Zan Lynx wrote: > I don't think you would be flying blind inside the bubble. Photons would > reach the surface of the bubble, enter the bubble space and become part of > it. They would then be detectable as normal. There would be no blue or red > shifting or time distortion because the ship isn't moving: the space around > the ship is moving.
Right. No frequency-shifts; just a massive build-up in intensity as a bunch of photons that were widely spaced from each other get packed together. Assuming it can make the transition at all. Remember, an Alcubierre bubble works by destroying the space in front of it, and has a severe (if localized) space-time distortion that the photons would have to navigate in order to enter (or leave) the bubble. It's possible that the surface of the bubble (at least on the leading edge) is like the boundary of a stasis field: perfectly reflective. Of course, there are problems with the Alcubierre bubble, not the least of which is that its scientific properties are well-established; and the energy densities that would be needed to make it work are prohibitive. That, and I don't have any grasp at all of the equations used to describe it. As such, I'm using a pseudo-Alcubierre bubble, in order to give myself at least _some_ maneuvering room. As I picture it, the "warp bubble" is roughly analogous to a supercavitating submarine: instead of destroying the space in front of it, it diverts the space to the sides, leaving a region of non-space into which it slides. light may still be able to cross the border, but only if it's coming in (or out) at an angle; that would lead to a blind-spot directly in front of the ship, which gets wider as the ship goes faster. Sensors and communication would still be possible, but they'd be increasingly limited to the sides. Another side-effect of this is that spaceships might need to be streamlined in order to create a properly-shaped warp distortion: long-and-narrow designs might be preferred, so as to minimize the amount of displacement that it needs to impose. -- Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
