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CRMcNeill
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 Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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Two points:
1). My intention was more that it was "like" anti-matter, not that it "was" anti-matter. By this, I mean that it is highly volatile in real space and is used to power starships.
2). Considering how minimal the section on anti-matter is (and how little treatment it gets in the SWU as a whole), it could be folded into the above hypermatter concept with minimal effort. After all, its main non-weapon use in the canon is powering hyperdrive rings, much like how hypermatter reactors power starships.
| Quote: | | Otherspace was described as a pocket dimension that was beyond both realspace and hyperspace, whatever that means. |
Yeah. Otherspace was definitely a weird one. I still haven't settled for myself how that all fits into the concept of hyperspace.
| Quote: | | Natives of realspace enter hyperspace and return to realspace in their ships, so natives of hyperspace could possibly come to realspace in their ships. |
But natives of realspace can only enter hyperspace under specific circumstances, and can't stay at all without major technological assistance and protective shielding. The inverse would very likely be true of life forms in hyperspace.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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I didn't say the natives of hyperspace would come out of their ships (their technological assistance and protective shielding). Another possibility is that they could stay in hyperspace and start reverse mining realmatter. I'm just riffing off your ideas and throwing out some adventure seeds. Like anything else here, take it or leave it.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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No problem. I just get this feeling that populating hyperspace would rapidly get rather complicated and fly in the face of what little we do know about hyperspace...
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Whill
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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Of course, populating hyperspace would work well with my Warhammer 40,000 crossover concept...
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Zarn
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| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 4:10 am Post subject: |
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Warning: I'm going to go full technobabble on this one.
Hypermatter: Hypermatter is described as, 'tachyonic matter that existed in hyperspace', and was used for power generation through, 'constrained by realspace, charged tachyons were annihilated as they accelerated to infinite speed within a reactor'.
Problem is, tachyons are faster-than-light, and would then likely be the inverse of Dark Matter. Not our bright matter or real matter, but Krad matter. Instead of mirroring it, you're actually rotating it 90 degrees and kicking it along an imaginary axis.
So, it seems that the actual power generation part of hypermatter is akin to our steam-powered nuclear reactors. We just heat water up to its boiling point through some means, and use that to generate power. Hypermatter used vast amounts of reactant fuel, so it's basically a steam generator. Which is completely unlike an antimatter pion drive, but I digress.
Accelerating to 'infinite speed' within a reactor implies that the tachyons are resting, or at least are moving slower than they would otherwise. This is, as far as I can gather using my rather rudimentary physics, complete nonsense. I'm postulating something akin to Cherenkov radiation, massive enough to instantly vaporize its reactant, and that despite its reactant requirements, the resulting power generating potential is nigh-limitless.
This dovetails nicely with the antimatter technology and fusion technology that we know exists in the Star Wars universe. If you want something that's portable and reasonably powerful, you get a fusion reactor. They're backpack size, and can be used for lots of stuff - and only require (normal) water.
If you want something that can refuel itself over time, doesn't have too much power, but can last really long, you get what is essentially zero point energy modules (this seems to be the basis of the cells used in, say, the Aratech 74-Z).
If you want something that is fuel efficient, can deliver vast amounts of energy, and is only semi-portable (let's say a minimum size of, say, a truck, or in the 'tons' range), you're looking at antimatter. Star Wars doesn't seem to use pion drives, so you're still looking at reactant matter - but shielding and what have you should be simpler with antimatter.
And then we get really weird - if you consider antimatter a '3D' solution, you get hypermatter as a '4D' solution. Huge amounts of custom shielding, weird requirements to transport it, and massive demands on reactant - but that's because you're generating enough power to, you know, blow up planets or what have you. And the Imp II ship Battle Lance can serve as an example of what happens if you try to cut corners with Star Wars technology when it comes to hypermatter.
But how do you get hypermatter?
I'm thinking you're looking at the edge of singularities, carefully modulating hyperspace fields to coax hypermatter from hyperspace into realspace. As realspace mass cast 'shadows' into hyperspace, I think any eddies or tides in hyperspace that moves 'hypermatter' should pool close to or inside the hyperspace shadow of anything that generates a steep gravitational gradient.
Obviously, this kind of mining would be dangerous work - you're close to a singularity so an equipment malfunction might mean crossing the event horizon, any accretion disk would be insanely dangerous because of the radiation levels (so you're looking for as 'naked' a singularity as you can), and you're also trying to store hypermatter stably in realspace - which might be the tesseract equivalent of a magnetic bottle, something which is strange enough in and of itself.
