Space Battle theory, and warp drive

[Rocketscience101]

This is the idea of the space battles were you see the engines on the spacecraft, are always lit up and glowing when we see them, and I feel I have found a reason why.

1. Early on when space weaponry was first started, it was big ship vs. big ship (no were near as big as the star wars, or Battlestar Galactica ships) and pilots of the vessels, found that if he can stay ahead, by having little thrust turned on on the ship, pushing them into higher orbit, his rear gunners could target the ships much easier, and give them an advantage by targeting the bridge. Both sides of the wars would do this, and as time went on, it was taught this idea of staying ahead of your enemy gave you an advantage. Even giving in orbit spacecraft weak ion engines, to keep the ships in range, still stay one step ahead of the enemy. With smaller ships, as ships got bigger, small fighter ships, piloted by one man were developed, giving them the ability to deploy the small fighters and bombers, and attack the ships engines, to keep it from getting ahead of them, and even destroying critical points on the ship. They had very weak ion engines for battle mode, and as time went on, they discovered warp drive, to travel to new planets, and discovered how to change the weaker engines in the fighters, to warp engines. More on warp drive later. The small fighters, although you cannot see it, have rcs thrusters at every critical point, to give it an aircraft feel, then the weak ion engines, are burning constantly to continue the thrust. Which is why they seem to stay with the larger ships, because they are accelerating at the same rate. Space battles always happen in orbit around planets or stars, so in case of emergency, either a rescue crew can get them out of it, or they can get in the escape pods to get to the planets surface.

2. With warp drive, warp drive, is actually a form of time travel, they blast at great speeds to were the target would be first, and then time travel, which is an early stage of time travel, freezes time within the ship during the journey then, reverses it to the exact date of when the ship left, down to just a few seconds later. This requires great amounts of power to do, which is why the engines are so large, and the rear areas of small fighters that can go into warp speed. That is all I have for warp speed. Questions comments are helpful.

[MoonHeadJohn]

When we see the engines of a ship firing at full power in a film it's because it looks good. Most sci-fi movies do it to make it look good and keep people interested. A real battle, if ever there will be one, it will be a lot more boring and quick. Scott Manley delves into it and explains what could happen.

The only movie I know of which tries its best to stick to realism (to an extent) is Sunshine. If I remember correctly they got Brian Cox in as an expert to point out issues and things that just wouldn't be possible (apart from the huge issue of trying to jumpstart a dying sun ).

Not quite sure what you're trying to get at with warp speeds though.

[Scotius]

1. When you are ahead of your enemy, your own engines are between you two - it makes them an easy target, and your own exhaust is blinding sensors on your ship. On modern warships bridges are used mainly for navigational purposes, real 'brain' of the ship is CIC (Command Information Center) - it's hidden deep inside the ship, in safest possible location.

2. What gave you idea warp drive (i assume you are talking about Alcubierre Drive) is a time travel device? It's faster than light, yeah - but you still arrive to your destination point after you started the engines. And it goes for both onboard and 'real' time.

[Stochasty]

2. What gave you idea warp drive (i assume you are talking about Alcubierre Drive) is a time travel device? It's faster than light, yeah - but you still arrive to your destination point after you started the engines. And it goes for both onboard and 'real' time.

This is not necessarily the case.

The Alcubierre metric contains no closed time-like paths, but this is only by construction. A practical warp drive means the ability to turn the warp bubble on and off. Given this ability, constructing closed time-like paths from multiple warp bubbles is trivial. Thus, practical warp drive is time travel.

[Jokurr]

Scott Manley delves into it and explains what could happen.

Do you have a link to this?

[Canopus]

What a real Spacebattle would look like:

Read this site: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarintro.php

[KOCOUR]

Nice articles on spacewarfare:

http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2007/08/space-fighters-not.html this article makes few good pints wich explain why is there no use for fighters in space.

http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/06/space-warfare-iii-warships-in-space.html Good article about warships in space.

Edit: disregard! seems Canopus allready linked something bit better wich includes links to theese.

Edited June 14, 2013 by KOCOUR

[Nibb31]

If you have FTL technology, then you have time travel, anti gravity, and all sorts of other physics-breaking magic. If you have that kind of technology, then there would really be no point in messing with space battles.

[Quickfire]

Warp drive is in fact an Alcuibierre drive, which depends on the principle that although matter cannot travel at superluminal velocities, space can. check it up. So it is more of a very localized wormhole that continually generates itself in front of your ship. Not impossible, but we need to be able to create gravitational forces first.... otherwise, those starships would use a form of ion-plasma drive, which releases light as energy, or a fusion impulse drive, both ridiculously more powerful than the types used today ^^.

[Quickfire]

Hardly physics breaking. Just incomprehensible without (at least) a Degree in Quantum Mechanics.

[MoonHeadJohn]

Do you have a link to this?

Tried having a quick glance but couldn't find it. I know he's done one because I remember him talking about a series of books or his idea of a sci-fi story where an advanced race comes to Earth and restricts humans from using such brutal technological warfare until we fully understand and respect the technology to prevent us from destroying ourselves and potentially other races in the process.

If you're interested, why not send him a message? Sure he knows where abouts he put it

[Mr Shifty]

Hardly physics breaking. Just incomprehensible without (at least) a Degree in Quantum Mechanics.

Quantum mechanics? I thought that Alcubierre's proposal was a result of working Einstein's field equations for general relativity backwards. What does it have to do with quantum mechanics?

Note that I can also achieve strange results even with Newtonian kinematics. For instance, the Newtonian equation for a hyperbolic orbit includes a whole branch of the hyperbola that does not represent a realizable path for an object with real mass, because it order to travel it, gravity would have to be repulsive.

[Promii]

All FTL travel has the potential create causality violations for certain reference frames and is therefor equivalent to time travel.

