Yet another FTL Theory

[Kurkistan he/him]

Thanks for the backup, Shardlet, but that's actually not strictly true. The bubbles aren't dropped, they're popped by the Sliders being pulled out of them. I don't anticipate an overabundance of weirdness from interaction. The Cadmium bubbles will have been doing their thing for awhile, and the ship will transit in its entirety from being affected by the bubble to not. Maybe some slight jostling, but the course can be corrected easily enough.
 
@hapyman
I assume you're referring to Brandon's "Watch for what happens when something leaves a bendalloy bubble," as "a unique or rare effect that could be achieved with a metal," followed by laughter and a comment that "That won't make any sense for 10 books"?
 
I'm not too concerned about that, since that doesn't demand that it be related to FTL, simply suggest it.
 
What I'm more concerned about is Brandon's tweet about FTL:
 

@BrandSanderson You mentioned friday night in #Seattle Allomacy has "FTL" built into it, any more hints you can share on how that would work

BrandSanderson Mon Nov 14
@ericpeters It involves where the lost energy from thermodynamic issues goes in certain Allomantic interactions.#torchat

 

Maybe "lost energy from Thermodynamic issues" is a hint about time bubbles robbing objects of kinetic energy? Maybe not? How would it apply here if so? I can't claim I've synthesized all possible hints about FTL for this theory, but I think it still works, and maybe there's just two different methods possible.

 

---

 

If you really want me to answer transiting the edges of bubbles, I will now proceed to sidestep the question and instead take a step back in time for what exactly "something leav[ing] a bendalloy bubble" means. What if, instead of talking about the object, Brandon is talking about what happens to the bubble itself when something leaves it? I acknowledge that this is not the obvious interpretation, and might not fall under "rare or unique", but roll with me for a moment.

 

If we take a look at the (brilliant, marvelous, and all around inspired ) distension theory of how objects enter and leave time bubbles, we might be able to squeeze a bit more efficiency out of my method.

 

What if, rather than just distending the part of the bubble you're touching and calling it a day, distending the surface of the bubble in some direction contracted its other parts? Like pulling a ball out of shape. This is a fairly intuitive extension of the theory, and makes more sense than some arbitrary amount of stretchiness for each section of the bubble. So a long stick firmly anchored inside the bubble would be able to force the bubble into a teardrop, essentially.

 

Now how might we abuse this to kingdom come? Well, first, you make your spaceship spindle-shaped: it'll stay in the bubble longer after it hits the edge because only a relatively small proportion will be trying to get out. But that's easy: let's really mess with time and space. Take your normal, spindle-shaped spaceship and extend the forward-facing portion out few a few kilometers, or a few hundred kilometers. The vast majority of the ship is still deep inside the bubble, but a small but firmly anchored part is trying to escape. So the surface of the bubble is drastically distorted, creating a narrow(ish) teardrop shape and ultimately resulting in the ship getting farther through space for each bubble it uses.

 

We can mess with the bubble this much because so much of its area is doing absolutely nothing for us. Half the bubble is behind us and the vast majority to the right, left, top and bottom are of no use. So we could get quite a lot out of such a method.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Shardlet he/him]

Thanks for the backup, Shardlet, but that's actually not strictly true. The bubbles aren't dropped, they're popped by the Sliders being pulled out of them.

 

Hmp, unless you are relying on some percieved effect of leaving an existing bubble, it makes economical sense to drop the bubbles when you are done with them.  No point burning metal to maintain a bubble you are not using anymore.  I suppose you could be implying that if the burner left the bubble, then the bubble would naturally drop.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Ah, sorry for the confusion. I suppose this is another "Wizard of the Cosmere" moment where I thought it was common knowledge (though I think it's mentioned in the book as well...). If a Bubbler leaves their bubble, it vanishes:
 

Source

Q.Zas678- I’ve got a question kind of based off of the train fight. If you have a time bubble, and you were to make it while you are on the train, would the time bubble move with the train, or would it stay at the same spot relative to the planet?
A. Time bubbles don’t move, so it would pull you out of it, then it would vanish.
Q. (Mi’chelle)- If you were to pop up a time bubble and someone were to be stuck halfway in and halfway out, would they go splooch?
A. No, they would be in the time bubble. The time bubbles will move with the planet but not with the train.
Q. Yeah, I always thought it was relative to the person creating the time bubble.
A. No, you’ll see Wayne create one, then he’ll walk up to the perimeter, but if he leaves it, it ruins the time bubble.
Q. Zas678- So is that because it’s linked up to the spiritual gravitational bond between the planet?
A. Yes, and you’re digging very deeply into stuff that I now can’t answer. Time bubbles have some weirdness to them that I don’t want to dig in too deeply, but yes

Edited July 26, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Shardlet he/him]

That quote also seems to indicate that you would not be able to anchor a cadmium bubble to the ship. 