Stuff in hyperspace, and other realities
I always thought that Otherspace made perfect sense, except for the 'pocket dimension' part. At least, 12 year old me thought that. The description for Otherspace includes, "While it appeared to be a vast expanse of storm-gray nothingness, it did contain colored, swirling nebulae, and stars which were described as "shining holes of darkness.""
I always preferred the B5 movie 'Otherspace' explanation - that you're essentially looking at different harmonies or frequencies.
Imagine a tree-like structure, if you will, with a higher energy density towards the root, and a lower energy density towards the leafs of the tree. We're somewhere up from the leaves (we know more than one dimension), but we're not necessarily that close to the root (jumping into hyperspace means escaping into something that's closer to the root than our realspace).
So, strictly speaking, if we managed to jump from hyperspace into somewhere with an even higher energy density (closer towards the root), we might get recursive about this. However, the energy requirements of maintaining a hyperspace field around ourselves (otherwise we'd be wrecked, our very matter torn apart by the higher energy surrounding us) might preclude that.
Anyways, imagine jumping into hyperspace, and then jump back down again into a level with roughly the same energy level as our realspace, but not being our realspace - subtly different. That's Otherspace, to me. It's a different realspace, close enough that we can exist there (or vice versa, in the case of the Charon), but it's not our realspace.
Sure, there might be life in hyperspace. We don't know how time moves there, so hyperspace might be in the equivalent of just after a big bang of sorts - which might explain the scarcity of conventional matter there, and also the lack of any hyperspace-native creatures. If we had any candidate to a hyperspace-native creature described in Star Wars, it would be the teezl.
Even the equivalent of tardigrades in hyperspace would be terrifying, because of the energy potential they'd represent. If they hugged something from realspace, that'd be a real hug of death. If they had the technology to build the equivalent of 'realspace shielding', jumping down into our realspace would mean they would shine like stars, or instantly turn into something that would be functionally identical to singularities.
Incidentally, this is also a way to explain why something that's lost in hyperspace never reemerges again - if you get a failure in shielding, you get ripped apart by the raging energy torrents of hyperspace, and if you can't generate the energy needed to jump out of hyperspace, you get ripped apart by the raging energy torrents.
As an aside, I imagine a PC Verpine, spending a Force point, might juryrig something that used the energy of Hyperspace to refuel, but it'd be a Heroic +30 at least.
Technobabble over. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for that (technobabble can be fun). I feel the "tree" analogy would work better if higher on the tree had a higher energy density. And the prefix hyper- includes meanings of "over" and "above" so I would try put hyperspace up in the analogy. Just sayin'.
Thanks for the reminder about hypermatter being tachyonic in nature. That goes right along with my conception of hyperspace being a place where the natural state of things is high velocity. Perhaps almost the speed of light is the minimum speed instead of the maximum speed. I've thought of the acceleration to "lightspeed" being caused by a portal being opened to hyperspace in front of the ship and the high-speed nature of hyperspace "sucking" the ship into it, accelerating it to lightspeed. Likewise, the return to realspace is by opening a portal to realspace and the low-speed "drag" of realspace (like dropping an anchor) brings the ship out of hyperspace with the higher-speed nature of hyperspace behind the ship decelerating it.
From that point of view, hypermatter would not seem to be relatively still like dark matter. If hypermatter particles naturally collect on a ship travelling through hyperspace and are released in a flash upon reentry to realspace, then it seems that "mining" them would more likely take the form of a ship in hyperspace collecting them in a special receptacle that allows them to keep moving.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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Do we know for certain that hyperspace is tachyonic in nature? My understanding was that tachyons were realspace particles that traveled faster than light, but will that apply to what is essentially a higher dimension that is coterminous with our own?
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Whill
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:56 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | Do we know for certain that hyperspace is tachyonic in nature? My understanding was that tachyons were realspace particles that traveled faster than light, but will that apply to what is essentially a higher dimension that is coterminous with our own? |
Tachyons are hypothetical (realspace) particles that always move faster than light. In hyperspace, at least some things are capable of moving much faster than light, and ships can transition between realspace and hyperspace. If tachyons exist in Star Wars, then they logically could exist in both realspace and hyperspace. Tachyons would seem more natural in hyperspace where ships much larger than particles can move faster than light.
Furthermore, per Wookieepedia, Hypermatter was "tachyonic matter that existed in hyperspace." And tachyons were "particles that built up on a ship in hyperspace, and were released in a distinctive flash when it reverted to realspace. Hypermatter was composed of tachyonic particles and when these charged particles were exposed to the constraints of the lower dimensions of realspace produced near-limitless energy."
