9.4 KiB
[WIP][HSF] "Mass" — Mass Effect Fanfic where the tech makes sense, the aliens are not rubber-foreheads, and the space military is not the navy.
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Author: u/mhd-hbd Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake'*
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URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/147EXWdiLHEyignDRu0TyNPQySZkNYMXGJIl0NLQB5pk/edit#
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Score: 9
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Created: 2014-08-05T11:45:31
Post:
Comments:
u/Paradoxius [+4] (17 hours later)
Are you going to eliminate the actual mass effect? If not, it seems weird that they would go though all that trouble with the artificial gravity.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 days later)
Yes, I am eliminating most of the canon tech (but saving the narrative,) in favour of something a little more sensible.
Shipwide unidirectional artificial gravity gives me headaches when I try to put it into a universe with sensible physics. Centrifugal force is real and simple.
And I completely fail to see how altering the mass of objects gives rise to FTL. Much better to go with space bending (and anyway what did the Relays even do? Let's make them wormholes instead.
Biotics is similarly, from a rational perspective, useless. Guns and bombs exist, why even use Force Push? Much rather have all the precog/mind trick parts (which will become apparent later in the story.)
And ME just hadwaves that the Asari can do the Vulcan Mind Meld. Like oooh it's a sex thing except it's not: Liara does it to Shepard at arms length without physical contact.
And the big bad is an honest-to god race of superintelligent AI's. You can't win against that. Ever.
ME is a trainwreck from a hard sci-fi, Kurtzweil-inspired perspective.
u/Paradoxius [+1] (2 days later)
That seems a little backwards. Removing the use of the ability to affect gravity from combat and gravity simulation and instead just using it for the totally realistic psychics.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 days later)
Maybe it is.
They still have kinetic barriers and I'm having hover-thingies being an integral part of infantry warfare.
u/Paradoxius [+1] (2 days later)
Well something that I always thought was off was that there were no biotic Geth. The Geth use every other weapons tech and more, and intelligent machines can use the mass effect, so why not the Geth?
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (3 days later)
Yes. True.
In my story, as I said, there is limited precognition, mind-reading and powerful suggestion. Yes, machines can do that too. Yes it will be used to terrible effect.
Theoretically, here, a human brain could be a conduit for using gravity manipulation measures directly: emulating lift-weave or barriers or similar. The wattage, however, would fry said brain.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (12 days later)
And I completely fail to see how altering the mass of objects gives rise to FTL.
Energy required to accelerate an object of mass m from rest to a speed v is (1/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2 ) - 1)mc^2 . If m=0, there is no limit on speed, and travel can be instantaneous.
'Ah!' You might say, 'But massless particles also have kinetic energy!'. And indeed, they do. Through the mass-energy equivalence, they acquire mass. But because you can manipulate mass, you can constantly reduce this mass to zero, thus preserving the masslessness.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (12 days later)
I am familiar with the physics. Lemme go Einstein on you for a minute.
Say you are traveling at the speed of light in a spaceship. To an observer on earth, your time-dilation is infinite (and symetrically so is it the other way around.) You are traveling, subjectively, infinitely fast.
You will never have an opportunity to press the 'slow down' button; you will pass out of the galaxy and out of the observable universe in subjectively no time at all.
Compare and contrast an alcumbrierre drive: You are moving at superluminal speeds; but not locally. Therefore you can hit the stop-button.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (12 days later)
By that logic, photons can never interact with anything, because they are traveling at infinite speed and pass out of the observable universe in no time at all. This is obvious nonsense.
Also, the Alcubierre drive isn't really more plausible. It requires exotic matter which probably doesn't exist and violates causality, and as long as you're using exotic matter you might as well just use element zero and come up with a backfilled explanation for why it works and doesn't cause time dilation (which is canon).
How I would work it: Maintaining zero mass requires constant adjustment of the current over the element zero drive, and therefore can be preset to drop out at a certain precalculated threshold which will bring you to your destination. For ordinary FTL drives, this is done in several short hops, which are more stable and allow more possible to maneuver; this accounts for the passing time on shipboard. Mass relay pairs maintain this offboard, so transit through those fields is subjectively instantaneous.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (12 days later)
Okay maybe relativity isn't my strong suit, it made sense in my head.
I wouldn't want to hit an atom of interstellar hydrogen at those speeds though.
I am deliberately not having any of my characters be ship-level engineers (save for Tali) for exactly this reasohn. The point of this story is to showcase military tactics and superior intelligence/firepower.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (13 days later)
You're entitled to write the story you want, it's just really weird to have a rational!Mass Effect that completely discards the core setting premise.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (13 days later)
The core setting premise as I see it does not pertain to the technology, but to what it looks like to live according to the wishes of post-human-level unfriendly intellects.
The mass relays provide easy, centralized transportation; FTL is possible and there are multiple humanoid-equivalent species running about.
I am taking an approach where most everyone is more rational and less adhering to tropes: including the weapons engineers and designers.
Call it advocacy for the age of drone warfare. I will be focusing on clever tactics and clever use of plausible technology and clever circumventing of bureaucracy; rather than saving the day with exploits and science.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (13 days later)
OK, that's a thing. It's not generally restricted to rational fic, though; that describes most well-written military SF (i.e. Old Man's War). So it's not really an underserved market.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 minutes later)
Previous thread is [here]. This is the same story, but told in first person and with better characterization.
Very much a work in progress.
u/rationalidurr [+1] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (an hour later)
Okay so from now on we should read this version? and how do you add more chapters, do you just paste it on the end or do you plan on making each a new Google document? Also please add your commentary to the side for various things, i liked knowing what words like astric meant. And whats this avatar and VR business? Arent they all on a ship already, why do they need avatars if they can talk in person anyway?
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (an hour later)
Yes, now you should read this version. This is a "trial run," to see if the concept is solid (which it appears to be.) I will find appropriate publishing platforms soon.
Will add commentary.
Right, knew I forgot to add something about the VR: visualizations.
Thanks for the feedback.
u/None [+2] (7 hours later)
"appropriate publishing platforms" would be awesome. I'm happy to provide comments on a Google Doc, but somehow I can't bring myself to read+enjoy something published there.
For those of us who had the old doc bookmarked, you may want to add a link to the new one (on the old doc).
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (8 hours later)
I think I'll enjoy seeing more of this. Are you going to be following the plotline as present in the games, or veering off in your own direction?
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 days later)
I am in general going to follow the games. So initial plot involves the crew of ME1, council politics, noveria, feros, virmire, etc.