved on different planets is way, way worse than humans falling below the median galactic life expectancy.

[Traab]

Quite a large portion of the modern world was pure science fiction just a few decades ago. This is entertainment, but it doesn't have to be cheap or meaningless.

I only played (part of) the first game and I didn't realize the mass effect had anything to do with the faster than light travel until I opened this thread. I thought it was a Ludlum thing, like they thought of a cool title first and never bothered to change it later.

Yes, and a large portion of sci fi from a few decades ago is STILL science fiction! I still want my tom swift inventions gorram it! A floating highway would be badass as hell. Heck, even some of the newer ones like his tech suit that can make you move like a martial arts master and learn as you go. Just because things like touch screen tablets were envisioned 40 years ago doesnt mean any of the science they used to describe it had any connection to reality. If they ever even bothered to describe how it worked at all.

[SiuiS]

black hole gun? haven't seen that one. even the dreadnoughts are just big particle accelerators (I.e. something you would actually see in space based weaponry).

The dark star heavy weapon. It's codex entry boils down to "our scientists were told it fires a localized singularity. They've been dissecting it for over two years, and have come up with "i dont even" as the sum of their understanding."


I feel the need to point out, they call it science Fiction for a reason...

Now back to your regular scheduled technobabble.

Yes. Yes they do. That's been pointed out already, actually. It also has nothing to do with the question of how a negative mass would affect things, touches tangentially only on the given reason for asking the question.


I mean that it's too easy to hand wave away the more out there ideas in fiction as being impossible nonsense without ever contemplating their real world value. We could have the blue space strippers in as little as fifty years.

Or thirty, if you get rid of the monosex or settle for hermaphroditic reproduction!


@blue space strippers. idk. a mono gendered race that reproduces by altering select portions of their genetic material based on the electrical impulses of an adjacent nervous system, while strange, is certainly not impossible.

also, it's implied in ME:2 that they don't actually look quite so much like humans as they seem. there's a table full of mixed species guys in a bar admiring a stripper, when they each notice that asari look remarkably like their own race. it's not improbable that the way asari are represented in the games is not how they actually look, but how humans perceive them to look.

the biggest issue i have is that once again, about 3/4 of the species in the galaxy live longer than humans (iirc only salarians and vorcha have shorter natural life spans).

Nah. Humans hit 150, Turkana about the same. Salarian, 40, drell 75-80 I think, and Rohan and Asari exceed by large margins.

Urdnot Wrex is tentatively a bce relic!


That the species is mono-sexed isn't implausible. That they're mono-gendered, and that gender happens to be all two flavors of nerd fantasy is pretty cheap.

Not really. It's sort of lampshaded, but that's because it presented entirely through human framing devices. You get chewed out at one point by an Asari who is tired of the human standard.



When it comes to plausibility issues, I'd think brain waves conveying meaningful genetic level information across species that evolved on different planets is way, way worse than humans falling below the median galactic life expectancy.

I'll give you that one.


Yes, and a large portion of sci fi from a few decades ago is STILL science fiction! I still want my tom swift inventions gorram it! A floating highway would be badass as hell. Heck, even some of the newer ones like his tech suit that can make you move like a martial arts master and learn as you go. Just because things like touch screen tablets were envisioned 40 years ago doesnt mean any of the science they used to describe it had any connection to reality. If they ever even bothered to describe how it worked at all.

But that it exists and people thought it was cool is why we got phones that fold, and such. There's value as much as there's crap. Denigrating the whole is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

[Traab]

But that it exists and people thought it was cool is why we got phones that fold, and such. There's value as much as there's crap. Denigrating the whole is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

But what I mean is there was either no science, or crap science to explain those neat sci fi inventions of yesteryear that we have today, so complaining that the mass effect is junk science is silly. If we didnt rely on junk science it wouldnt be science fiction, it would be science fact. There are plenty of novels in other genres that use real scientific knowledge and theory in it, but sci fi is supposed to be fantastic, its not supposed to be real. The best you can hope for is enough to suspend disbelief.

Nothing but real theory would do that for an expert in the field, so the goal is to help the random schlub who doesnt know his mass from a hole in the groundto believe that this makes sense. As such, "Hmm, if it takes infinite energy to move mass at the speed of light, then removing the mass should drop the energy requirement. That makes sense, lets read on." is a solid sci fi hand wave.

[Kindablue]

Yes, and a large portion of sci fi from a few decades ago is STILL science fiction! I still want my tom swift inventions gorram it! A floating highway would be badass as hell. Heck, even some of the newer ones like his tech suit that can make you move like a martial arts master and learn as you go. Just because things like touch screen tablets were envisioned 40 years ago doesnt mean any of the science they used to describe it had any connection to reality. If they ever even bothered to describe how it worked at all.

