Re: Faster Than Light Travel

ngilsena@indigo.ie wrote:

> Check out Vernor Vinge "A Fire on the Deep".	In this there are 3
> different areas of the galaxy broken into the transcendent, the
> beyond, and the slowness.  In each area the way actual technologies
> work are different.  In the slowness for instance you can't travel
> faster thal light.  In the transcend just about anything is possible.
> Dependant on which area you're civilisation is in you can be more or
> less technologically advanced.  The only problem is that high tech
> stuff doesn't work in the lower areas of space.  Therefore no
> transcend techs in the slowness etc.	This creates some interesting
> possibilities.  Its a book thats well worth a read.

Second that, about the book being well worth reading. The Galactic comms
networl is deliberately modelled on the Internet, complete with
Flamewars, disinformation, spam, and worse....

Basically, we're in the Slows at the moment, but not the Unthinking
Depths, where intelligent life is impossible (whether biological or
cybernetic). In the slows, AIs are marginal at best, the doubletalk
generators will cease to function, and any ship that gets caught in the
Slows, even by only a few Light Years, is trapped for years until it can
ascend.

The technology in the Transcend OTOH is soooo advanced that it's not so
much technology as Magic, in the Clarkian sense. Fortunately, the
transcendent entities are about as interested in Galactic Empires as we
are in Ant Heaps. Only the most juvenile, immature or intellectually
handicapped have any contact, and they don't want to descend to an area
where they would be effectively lobotomised.

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