Scifi Question: Is Governing An Interstellar Empire From The Past Feasible?

[Spacescifi]

I wanna say yes... since every government known is based on laws made in the past that still govern us today. It's not the dead people governing so much as their laws and aspirations are.

I was pondering on how to create scifi space opera without violating the lightspeed limit and came up with the following below.

Here is a scifi scenario:

Transpace Warp drive: Translates space past starship at the max speed of light speed.

Timeporter: All starships carry them onboard. Seems like a teleporter pad but actually transports you forward through time instantly on the same spot on the teleporter pad. That is how crew can travel years at lightspeed without aging. You can also travel back in time, but not further back than the date of timeporter's activation.

A fun trick is that it helps the ship avoid fatal collisions by foretelling the future, since if you cannot timeport to a future date it means the ship must have been destroyed by colliding with something huge while warping at lightspeed or in some other way. So you adjust ship's heading until you can make successful timeports with random items, and then send crew after.

Empire Control: Using timeporters aboard starships is how they keep control over a vast interstellar empire.

Of course, the past governs the future, and it is not everyday that a starship bothers to travel home to see the future. Especially because they wish to live in their own timeline... usually.

Main Questions:

1. How feasible is running an interstellar empire like this?

2. What would be the main challenges to doing so?

3. What common sense laws on time travel would exist, provided basic human morality/immorality is still in play?

 

I would expect crew families back on the home planet to get fast response on how things are going 50 or more LY out, since timeporting future crew back in time to when the starship was still docked on the planet or in low orbit of it is all future crew have to do.

Basically you will know in minutes if the mission a starship was sent on was succesful or not.

Edited February 19 by Spacescifi

[SunlitZelkova]

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Main Questions:

1. How feasible is running an interstellar empire like this?

2. What would be the main challenges to doing so?

3. What common sense laws on time travel would exist, provided basic human morality/immorality is still in play?

1. You’re already making up technology so why not make up whether something works or not?

2. The challenges would be that the technology you envision is fantastical and might not even be feasible. The time travel machine especially is just pure fantasy, even if forward time travel might be possible there is no small machine that could produce it.

3. To quote Ant-Man, “Don’t talk to your past self, don’t bet on sporting events.”

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

1. You’re already making up technology so why not make up whether something works or not?

2. The challenges would be that the technology you envision is fantastical and might not even be feasible. The time travel machine especially is just pure fantasy, even if forward time travel might be possible there is no small machine that could produce it.

3. To quote Ant-Man, “Don’t talk to your past self, don’t bet on sporting events.”

I think there would or should be a law that you can only timeport to a time AFTER you left on your space trip, and that time would be the same day you left.

I understand that time paradoxes are in issue, but not one that is impossible from a writer POV.

Branching alternate timelines not unlike with the TVA in Loki the TV series are a way to allow for time paradoxes.

[darthgently]

17 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

I think there would or should be a law that you can only timeport to a time AFTER you left on your space trip, and that time would be the same day you left.

I will not vote for you if you run for a legislative office given your philosophy of lawmaking.

And if I am on that crew and launch day is election day there would be two of me to vote (one by mail in ballot, of course).  So that would be two lost votes

[Spacescifi]

18 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I will not vote for you if you run for a legislative office given your philosophy of lawmaking.

And if I am on that crew and launch day is election day there would be two of me to vote (one by mail in ballot, of course).  So that would be two lost votes

Haha! Only your mail by ballet vote would count.

Having clones of people around is something legislators are trying to prevent as well as time paradox shenanigans (changing the past to change the future).

 

Ideally you could freely travel between the future and the past for distant space exploration, using starships as if they were like stargates... only they are time travel porters.

[SunlitZelkova]

5 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

I think there would or should be a law that you can only timeport to a time AFTER you left on your space trip, and that time would be the same day you left.

Legal law or physical law?

If the time machines are controlled by AI, they would be unhackable and never be subject to evil doers' machinations. That way even if physically you could go anywhere in time, the commercially available time machines for installation on ships would only be capable of going to one point in time (the one you desire to limit them to).

5 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

I understand that time paradoxes are in issue, but not one that is impossible from a writer POV.

Anything is possible from a writer POV. It just depends on what you think constitutes reality (or whether reality even exists).

5 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Branching alternate timelines not unlike with the TVA in Loki the TV series are a way to allow for time paradoxes.