Let's boil this down. You really don't think there can be any benefit from the critical examination of fantastic elements in fiction? An awful lot of them have zero relation to real life, but to just say "this is made up, so why are you thinking about it?" is boring.

[Traab]

Let's boil this down. You really don't think there can be any benefit from the critical examination of fantastic elements in fiction? An awful lot of them have zero relation to real life, but to just say "this is made up, so why are you thinking about it?" is boring.

No, im just saying that expecting a real scientific explanation for something we arent capable of doing is asking a bit much of a sci fi author. Its great to look at the ideas and interesting inventions created in his world, but to expect him to provide accurate blueprints so you can recreate them in your backyard is a bit irrational. Its called science fiction for a reason, because the technology featured in it generally doesnt exist. And it doesnt exist because we cant make it happen yet. And if professional scientists, people who have spent decades learning about the various fields this fantasy tech is connected to arent able to make it work, why be annoyed when the author cant come up with a concept that works?

[Kindablue]

No, im just saying that expecting a real scientific explanation for something we arent capable of doing is asking a bit much of a sci fi author. Its great to look at the ideas and interesting inventions created in his world, but to expect him to provide accurate blueprints so you can recreate them in your backyard is a bit irrational. Its called science fiction for a reason, because the technology featured in it generally doesnt exist. And it doesnt exist because we cant make it happen yet. And if professional scientists, people who have spent decades learning about the various fields this fantasy tech is connected to arent able to make it work, why be annoyed when the author cant come up with a concept that works?
When did anyone argue any of that?

[Traab]

When did anyone argue any of that?

Earlier with you and Sius. Maybe I misunderstood your point, but I took it to mean that you basically expected your sci fi to come up with reasonable explanations for why everything works.

[SiuiS]

But what I mean is there was either no science, or crap science to explain those neat sci fi inventions of yesteryear that we have today, so complaining that the mass effect is junk science is silly. If we didnt rely on junk science it wouldnt be science fiction, it would be science fact. There are plenty of novels in other genres that use real scientific knowledge and theory in it, but sci fi is supposed to be fantastic, its not supposed to be real. The best you can hope for is enough to suspend disbelief.

Nothing but real theory would do that for an expert in the field, so the goal is to help the random schlub who doesnt know his mass from a hole in the groundto believe that this makes sense. As such, "Hmm, if it takes infinite energy to move mass at the speed of light, then removing the mass should drop the energy requirement. That makes sense, lets read on." is a solid sci fi hand wave.

Oh! Okay. Yeah, I didn't get that from your post at all.


When did anyone argue any of that?

It's implicit in "it's scifi, don't bother thinking about it because it's crap" I think.

[warty goblin]

Not really. It's sort of lampshaded, but that's because it presented entirely through human framing devices. You get chewed out at one point by an Asari who is tired of the human standard.

Pointing out that a stupid thing is stupid does not actually diminish the stupidity. Generally it leaves me wondering why, if the authors know this is stupid, they decided to stick it in.
[/QUOTE]



It's implicit in "it's scifi, don't bother thinking about it because it's crap" I think.
It's possible to regard the fictional science in sci-fi as crap without regarding the entire enterprise as crap. Indeed I'd say it's pretty much what everybody save a fairly small group of very hard sci-fi authors and readers do.

[Traab]

Pointing out that a stupid thing is stupid does not actually diminish the stupidity. Generally it leaves me wondering why, if the authors know this is stupid, they decided to stick it in.



It's possible to regard the fictional science in sci-fi as crap without regarding the entire enterprise as crap. Indeed I'd say it's pretty much what everybody save a fairly small group of very hard sci-fi authors and readers do.[/QUOTE]

I think he meant the science is crap. Its just crap dressed up pretty enough to earn a pass from a quick inspection. I think fridge logic level pseudo science is the best you can hope for in sci fi books. At least that sounds reasonable until you stop and think about it for awhile. Of course, ymmv considering there are a lot of people out there with extensive knowledge of the field the author is bs-ing for all he is worth in such as physics. For them its blatantly obvious from the first sentence usually. :p

In all honesty, I tend to roll my eyes when people point out the ways the author is wrong when it happens. I look at it with as much seriousness as that one guy who has studied fencing all his life getting lathered up over a dueling scene in a fantasy novel. "Omg! Everyone KNOWS that you dont use a parrier dolch against botta en tempo. You need to use a contratempo!" (Take a note, I am using random words that pop up in a dueling glossary, please dont hurt me for mangling dueling terminology.)

