It keeps being said that we need to do something about the environment before it’s too late. Unfortunately, recent signs show that we might have passed that point already. Studies have shown that even if humanity would completely stop harming the environment from now on, the destructive process would still continue. We have already pushed Nature too far for neutrality to be enough anymore. If we are to still have a chance, we actually must have an impact on the environment, but it must be positive, repairing the damage already done.
One more proof of that is a recent piece of news saying that Canada’s forests are so damaged by the effects of global warming that they’re now releasing more carbon than they absorb.
Explaining it very plainly, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causes an increase in temperature. That means the winters aren’t as harsh anymore, and harsh winters were what had so far kept the mountain pine beetle population in check. Since the mountain pine beetles now flourish, they kill more and more trees. Living trees absorb carbon dioxide, but dead trees just rot, therefore releasing the carbon they had absorbed during their lives. As a result of the extensive damage, the forests end up releasing more carbon than they absorb. In turn, that worsens the greenhouse effect, making the entire process more and more damaging as time passes.
If this is not clear evidence that we have passed the tipping point, I don’t know what is…
Yes, barring an extreme greenhouse effect as the one seen on Venus, Earth would likely eventually recover. But that would probably only happen after conditions would become too bad for advanced life forms to tolerate, possibly leaving only simple plants and bacteria to restart the evolutionary process. That means the reason we need to do something is not as much to save Earth as to save ourselves… Ourselves and all the other species we share this planet with, species we should care for, not exploit.
Science fiction couldn’t exist without a means of quickly reaching distant stars. Some authors accomplish that by using wormholes, hyperspace or any other method of reaching a destination without actually traveling through the space separating the point of departure from said destination. Many, however, use faster than light travel.
I’m going to leave the technological considerations aside for now. Whether it might or might not be possible to achieve such a feat is less important. I’ll just assume that it is possible, because this is about science fiction and therefore hypothetical.
In assuming that it is possible, I’m assuming that sufficient thrust can be generated and that there are means of preventing everything, including the crew, from imploding. Those are technical problems and therefore not my focus.
What I’m looking at are the logical problems. One would involve the time spent accelerating and decelerating, as it would make very little sense for these processes to be instantaneous even if it would be technically possible, but this is less important and perhaps less obvious than something else. I’m talking about the risk of collision, and that’s what this post is really about.
In the books and movies which use faster than light travel through real space, there is usually talk about setting or plotting a course before such a speed is reached. That’s supposed to mean telling the computer to figure out a route to the intended destination which avoids any bodies the ship could collide with. But this is where the problems really begin…
How do you know exactly where everything is? You’d need a constantly updated map of every single body in the galaxy, and that’s only if you confine yourself to this galaxy. At a glance, that means every single star, planet, satellite, asteroid, comet and so on. Of course, you could eventually have an accurate map of the galaxy, but how do you obtain it? You’d need to send ships to explore first, and those ships would need to travel slow enough to avoid any collisions with unknown bodies, making the task take an extremely long amount of time. There is the possibility of sharing star maps with other civilizations, of course, but you’d better be very sure they’re accurate before you rely on them!
Now let’s assume that you do have that perfectly accurate star map and run simulations to know where each body should be at that specific moment. But what if it isn’t? What of gravity fields interfering with smaller bodies? Up to a point these could be calculated I guess, but then it gets even worse. What of collisions between celestial bodies or, more importantly, the intervention of other species? How can you take that into account? What if someone decides to push an asteroid out of the way since was coming too close to their planet or space station? What if they were doing target practice on another? What if we’re talking of civilizations, such as our own, which are yet to establish contact with others? Those couldn’t let you know even if they wanted to, so you could never update your charts!
And speaking of other civilizations, what of the things they actually build? Space stations, probes, ships… You could assume that space stations are very close to planets, so if you avoid the planet you also avoid the station, but even civilizations which are barely taking their first steps through space could send probes anywhere, even outside their own solar system. Our own are certainly proof of that… As for ships, there is absolutely no way to know where those are. Advanced civilizations, capable of faster than light travel, could have plenty of ships which could be anywhere at any moment. Space may be big, but there is no way to be absolutely sure there won’t be two ships in the same place at the same time. The chances of that happening increase drastically when you near certain “popular” destinations, which multiple civilizations have a reason to visit frequently.
