Author Topic: What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1  (Read 13847 times)

dpodubs

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« on: August 18, 2004, 11:28:30 am »
It wasn't until I started writing my story based on CT and CC that I began to think about this....how does the Epoch travel through time without tons of energy to power it up? It's got to have some sort of fuel so to speak that keeps it going back and forth through time and not to mention flying. I know the game never speaks of it (and if it did I missed it!)....but I was wondering if the games did or what everyone here thinks.

~ Time Traveler, Dubs

GrayLensman

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2004, 02:39:08 pm »
The Zeal Kingdom had technology which was powered by elemental energy, maybe from the Planet.  The Epoch could have had a similar power source.

Symmetry

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2004, 10:03:51 pm »
I going to suggest Mr. Fusion and the Fluxcapacitor, but...

Never really thought about this. On a similiar note, is the speed of the Epoch relevant at all to time travel? When it has wings, we see it zip around the planet before it warps, but without them it just disappears. However, when you find the Epoch in the future and use it for the first time, the graphic definately seems to suggest its moving...

Swordmaster

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2004, 11:11:09 pm »
I think starky and Luccia say something about it when you take then to see the neo-Epoch at Viper Manor, but i can't remenber...

ZeaLitY

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #4 on: August 19, 2004, 01:44:56 am »
Thanks for the lead. Though the Epoch may not have used this, the Neo-Epoch certainly does -- an antiproton drive, according to Starky. This is a bit different from Radical Dreamers's Antiparticle shells, which seemed to be more of an armor device. Belthasar must be one hell of an engineer. Starky goes on to say "A device that makes time travel possible?" I'm uncertain whether he's talking about the antiproton drive or mentioning something else that caught his eye.

Luccia merely mentions that Lucca told her of such a vehicle, and that its presence means that someone from the past or future is in 1020 A.D.

(Meanwhile, Belthasar chills in the library...)

doulifee

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2004, 04:01:58 pm »
wormhole can be use for time travel, and they lose energie, it can be used by epoch to travel/fly

Hadriel

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2004, 08:13:05 pm »
Oops, double post.

Hadriel

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2004, 08:14:04 pm »
Belthasar > all other fictional engineers ever.  Well, at least in terms of skills.  Except maybe Bevel Lemelisk, but that's not even the same galaxy.  But Scotty's still my favorite engineer.

For reference, Bevel Lemelisk is the asshole primarily responsible for designing the Death Star.  The New Republic gave him the death penalty for this crime, but he had already been executed and had his soul installed in a clone seven times by the Emperor, whose methods of execution included such fantastically merciful things as being eaten by rabid pirahna beetles, kicked out an airlock, and thrown in hot boiling lava.  Such a nice guy, that Palpatine.

Also, scientists at the University of Pittsburgh have actually developed a way to store antimatter.  The particles, of course, are highly unstable, and have half-lives almost too small to measure.  There's a good chance that by the year 2300, we've already figured out a way to suspend antimatter in stasis until it's needed, as well as utilize directed energy to propel the blast where we want it.  This could work both as a missile weapon and as a thrust mechanism.  One kilogram of matter and antimatter reacting together will release ~90,000 TJ of energy -- that's within the same power range as the most powerful nuclear weapons we've ever tested.  Enough of this to fill a ship's drive, coupled with the capability to direct the energy release and withstand the g-forces of such speeds, might get the ship going fast enough to distort time, and some other mechanism could take over from there to propel the ship into four-dimensional space.  That would require the ability to direct gravity sufficiently to bond the entire ship's chassis and engine together as one piece, to ensure maximum resilience against all external force.  The reasons for this are twofold.  One of them, I already listed.  The other one is that if Einstein's theory that objects gain mass as they gain energy, since the two are interchangeable via E=mc^2, holds true and is not just a characteristic increase in momentum proportional to the kinetic energy of objects, then as the Epoch or Neo-Epoch approached the speed of light, or whatever imperceptible barrier must be surpassed to engage in time travel under Belthasar's principles, the ship would gain mass.  More mass means more gravity, which, at a great enough velocity, would mean that the ship would collapse in on itself.  A complete understanding of gravity, especially quantum gravity, is therefore required to do anything on the magnitude of what Belthasar did.

And he did.

Which means he is, as ZeaLitY aptly worded it, one hell of an engineer.

Leebot

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2004, 12:26:18 am »
Actually, relativistic speed doesn't cause an increase in the gravity a moving body affects on itself. In fact, its currently unknown whether relativistic speed affects a body's gravitational mass; it's known it increases its inertial mass, but we have yet to prove they're one and the same.

The inherent problem with accelerating to the speed of light is that from the perception of the moving body, its never getting closer to the speed of light, it's always the same. The notion of accelerating past the speed of light, while common in much science fiction, is absolutely impossible by our current understanding of physics.

On the other hand, if a body could be directly converted to tachyons (superluminal particles), it would then travel backwards through time. This might be accomplished through an extended GUT that also incorporates tachyons and gives us some way to convert matter.