So I'd have to say, yes, we know for certain that hypermatter particles from hyperspace are tachyonic in nature in the EU. However, the EU and the rest of us here should only be a springboard for any GM's ideas, not a boundary. If you want hypermatter to be slow-moving dark matter, then I say go for it. And I still like the idea of dark matter existing outside of realspace but casting gravity shadow into realspace.
The tachyonic nature of hypermatter comforms to my personal preferred view of hyperspace and hyperdrives, but that may not work for everyone. If you must be limited to the EU and/or consensus (or whatever your personal standards are), then you could say dark matter exists in subspace (or wherever), casting a gravity shadow into realspace. Just throwing stuff out there.
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Zarn
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:32 am Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | Thanks for that (technobabble can be fun). I feel the "tree" analogy would work better if higher on the tree had a higher energy density. And the prefix hyper- includes meanings of "over" and "above" so I would try put hyperspace up in the analogy. Just sayin'. |
Eh, I'm a computer guy by nature, 'higher' to me is towards the root of the tree. Whether that is "up" or "down", depends on whether the root node is visualized as being at the top, or at the bottom.
I was quite specific about the root node, because I was aiming at a proliferation of possible realities at lower densities, but fewer and fewer realities at higher energy densities, similar to how one found the Higgs particle. |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | The tachyonic nature of hypermatter comforms to my personal preferred view of hyperspace and hyperdrives, but that may not work for everyone. If you must be limited to the EU and/or consensus (or whatever your personal standards are), then you could say dark matter exists in subspace (or wherever), casting a gravity shadow into realspace. Just throwing stuff out there. |
Even before this idea occurred to me, several other aspects of my SWU (in conformity with various points in the EU) involve objects being able to remain stationary in hyperspace. The utility of such is extremely limited, but remains useful under certain narrow sets of circumstances. As such, I lean more toward the idea of hypermatter being able to remain relatively stationary or slow moving, so long as it remains in hyperspace. While I lack Zarn's understanding of physics, my concept was that hypermatter is stored for use in what amounts to an inverse hyperspace field generator (in essence, an artificial pocket of hyperspace in real space), and that, when released into real space (within the reactor core), it immediately attempts to "accelerate" back into hyperspace, with the resulting release of energy being the power source for reactors.
I may be completely shredding the concept of tachyons and physics in general, but what I'm thinking is applying the FTL acceleration of tachyons interdimensionally, in that the tachyons would not travel anywhere in the normal three dimensions that we understand, but would rather (to paraphrase Douglas Adams) accelerate to FTL velocities "at right angles to reality", annihilating themselves in a massive release of energy as they attempt to transfer back into hyperspace and their normal resting state.
Thoughts?
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | I suppose it depends what you mean by habitable. IMO, the entire fabric of hyperspace is inimical to anything from real space, and any contact between the two results in utter disintegration. |
Why? Not there is nothing wrong with your opinion, but why go that route? Considering that ships go in an out of hyperspace it would seem more likely that matter and hypermatter are not necessarily inimical to each other.
If you want to get energy from hyperspace, you could just say that the strong or weak nuclear forces operate at different strengths for hypermatter, thereby making it easier to extract energy, or more powerful than with conventional matter.
I think that would be more interesting that going all Star Trek with it being like anti-matter.
After opening the door to this neat hyper-universe idea I think it's a shame to make it react violently with real matter. Plus it would make it much less desirable to use as a fuel source. It would be much harder and more expensive to mine. I think you're killing off your golden goose. |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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Because officially (at least as the Brian Daley Han Solo trilogy is concerned), any real space object in hyperspace that is unprotected by a hyperdrive field is instantly annihilated / disintegrated / ceases to exist. It is logical to assume that the inverse is also true.
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Zarn
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| Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:51 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | ... applying the FTL acceleration of tachyons interdimensionally, in that the tachyons would not travel anywhere in the normal three dimensions that we understand, but would rather (to paraphrase Douglas Adams) accelerate to FTL velocities "at right angles to reality", annihilating themselves in a massive release of energy as they attempt to transfer back into hyperspace and their normal resting state. |
Yup, that's pretty much what I meant with the 'Cherenkov radiation' comment. That's the pale, blue glow down in the reactor pool. |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 1:52 am Post subject: |
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Works for me. I expect I will leave the details of exactly where hyper matter is located up to individual GMs, as a space opera setting allows us to play somewhat fast and loose with real world physics.
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