[Mewtarthio]

Pointing out that a stupid thing is stupid does not actually diminish the stupidity. Generally it leaves me wondering why, if the authors know this is stupid, they decided to stick it in.

Most of the lampshading comes after ME1. The hot bisexual space elves that reproduce through telepathic sex were already an established setting element by then, so the best the writers could do was retcon them into something more sensible ("Er, I know it looks like they're all a bunch of sexy college co-eds, but that's just how you perceive them due to their telepathy! What? They use their telepathy to reproduce? That's clearly ridiculous; I can't believe you bought into that same silly urban legend that Liara did!").

Re: Overanalysis:

I don't really care that much. It certainly doesn't hurt my enjoyment of a work when I find out that someone with, say, a PhD in Geology can write a thesis on how the setting is totally unrealistic. I know that sci-fi authors rarely have the time to get PhDs in every science known to man, so in my mind, there's nothing to forgive. In the mean time, however, when that PhD in Geology talks about the unrealism of the setting, I walk away knowing more about Geology than I did before, and that's not a bad thing at all.

(It does bother me when a work doesn't follow the logical extrapolations of its own rules, though. Like, if the asari can breed with literally anything, why do they all look the same?)

[warty goblin]

Most of the lampshading comes after ME1. The hot bisexual space elves that reproduce through telepathic sex were already an established setting element by then, so the best the writers could do was retcon them into something more sensible ("Er, I know it looks like they're all a bunch of sexy college co-eds, but that's just how you perceive them due to their telepathy! What? They use their telepathy to reproduce? That's clearly ridiculous; I can't believe you bought into that same silly urban legend that Liara did!").

Or they could, you know, stop having asari strippers everywhere, asari commandos dressed like strippers, and so on. Hanging a lampshade on it just points out they're trying to have their cheesecake and eat it too.


(It does bother me when a work doesn't follow the logical extrapolations of its own rules, though. Like, if the asari can breed with literally anything, why do they all look the same?)
To a point yes. If it takes more than about two steps in your inferential chain to get at a contradiction, it's probably a case of taking made-up stuff way too seriously, rather than any substantial defect in the work in question.

[lunar2]

yeah, the asari had to be retconned quite a bit in ME2. they no longer actually look human, we just think they do. and they don't actually get any of the dad's genetic material, the mom just uses the dad's nervous system as a pattern to alter certain parts of her own genetic material (mainly the stuff that has to do with personality, apparently). now, here's a more personal question. if the bartender is liara's dad, why is liara so shy? even in ME2, she still has a certain awkwardness when she's not on the phone quoting her mom.

[SiuiS]

Most of the lampshading comes after ME1. The hot bisexual space elves that reproduce through telepathic sex were already an established setting element by then, so the best the writers could do was retcon them into something more sensible ("Er, I know it looks like they're all a bunch of sexy college co-eds, but that's just how you perceive them due to their telepathy! What? They use their telepathy to reproduce? That's clearly ridiculous; I can't believe you bought into that same silly urban legend that Liara did!").

The implications I got from ME 1, alone, we're that the Asari capitalized on the immediate advantage of humans thinking of them as stripper elf lesbians, save a few who thought it was tacky. Now, half of them want to get past that and have some credibility before threatening your life successfully, and the other half want to continue not being taken seriously. The later games just bring this to the fore, ostensibly ecause it was too subtle in the first game.



(It does bother me when a work doesn't follow the logical extrapolations of its own rules, though. Like, if the asari can breed with literally anything, why do they all look the same?)


yeah, the asari had to be retconned quite a bit in ME2. they no longer actually look human, we just think they do. and they don't actually get any of the dad's genetic material, the mom just uses the dad's nervous system as a pattern to alter certain parts of her own genetic material (mainly the stuff that has to do with personality, apparently). now, here's a more personal question.

Pretty certain they never go genetic material from the other parent. :smallconfused:


if the bartender is liara's dad, why is liara so shy? even in ME2, she still has a certain awkwardness when she's not on the phone quoting her mom.

Nature v/ Nurture?

[Tiki Snakes]

yeah, the asari had to be retconned quite a bit in ME2. they no longer actually look human, we just think they do.

I thought the whole point of the asari isn't that they are magic cameleons who everybody sees differently so much as they have traits similar to various other species so that everyone sees the bits of them that are most similar to their own bits?

Also, the Liara being shy thing is because she is both an introverted nerd and a wee slip of a girl, barely 106 years old.