And then we have wormholes. If one end of a wormhole is traveling at a relativistic speed compared to the other, the exit would be at an earlier time than the entrance, allowing time travel in a sense. Unfortunately, there are two problems with this. One is that the nature of a wormhole would cause it to break down at the subatomic level if the ends weren't at relative rest. Even if we can get around that, the exit point will be outside the lightcone of the entrance, so even if you send a message back at the speed of light, it'll still arrive after you left, so there's no way you can get back to your own past.

Now, if we could get a lot of negative matter (assuming it exists), there may be hope for another anti-relativistic method...

Hadriel

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2004, 01:10:40 am »
Quote from: Leebot
Actually, relativistic speed doesn't cause an increase in the gravity a moving body affects on itself. In fact, its currently unknown whether relativistic speed affects a body's gravitational mass; it's known it increases its inertial mass, but we have yet to prove they're one and the same...


I was under the impression I made that distinction.  Sorry if it wasn't clear enough.

Even if you could find a way to convert a ship to tachyons or other superluminal particles, however, there exists the obvious challenge of 1) changing it back, and 2) not killing whatever's onboard in the process.

Let me attempt to make what I said clearer:

For this first half, let us assume that there is an absolute mass increase at relativistic speeds.  This supposed mass increase is the reason one cannot travel faster than light.  As one approaches the speed of light, more and more energy is required to push the increased mass along.  At the speed of light, mass becomes infinite, thus having the ship occupying all parts of the universe at once and having infinite density.  Not only does this break every law of physics I've ever heard of, it's impossible to move an infinite mass unless you have infinite energy.  Neither infinite mass nor infinite energy exist in the universe, so that screws everything over right there.  That possibility is the one in which the gravity field would crush the object.  Now for the other one.

If it is only inertial mass that increases, the choking restrictions on speed somewhat abate.  Now you have "merely" to find enough energy to get up to those high speeds.  That's what Einstein's famous equation is here for.  If I wanted to move even a one kilogram mass up to the speed of light, even ignoring the possibility of a gravitational mass increase, I'd have to multiply one by 300,000,000 squared, since the notation for all of these equations is in SI units.  Coincidentally (or maybe not), that comes out to 90,000 TJ.  But the Epoch is going to weigh a lot more than a kilogram.  And the entire U.S. doesn't consume that much power in a year.  Hell, it doesn't consume that much power in a century, and controlling such an energy release is problematic at best.  With today's technology, it's quite impossible.

Anyway, this dark matter business could be involved with it somehow.  It ain't just for kickin' people's asses anymore.

The ultimate anti-energy -- a force that, to use poetic license, unnaturally sculpts the fabric, the energy, of the universe to keep it something approaching stable.  Einstein's greatest folly, Belthasar's tool, or something else?  I don't have the resources to do any impactful research on it sitting in my room in DFW, Texas, nor have I had the proper college schooling.  Truthfully, I don't have the right to talk out of my ass right now, even if it turns out that I'm right, because I haven't gotten a degree.  But people said the same thing about Feynman in his debates and interactions with Fermi.  And now we revere them both.

Leebot

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2004, 11:26:21 am »
Well, it's inertial mass that gives us the problems with accelerating something; higher inertial mass means harder to accelerate, and we know that inertial mass increases with speed.

GrayLensman

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2004, 05:32:49 pm »
The laws of physics as we know them are made irrelevant by manipulating the elemental forces.  Zealian technology, and the technology of 2300 AD (ie Robo) can demonstrably do this.

Hadriel

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2004, 08:15:42 pm »
Quote from: Leebot
Well, it's inertial mass that gives us the problems with accelerating something; higher inertial mass means harder to accelerate, and we know that inertial mass increases with speed.


That's articulated much more clearly than the giant wad of crap I had typed out before.  Had my masses confused, or something...

*conk*

The very definition of inertia is the tendency of objects to keep doing whatever they're doing unless an outside force acts on them.  And, as your speed gets higher, it becomes increasingly hard to influence the motion of an object.  But don't take my word for it.  Go stand in front of a moving truck and try to stop it.  

Didn't work, did it?  :-P

But I've been going on full burn since 7 AM, so oh well.

Question for Leebot: Where do you go to school?

As for the technology of Zeal, it uses magic with it.  Robo can't use magic and therefore cannot do this.  In addition, to some degree, all elemental powers can be rationalized physically without changing the existing laws of physics.  Didn't say anything about not having to add new stuff, though.

Leebot

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2004, 10:02:03 pm »
I'm currently attending the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada).

Hadriel

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What does the Epoch use as an energy and does it even need 1
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2004, 10:23:48 pm »
Somehow I'm not particularly surprised.

Another question, because I intend to go into physics: How much money is there to be made in the field of theoretical physics?  Call it an unhealthy mindset of mine, but I like stacks of green paper in my red right hand.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2007, 04:23:48 am by Hadriel »