 

Edit: Unless you come up with a way to link it to the ship the same way it is linked to the planet.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Shardlet

[Kurkistan he/him]

Actually, it gives some hope. Time bubbles have weirdness. That means they can do a lot more than we've seen them do, and act in non-intuitive ways.

 

Also, no planet, no spiritual-gravitational link to that planet. That seems to free us up a bit, and lets us know that the frame of reference of time bubbles is specific to interactions with some object that you use as your anchor, rather than simply the perceptions of the bubbler. Hopefully Feruchemy or managed perceptions--emphasizing Spiritual links to nearby stars vs. the ship--in the absence of overriding gravitational bonds can then be used to anchor bubbles to different frames of reference.

[lewstherin95 he/him]

I don't remember seeing that spiritual-gravitational quote before... It sort of makes me wonder what the whole planet's Spiritual aspect would look like compared to a person's or, say, an starship. If it has a Spiritweb, then theoretically wouldn't you be Spike a part of it Hemalurgically onto a different Spiritweb? Anyways that's slightly off-topic, but if it's a Spiritual link that anchors the bubble to the planet then where we perceive it and think of it being anchored should have no effect, as that is a Cognitive interaction. It would have to be side-stepped via Feruchemy, as Kurkistan says in the post above. Duralumin Ferrings can store Connection, does that extend to your Spiritual Connection with inanimate objects?

[Kurkistan he/him]

Well, planets do have souls, so... OOOOOOOH :

 

Spiking out a piece of the planet's soul and using that as the anchor? But it does seem to require "blood being in motion", but still...

 

The Spiritual is likely informed by the Cognitive, at least to some extent. You won't form a Spiritual Connection to someone you have no regard for, I wouldn't think. Similarly, a strong "this ship is my home and it is not moving" might be enough to form or buttress a Spiritual "fact" to that effect.

[Kurkistan he/him]

UPDATE:
 
Just putting up some relevant information for future reference, not really trying to restart the conversation.
 
I forgot to post it when it happened, but Shardlet was kind enough to ask some questions:
 

Shardlet: You said previously that a slider's bubble is anchored to its position on Scadrial rather than on the slider's position or on the train (if the burner was on a train). If the slider was on a rock in space, would the bubble be anchored to a position relative to Scadrial, the rock or something else?

Brandon: RAFO

Q: A slider and a pulser are standing near each other and each put up a bubble. Neither is standing close enough to the other to be within the other's bubble, but they are near enough that their bubbles would overlap what effect would you have?

A: The bubbles would overlap and it would be like a Venn diagram (i.e., outside both bubbles-normal time, in sliders bubble-fast time, in pulser's bubble-slow time, in the overlap-normal time).

Q: If a time bubble is raied in a vacuum, is the diameter larger than a bubble raised in atmosphere.

A: No, atmosphere has no effect on bubble diameter.

 
To quote myself: Several of my FTL-models are hurt by the vacuum thing. Less personally affronted, though, this means that bubbles are almost certainly a straight effect on local space-time, rather than an effect on local objects that happens to be roughly spherical in shape.

[Swimmingly he/him]

UPDATE:

 

Just putting up some relevant information for future reference, not really trying to restart the conversation.

 

I forgot to post it when it happened, but Shardlet was kind enough to ask some questions:

 

 

To quote myself: Several of my FTL-models are hurt by the vacuum thing. Less personally affronted, though, this means that bubbles are almost certainly a straight effect on local space-time, rather than an effect on local objects that happens to be roughly spherical in shape

 

Sorry I can't remember which interview it's from, but BS has said that "something" has to be either in the bubble or out of it. It can't be a little of both. Inferring from that, with what we know about the Cosmere (specifically, spiritual identity, as discussed in The Emperor's Soul) the bubble needs to cover some specific point on the object, probably its rough center as determined by how it's seen and how it sees itself. My point is, the bubbles probably slow or speed things based on whether they cover one of the object's specific (hemalurgic?) bindpoints. If this is applied to the prior correction, it more or less means that the bubbles are an arbitrary border that affects all objects within it, not a direct effect on local spacetime. Anyway, a universe where the self-identity of objects is more important than the distribution of fundamental forces already messes with the physics of FTL incredibly.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Sorry I can't remember which interview it's from, but BS has said that "something" has to be either in the bubble or out of it. It can't be a little of both.