See here: FTL, Causality, and Unsolvable Paradoxes

[Stochasty]

Warp drive is in fact an Alcuibierre drive

You have it backwards. The Alcubierre metric is an example of warp drive; it is not the only example. It also has nothing to do with a wormhole.

Wormholes involve a change in the global topology of spacetime; the Alcubierre metric does not. As we know of no means for generating global topological change in within any of our current theories, this means that Alcubierre drives are more practical than wormholes, although only barely.

Edited June 15, 2013 by Stochasty

[WhiteWeasel]

What he said

A little too much rule of cool for my taste, but better than most others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syfyuEHDRQc

Best example at 34:30

Edited June 15, 2013 by WhiteWeasel

[Nibb31]

Warp drive is in fact an Alcuibierre drive, which depends on the principle that although matter cannot travel at superluminal velocities, space can. check it up. So it is more of a very localized wormhole that continually generates itself in front of your ship. Not impossible, but we need to be able to create gravitational forces first.... otherwise, those starships would use a form of ion-plasma drive, which releases light as energy, or a fusion impulse drive, both ridiculously more powerful than the types used today ^^.

It doesn't matter what technology you use. If you are travelling from point A to B faster than light travels from point A to point B, then you are breaking causality and you effectively have time travel.

Imagine this example of two space battleships. Spaceship A has a cloaking device and lasers. Spaceship B has FTL torpedoes.

- Spaceship A fires its lasers (that travel at c) at B, which reveals its position, and damages Spaceship B.

- The hit causes spaceship B to instantly retaliate by firing its FTL torpedoes and destroying Spaceship A *before* it has fired its lasers.

- Because A never fires its lasers, spaceship B never knows that A was there and doesn't fire it's torpedoes. Causality is broken.

Another example.

- Imagine that an FTL civilization receives a distress radio signal from a far away star.

- The FTL civilization sends a rescue mission that arrives before the radio signal is sent, fixes the problem, and the radio signal is never sent. Broken causality.

The idea of FTL military spacecraft is pointless, because any civilization that has FTL also has the ability to break causality and will be able to preemptively fix any problems without even realizing that those problems existed in the first place. There would be no need for space battleships or wars, because those wars would be won before the enemy even started to become a threat.

Edited June 17, 2013 by Nibb31

[Quickfire]

the field equations are useful, but there are links everywhere....

[Inspector Gadget]

It doesn't matter what technology you use. If you are travelling from point A to B faster than light travels from point A to point B, then you are breaking causality and you effectively have time travel.

Imagine this example of two space battleships. Spaceship A has a cloaking device and lasers. Spaceship B has FTL torpedoes.

- Spaceship A fires its lasers (that travel at c) at B, which reveals its position, and damages Spaceship B.

- The hit causes spaceship B to instantly retaliate by firing its FTL torpedoes and destroying Spaceship A *before* it has fired its lasers.

- Because A never fires its lasers, spaceship B never knows that A was there and doesn't fire it's torpedoes. Causality is broken.

Another example.

- Imagine that an FTL civilization receives a distress radio signal from a far away star.

- The FTL civilization sends a rescue mission that arrives before the radio signal is sent, fixes the problem, and the radio signal is never sent. Broken causality.

The idea of FTL military spacecraft is pointless, because any civilization that has FTL also has the ability to break causality and will be able to preemptively fix any problems without even realizing that those problems existed in the first place. There would be no need for space battleships or wars, because those wars would be won before the enemy even started to become a threat.

If photons are sent out and someone responds by sending an FTL capable ship there wouldn't be a problem. What you're describing is a ship that is capable of traveling BACK through time wich leads to these paradoxes (Btw. There are many theories as well that explain these paradoxes f.x. fixed timelines, dynamic timelines, multiverses etc.)

But here we're talking about ships that move faster then light, but that doesn't mean that the ship is effectively moving backwards through time so to.

So if a signal is sent from A to B and B responds by sending an FTL ship to A but the FTL ship is still sent away after B sent the signal. Since the ship can't move back through time it won't arrive before the signal is sent and there's no paradox. Many believe that the technology to move faster then light will come at the same time we develop time travel but I digress on that point.

Spaceship A has a cloaking device and lasers

Also, There's no stealth in space. This link will explain why:

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php#id--There_Ain't_No_Stealth_In_Space

[Canopus]

A little too much rule of cool for my taste, but better than most others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syfyuEHDRQc

Best example at 34:30

Not really the best example. Laser with recoil, cloaking?

[royalkingofgames]

That is only mentioned once.

[Good_Apollo]

I always thought the Mass Effect universe handled these things well, I find it reasonably plausible given the technology that is described. Manipulating mass would enable many things to be possible. Space combat is described accurately as being at great distance; a common problem is hiding ship emissions as they light up like a Christmas tree against the background of space. Point-defense lasers are used but are only useful in a small perimeter around the ship because of energy dispersion in space. Conventional Newtonian physics are applicable and RCS are still used when mass drives aren't or fail. Of course I'm mostly going by nostalgic memory of the first game's excellent Codex, I don't think it ever presented actual combat in the same way it is described and I'm sure numerous liberties were taken in the sequels. That said, I thought it all fit together very well and kept me eagerly reading every next Codex entry.

Battlestar Gallactica projects a decent attempt at realistic combat and though I never found it to be described in detail enough, Ender's Game had enough good science in it for me to take on good faith that it's universe also had realistic combat.

[royalkingofgames]

Galactica uses convention technology:missiles,nukes,ballistic sidearms and telephones.

the only things we dont have is ftl or Sentient machines or low grade railguns.

The ships use high quality ion engines.

Vipers Newtonian physics are demonstrated in 'Pegasus' and 'Resurrection Ship'