The problem with this is it implies the characters will always be different versions of themselves, except for a single character who is focused on (main character usually). Because not only will branching timelines occur when someone uses a machine to go into the past, but naturally occur whenever anyone does anything. Because time doesn't just exist like a line with branches going out, in fact time isn't really real at all.

The whole "branching realities" thing needs to assume that somewhere at some point in space anything that ever existed still exists, and always exists. Let's call them universes. Each universe is frozen- time isn't real. What we experience as time is a consequence of our minds (consciousness) being forced through different universes in a linear fashion.

When you time travel, you consciousness is transported back into another universe at another point in time. You still remember what happened in the succeeding universes, so you can make different choices and thus enter different universes.

BUT, here is the plot problem.

The main character goes to another universe. That means he leaves behind the other characters in their own universe.

He isn't really changing anything in time (like Loki and other Marvel shows suppose), he's just running away to another universe where things are different.

Spoiler

Remember in Loki when he goes back in time to save everyone at the end of season 2? He didn't save everyone. Those people still died in their own universe. He just went to another one at an earlier point in time where he had a chance to save them, but it wasn't really the people he knew before.

Now, for anyone reading you're probably thinking "Wait, but how does someone exist in another universe and "leave the others behind? Isn't there one linear reality?"

No. Some of us stay in some realities, and others go into others. But if you are in Track A and go into Track B, when you see your girlfriend in Track B you are seeing an empty shell that looks human and acts human- an android if you will. Your girlfriend will be left with an empty shell back in Track A.

So what does all this mean for a story? It means that time travel with "branching timelines" turns your writing into something lazy. The attempt to convince those who nitpick realism by allowing for paradoxes with a multiverse turns the meat of the story (what if you could go back in time and change things?) into something rotten, or at least a week or so past the expiration date. Your hero doesn't do anything interesting like trying to make better decisions and learning what happens when you mess with time, he just repeatedly journeys to different worlds, some nightmarish, some fantastical.

TL/DR time travel with branching realities robs your character of any real agency. The complex set of actions they undergo to resolve the problems they encounter are, when looked at closely, illusory.

[KSK]

This is something I’ve pondered myself.  Basic premise is that wormhole travel is a thing but (borrowing a concept from Greg Egan), it only allows travel at lightspeed.

So yeah - how do you run a galactic civilization when communications and travel times are limited to c? 

Beyond a few obvious things - long-lived species, use of some kind of suspended animation etc., I didn’t really come up with anything conclusive.

I suspect there’s a good story in there somewhere but it may be beyond my writing skills!

 

 

[farmerben]

44 minutes ago, KSK said:

 

So yeah - how do you run a galactic civilization when communications and travel times are limited to c? 

 

 

 

You don't run it in the sense of having unified governance and trade relationships.  

You can't even have real time communication.  A generous mother world could send bulk data updating something like Wikipedia, with 3-D printable files and so on.  So that colonies would get tech updates within their own light cone.  

 

If we stop overpopulating, and come to an economy of overabundance, we may decide to stop expanding.  I want to explore other stars, just because.  But settlers going to frontiers are hoping for a better life.  If it's absurd to expect a better life on a new colony than in a mature system, colonies may not grow.

[kerbiloid]

A bronze tablet:

"Greetings, descendants!
You have a non-switchable giganuke in a secret place, and also your DNA is modified to decay in five centuryies if you don't receive a secret ingredient, which is mined, too.
Do as we tell, and have a nice day."

[Spacescifi]

On 2/19/2024 at 11:39 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Legal law or physical law?

If the time machines are controlled by AI, they would be unhackable and never be subject to evil doers' machinations. That way even if physically you could go anywhere in time, the commercially available time machines for installation on ships would only be capable of going to one point in time (the one you desire to limit them to).

Anything is possible from a writer POV. It just depends on what you think constitutes reality (or whether reality even exists).

The problem with this is it implies the characters will always be different versions of themselves, except for a single character who is focused on (main character usually). Because not only will branching timelines occur when someone uses a machine to go into the past, but naturally occur whenever anyone does anything. Because time doesn't just exist like a line with branches going out, in fact time isn't really real at all.

The whole "branching realities" thing needs to assume that somewhere at some point in space anything that ever existed still exists, and always exists. Let's call them universes. Each universe is frozen- time isn't real. What we experience as time is a consequence of our minds (consciousness) being forced through different universes in a linear fashion.

When you time travel, you consciousness is transported back into another universe at another point in time. You still remember what happened in the succeeding universes, so you can make different choices and thus enter different universes.

BUT, here is the plot problem.

