[I edited the subject line of this message to be more meaningful, and
re-sent it from the request to the list address -- Say, I always liked
the term "Superluminal" more than "Faster than Light"... sounds
sophisticated. Maybe I'll set up a TML filter to enforce different
vocabulary, like translating all TML messages into Vargr :-) -- James]
A few thoughts...
On fusing hydrogen...I'm not sure we need an exotic process as much as
we need a LOT of heat and pressure, which advanced technology might be
able to provide. Why develop this when you've got lots of deuterium
(one percent of one percent of the UNIVERSE is deuterium)? Because
hydrogen is 73 percent of the universe.
(I could be wrong on this, but I don't think the sun does much more
than provide a LOT of heat and pressure to get is hydrogen to fuse...
I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that this is a very slow process
compared to other fusion reactions and that might be why it would be
less than profitable.)
By the way, does anyone know anything about what would be involved
with designing a fusion transmutation plant? The idea is simple...if
you have a lot of hydrogen, but very little silicon or aluminum, or
anything else under the element 26 line, and you have practical fusion
power, you should be able to simply fuse the stuff up until you have
what you want. Okay, okay, I know it has got to be a LOT more com-
plicated than that. That's what I'm asking...what would be involved
in this kind of operation? Could it be done in the first place (it
sounds like it should work, but there may be some aspect of physics
that I don't know about that would make it impractical or even
impossible)?
As for the speed of light stuff...
I don't really care much for game purposes. I just assume that we
manage to find a way around the speed of light limit (I actually do
not use Jump Drives, but assume that spacecraft can transfer between
solar systems using Stargates, like the ones in 2001, and it is an
instantaneous deal; I find this more plausible, although I'm sure
people will disagree with me on this).
Of course, if it really does bother you, but you want to run an
sf game, and use something like the Traveller system, I will recommend
an alternative scenario. I'm using something like it as the background
for the sf I write, which I fear is trash, but you might see the novel
in 1992 or 1993 if I ever get it finished and if anyone is silly enough
to buy the damn thing. Build on the following assumptions and see
what you get...
1) Faster than light travel is impossible.
2) Slower than light travel up to 1% the speed of light is easy with
spacecraft using fusion drives (and much faster ships, usually used
for interstellar colonization, can be built using matter-antimatter
or laser-propelled lightsails, but this is a more complicated
process)
3) Space industrialization becomes common. People discover that it
is not difficult to built million-person habitats massing 75 billion
tons (more or less) from common materials found in asteroids and
the moons of major planets. In addition, these habitats are roomy
and pleasant (if necessary, they could support a lot more people than
just one million), being cylinder habitats about 10 km. by 40 km.
4) It takes about one trillion tons of raw materials to build a 75-
billion ton, million-person habitat.
5) The available mass in the asteroid belt of an average solar system
is about two quintillion tons (2 x 10 to the 18th power). Far more
mass is available from any large moon. Silicon, common in these bodies,
can be used for solar panels (the mass listed includes panels that
will provide sunlight and one megawatt per person out to the orbit of
Saturn, or an equivilent), so you do not even have to use up hydrogen
for fusion power.
6) It may take about nine hundred years for a colonial population of
one million to expand in a virgin solar system until its population,
now in the billions, can send out its own colonies. Colony ships
are built for speed, and can cross 10 light years in only one century.
Thus, the rate of expansion for humanity is one percent the speed
of light...ten light years every ten centuries.
7) If we do not meet nonhumans in space, we can make our own through
genetic engineering, uplifting of nonsophont species, etc. (See
Bruce Sterling and David Brin for interesting ideas.)
8) Fusion driven spacecraft can cross a solar system in weeks, meaning
that a solar system starts to resemble the world in the days of sailing
ships in terms of how quickly people can move from one habitat to
another. The cometary halo becomes the haven of all kinds of craziness
because no one can patrol an area that extends out to a light year or
more when your best ships can only move at a tenth of the speed of
light, or maybe a little faster. (And there are more than a trillion
cometary nuclei...tons and tons and tons of raw materials, including
hydrogen for fusion power...in a cometary halo.)
9) There are more than one million solar systems within a five hundred
lightyear radius (which might be reached by colony ships in fifty
thousand years) of Sol system.
Think about what human society and humanity might be like in fifty
thousand years if all this is true. In particular, keep in mind that
even if you are limited to one solar system (except when you want to
start a new campaign by sending your players off to a new system in
suspended animation) that one solar system, if you really develop its
possibilities, is a pretty big place. Enjoy.