 

Yes, I vaguely recall that question.

 

That answer is also a natural conclusion of the entire world not blowing up when something enters or exits a time bubble, as it turns out. This is due to calculus and whatnot. Ask Sats.

 

Inferring from that, with what we know about the Cosmere (specifically, spiritual identity, as discussed in The Emperor's Soul) the bubble needs to cover some specific point on the object, probably its rough center as determined by how it's seen and how it sees itself. My point is, the bubbles probably slow or speed things based on whether they cover one of the object's specific (hemalurgic?) bindpoints.

 

No, sorry.

 

i) It's not Spiritual identity, but Cognitive. "[H]ow the object views itself" is pretty firmly Cognitive, given Shai's definition of the Realms. You start off on the right track with talk of how the object views itself, but you run into trouble when you start talking about bindpoints.

 

ii) Working off center of mass makes sense, I agree. Sadly, it doesn't work for living things, as "any living thing touching the bubble is affected by the bubble."

 

 

If this is applied to the prior correction, it more or less means that the bubbles are an arbitrary border that affects all objects within it, not a direct effect on local spacetime. Anyway, a universe where the self-identity of objects is more important than the distribution of fundamental forces already messes with the physics of FTL incredibly.

*Cracks knuckles* (but seriously, I did. Mostly for typing and all, but also the dramatic effect)

 

And here you're (kind of) right. I phrased myself very poorly—downright misleadingly, if not even incorrectly, even—in my post. Time bubbles are most certainly not a "straight effect" on the Physical space-time of the Cosmere. Their interaction with Cognitive aspects, let alone movement's relation to frames of reference, make this patently obvious.

 

Actually, a full account of this deserves a thread.

 

Have a thread.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Swimmingly he/him]

 

Yes, I vaguely recall that question.

 

That answer is also a natural conclusion of the entire world not blowing up when something enters or exits a time bubble, as it turns out. This is due to calculus and whatnot. Ask Sats.

 

 

No, sorry.

 

i) It's not Spiritual identity, but Cognitive. "[H]ow the object views itself" is pretty firmly Cognitive, given Shai's definition of the Realms. You start off on the right track with talk of how the object views itself, but you run into trouble when you start talking about bindpoints.

 

ii) Working off center of mass makes sense, I agree. Sadly, it doesn't work for living things, as "any living thing touching the bubble is affected by the bubble."

 

 

*Cracks knuckles* (but seriously, I did. Mostly for typing and all, but also the dramatic effect)

 

And here you're (kind of) right. I phrased myself very poorly—downright misleadingly, if not even incorrectly, even—in my post. Time bubbles are most certainly not a "straight effect" on the Physical space-time of the Cosmere. Their interaction with Cognitive aspects, let alone movement's relation to frames of reference, make this patently obvious.

 

Actually, a full account of this deserves a thread.

 

Have a thread.

Thank you for correcting me on this... The whole "normal physics work" and "Create time-bubbles, nearly sentient zombies, and air-drawn runes that spray pure power" all in the same universe still kind of confuses me. I'm new here 

[Kurkistan he/him]

No problem. There's a rather punishing learning curve, which we're trying to work on, but right now the best way to learn is just to ask.

 

If it makes you feel better, don't think of it as "normal world, plus MAGIC" for how things work. Instead, all three Realms are involved in all day-to-day activities. It's widely held that the Spiritual is the source of the laws of physics and gravitational interaction and stuff, for instance.

 

When magic isn't directly involved, you can't tell that the fundamental underpinnings of the cosmere aren't all just based on stuff in the physical. Magical interactions with the world, though, gives us clues on how the Physical Realm interacts with the other two all the other times; like how Lashings reveal the Spiritual nature of gravity as a whole.

[Swimmingly he/him]

No problem. There's a rather punishing learning curve, which we're trying to work on, but right now the best way to learn is just to ask.

 

If it makes you feel better, don't think of it as "normal world, plus MAGIC" for how things work. Instead, all three Realms are involved in all day-to-day activities. It's widely held that the Spiritual is the source of the laws of physics and gravitational interaction and stuff, for instance.

 

When magic isn't directly involved, you can't tell that the fundamental underpinnings of the cosmere aren't all just based on stuff in the physical. Magical interactions with the world, though, gives us clues on how the Physical Realm interacts with the other two all the other times; like how Lashings reveal the Spiritual nature of gravity as a whole.