The main character goes to another universe. That means he leaves behind the other characters in their own universe.

He isn't really changing anything in time (like Loki and other Marvel shows suppose), he's just running away to another universe where things are different.

  Reveal hidden contents

Remember in Loki when he goes back in time to save everyone at the end of season 2? He didn't save everyone. Those people still died in their own universe. He just went to another one at an earlier point in time where he had a chance to save them, but it wasn't really the people he knew before.

Now, for anyone reading you're probably thinking "Wait, but how does someone exist in another universe and "leave the others behind? Isn't there one linear reality?"

No. Some of us stay in some realities, and others go into others. But if you are in Track A and go into Track B, when you see your girlfriend in Track B you are seeing an empty shell that looks human and acts human- an android if you will. Your girlfriend will be left with an empty shell back in Track A.

So what does all this mean for a story? It means that time travel with "branching timelines" turns your writing into something lazy. The attempt to convince those who nitpick realism by allowing for paradoxes with a multiverse turns the meat of the story (what if you could go back in time and change things?) into something rotten, or at least a week or so past the expiration date. Your hero doesn't do anything interesting like trying to make better decisions and learning what happens when you mess with time, he just repeatedly journeys to different worlds, some nightmarish, some fantastical.

TL/DR time travel with branching realities robs your character of any real agency. The complex set of actions they undergo to resolve the problems they encounter are, when looked at closely, illusory.

 

Ok. What if I just go with timeporters that can only go forward in time then?

Choice is no longer illusory as you can no longet manipulate the past to an excess... only a little. Like figuring out your ship was either destroyed in the future or it's timeporter disabled when it ceases to timeport test objects past a certain date.

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

A bronze tablet:

"Greetings, descendants!
You have a non-switchable giganuke in a secret place, and also your DNA is modified to decay in five centuryies if you don't receive a secret ingredient, which is mined, too.
Do as we tell, and have a nice day."

 

You never cease to amaze me with your creative and sometimes dark but efficient humor.

Reminds me of Kang's conversation with Janet in Quantumania.

Janet: "That's what monsters do."
Kang: "That's what conquerors do. They burn the broken world. And they make a new one."

The irony is that to behave like a a god you also have to behave in a way that many would see as rather amoral if not evil for the sake of efficiency.

Superman in comics has gotten himself killed or permanently defeated more than once in dark multiverse comic variants purely for failing to act more ruthless when it comes to countering massive threats.

I think any moral person would have doubts about acting as you suggested, yet what may cause them to do it is if data poured over by analysts suggests that it is the optimal way to get results.

Because in the end, the only thing man cares about or ever will is getting results for his labor.

Getting nothing makes him want to die.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 21 by Spacescifi

[Terwin]

Multi-star civilizations without ftl puts you in a state akin to the British empire, with colonies that took months to communicate back and forth.

The colonies and delays are just bigger 

[Shpaget]

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

What if I just go with timeporters that can only go forward in time then?

 

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Like figuring out your ship was either destroyed in the future or it's timeporter disabled when it ceases to timeport test objects past a certain date.

If you know now that the ship didn't (will not) arrive to the future, you still have backwards time travel of information, which is exactly the same thing as the problem you're avoiding.

[Terwin]

3 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

 

If you know now that the ship didn't (will not) arrive to the future, you still have backwards time travel of information, which is exactly the same thing as the problem you're avoiding.

If time-ports can be blocked by things other than destruction of the pad, it becomes easy to ask questions of the future by just arranging for temporary blocks based on the answer of the question.  If only destruction of the timeport will block it, it is still possible, just more expensive 

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Terwin said:

Multi-star civilizations without ftl puts you in a state akin to the British empire, with colonies that took months to communicate back and forth.

The colonies and delays are just bigger 

Yes its kind of weird to us that wars could continue for months after an peace treaty was signed as none of the parts in the local conflict knew about the treaty. 
Pretty sure it was some "No I did not receive the message" if you are close to taking an city in south America some months after you was at peace.

 

[SunlitZelkova]

17 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Ok. What if I just go with timeporters that can only go forward in time then?

Choice is no longer illusory as you can no longet manipulate the past to an excess... only a little. Like figuring out your ship was either destroyed in the future or it's timeporter disabled when it ceases to timeport test objects past a certain date.

That'd work. Just remember there are no branching timelines (and thus no duplicates of people from different time periods), and whoever goes forward is stuck there.

[kerbiloid]

On 2/21/2024 at 9:09 PM, magnemoe said:

months

Decades.