Ah, OddBob, but is time to scale as well? Keep in mind that the ships dart around from planet to planet in what seems like seconds. Either they are going insanely fast (and using incredible amounts of energy), or the time-scale in the game is significantly increased, making it far easier to dodge those big swirly circles.
-tom
Stargates
I suppose it's the latter suggestion in the first post. Why do people tend to picture it as some kind of door and you need somehow to fit thru it? It's a charged forcefield, comparable to ie magnetic force, the ship is taken in it's grip when it gets 'too' close and thrown in some direction, in principal this direction is uncontrollable.
Now the position of the gate is set such that you end up in the next starsystem. This was found out by trial and error and cost billions and dozens of lives cos of course if this was for real you could approach the forcefield from anywhere, be gripped by the uncontrollable force and end up somewhere in the vast universe without enough time, let alone fuel, to get home safely!
Now the position of the gate is set such that you end up in the next starsystem. This was found out by trial and error and cost billions and dozens of lives cos of course if this was for real you could approach the forcefield from anywhere, be gripped by the uncontrollable force and end up somewhere in the vast universe without enough time, let alone fuel, to get home safely!
The destination was preset by the ancient race that set up the stargates in the first place. And they no doubt had other FTL transportation, but it still took days or maybe weeks to travel between star systems that way. Experimentation was not as difficult for them as you say, I'd expect. </postulation>
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Fossaman
- Militia Captain
- Posts: 556
- Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:56 am
- Location: Traveling to the galactic core
Frits, your reply makes it sound like you just read 'Avatar' by Poul Anderson (I think it was his, anyway). In his book, stargates are massive cylinders spinning at relativistic speeds, and ships have to go in along specific paths to reach other systems.
X-ray laser! Pew, pew pew!
> = = = = ۞
> = = = = ۞
No i haven't, haven't even read a book in years now. There is similarity so i suppose it just goes to show it's a small world and human imagination is limited to what humans have experienced (in somewhat different circumstances) already or to what humans can relate to.
What's the best fiction you feel you've read so far?
What's the best fiction you feel you've read so far?