Re: FT: FTL Smorgasboard

>Recently several different concepts for means of FTL travel have been
batted
>about, and I must admity I've enjoyed it.  At least 2 different methods
>struck me as at least plausible, whether or not they're actually
attainable.
>  For that I thank the list's resident science whizzes.  Just a quick
>observation & question:
>
>Most Science Fiction backgrounds takes one of these methods of FTL
travel
>and base an entire naval & commerce culture on it.  Has anyone ever
>cotemplated a fictional background where 2 or more of these different
>methods are ALL available?    Each method has it's own particular
>technological requirements, benefits, drawbacks, etc.	How would this
>variety of choices be viewed by ship designers?  I'm guessing that
different
>methods might be attractive for ships designed for different purposes
>(Naval, commercial, private/luxury, pirates, raiders, smugglers, etc.).
>
>There's the ball.  Run, list, run!

The only novels I've ever read with this sort of background were Brian
Stableford's "Hooded Swan" books (aimed, IIRC, at the juvenile SF market
-
I read them as a kid many moons ago....). There were (IIRC again) at
least
three, four or more different FTL drives in use, but the only one I
remember the name of was the P-shifter (Probability Shifter) drive....
the
books themselves were neither very good nor memorable.

Jon (GZG)
>
>3B^2
>
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