After establishing that you can’t avoid the dangers by simply setting a course, we have to think of the alternative: Being able to detect an object early enough to avoid a potential crash. After all, computers could react very quickly and therefore be able to steer the ship clear of surprising obstacles even at very high speeds, right?
Not quite, I’m afraid… The easiest things to spot are the ones which would be easiest to avoid by simply plotting the course. Stars should certainly be avoidable even at extremely high speeds, but as the size of the body in question decreases and its speed increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the ship safe. Yes, if we assume that faster than light travel is possible, we could also assume that very powerful scanning systems might eventually be able to notice any celestial bodies in time to avoid a collision… But I doubt that any system could notice another ship which also travels much faster than light. That could require scanning an area with a radius of many light years every single moment and also correctly judging what the other ship will do next, since its own attempts to avoid a collision might actually cause it.
These are just a few thoughts I’ve been having these days. I’m sure there are also plenty of other problems, and that’s without even taking the technological ones into account.
For this reason, I dare to make the audacious suggestion of eliminating the concept of faster than light travel in real space from science fiction. Yes, it could be possible, but it’d be too risky to try over long distances. And since long distances are exactly the ones it’d be developed for, it seems quite pointless. There must be better ways and any race which is advanced enough to create ships capable of traveling much faster than light would have likely found them.
There are a lot of other paths to explore when it comes to traveling such immense distances… I mentioned wormholes and hyperspace at the beginning of this post and I believe those are the two main concepts, but they could take many forms and could be exploited in many different ways, so I don’t think anyone should feel limited if they need to remove the ability to travel faster than light from their works.
It snowed quite nicely two days ago, so I can finally say this is truly winter. The layer covering the ground was quite thin to begin with, but most of it is still there now since it’s too cold for it to melt. Unfortunately the forecast doesn’t give me much hope for more snow soon. Actually, if it’s true that it’ll also rain it means it’ll all turn to muck…
But right now it’s nice enough. It was also nice two days ago, when I went out while it was snowing and somewhat windy. I certainly liked last year’s blizzard much better, but under the current circumstances I guess this will have to do for now. Maybe there will be something like that this winter too, later this month or perhaps the next…
Snow, cold and wind… These moments remind me why I like winter, when I can go out and actually feel that it is winter, not just a mockery of it as it usually was during recent years. Unfortunately, global warming is giving me less and less chances of enjoying it, as there recently were some years during which such “real winter” moments were completely absent. And if you add the significant differences between me and Andra when it came to what a “comfortable temperature” means, which were very noticeable during the winters I spent there, and the problems with heating and moisture I’ve been having since I got thrown back here, I assume you can see why I was starting to say that my favorite season is no longer winter, but spring.
I guess this is one of the reasons I keep finding myself drawn to northern countries. Likely not the main one, you can’t put climate before culture and politics (among other things) when “judging” a country, but it really is important to me to be able to enjoy a real winter… As long as the apartment or house I’d be living in would be properly heated and insulated, of course. But this part about me being drawn to northern countries is another rant for another time…
I was saying that I was going to delete my Materia Magica character as soon as I could give everything away. The process has finally started, after posting what I have to give and why on the clan forum this morning.
I’ve been playing Yreobryn for about six years… Ok, actually playing for a little less than four of those years, but keeping him around for a total of about six. I guess this makes him the thing I’ve managed to keep functional the longest. Well, him and my last computer, used that for nearly six years too. So even though I haven’t been doing much with him in so long, it’s still quite hard.
Since it apparently ranked as the number three viral video of 2008, I guess most people who’d somehow end up reading this already know it. But I didn’t and I think it’s a story truly worth sharing, even if it happened nearly 40 years ago.
I’m talking about this video about Christian the lion. Watch it if you haven’t already!
There are few things left to say after something like that. Perhaps only to stress how little we wish to know about the other species we share this planet with, saying they’re “just animals” and hence distancing ourselves… And to wonder once again what’s wrong with us, where did we take the wrong turn, for this any many other reasons…
Perhaps, if you want a specific issue which many might not immediately connect to this, we could wonder about all those laws which restrict or even forbid owning certain breeds of dogs which are considered to be dangerous. I doubt any breed of dog is considered to be more dangerous than a lion, which turns this into one more piece of evidence supporting the idea that if a healthy dog which has been raised by someone harms someone else without clear provocation it means the “problem animal” is the one with two legs.
Nothing else to say, that video says more than I ever could…