It simply seems to me, based on what I've gotten by lurking around for a few days, that some of the possible interactions seem way too obscure. For example, a compounding brass Twinborn could basically turn himself into The Human Torch, right? And Ferrings are immune to the effects of their own Feruchemic compounding. So what happens when he superheats his metalminds from the heat off his skin? Do they burn him? Are they even affected? What about if he's holding a piece of wood, or his own clothing? Do they burn him through the heat the emit via the chain-reaction combustion started by his Compounding?

[Kurkistan he/him]

There's a lot to be discussed about Feruchemical brass (short for feruchemical brass).

 

Source:

THOUGHTFUL SPURTS

If tapping heat means your own body gets hotter, does it also mean you become immune to hot temperatures so long as you're tapping it, or should you fill heat and grow colder for that to happen?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

As everything in Feruchemy, you become immune to the effects of the ability only. Like weight doesn't crush you, but at the same time doesn't have a net gain in strength. Growing colder, however, would be more helpful in this regard.

 

 

So that suggests that you'd be immune to your own heat, but only to your own: I read this as, if someone threw a torch at you, it'd be added on top of everything else you were tapping and you'd get burned like if the torch was applied to a normal person.

 

I don't think melted metalminds would hurt him, since they'd only be as hot as he was.

 

As for combustion, that's a tricky one. Based on my analysis of that quote, additional sources of heat (like "spontaneously" combusting clothing) would still do damage.

 

Alternatively, clothing/metalminds might get away from damage by being included in a very very very vague definition of "how he sees himself" as including a feruchemist's clothing. Maybe.

 

Alternatively alternatively, brass could be such that it never actually ignites or otherwise destroys objects, even when it really should. I may or may not have a theory.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Swimmingly he/him]

So then, energy radiated from an Feruchemical brass ferring has some kind of "tag" associated with it - "do not hurt this person"? Why don't these apply to allomantic internal metals? Is it because the Investiture in allomancy comes directly from a shard, whereas Feruchemical brass is "attuned"?

 

I'm getting REALLY off topic. Sorry

[Kurkistan he/him]

There's no need for a "tag": think of it as his natural heat-resistance going up exactly enough to compensate for the Feruchemical brass: if his normal skin can deal with 10 units of heat before burning, and he taps 100 units of heat from Feruchemical brass, then he'll be able to withstand exactly 110 units of heat; and already be experiencing 100 of them. Pile on some more and you still get hurt.

The topic's pretty stale, so don't worry that much about going OT.

[Swimmingly he/him]

I see problems regarding transfer of heat via radiance vs conductance, heat stored in objects, application of amounts of heat negligible compared to that already radiated off, etc..... but I'll assume they've been handwaved or dealt with, so I won't go into semantics

[Kurkistan he/him]

Actually, to my knowledge, there hasn't been that much discussion on the mechanics of Feruchemical brass. This is mostly my own speculation.

[Kurkistan he/him]

UPDATE:

 

Got some WoB from Brandon awhile back.

 

Source:

Kurkistan: If I get a Slider, a Pulser, and a Nicroburst in a rocket with a lot of metal, do I have FTL?

Brandon: Hehehehe. You're getting _closer_ but you haven't figured it out yet.

 

Brandon's laugh was truly evil, I must say. So hopefully all we need is bubble-anchoring or something, but at least we're facing the right direction.

 

Also some other WoB from aeromancer:

 

Source:

Aeromancer: So would it be possible to use Steelrunning + compounding to travel FTL?

 

Brandon: No, it would not. You could get close, though.

 

Aeromancer: Kind of like Zemo's Paradox, than? You keep halving the distance, never quite making it?

 

Brandon (gleam in his eye): Trying to crack Allomatic FTL?

 

Aeromancer (guilty): Maybe.

 

Brandon: You can't.

 

Aeromancer: I don't know, there are alot of good theories out there.

 

Brandon: It involves Allomantic abilities which we don't know about yet.

 

As I say in that thread, in an ideal (for me) world, that missing ability is bubble-anchoring in nature.

Edited May 25, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Slay This Rock]

How about mixing Wax's steel ferring capability with Vin's horseshoe trick, shake it with nicrobursting and top off with speed bubble, served in a spaceship capable of several furring combo?

You get a FTL flaming Lamborghini style cocktail mix like this:

First the propulsion. Tap on steel to decrease mass of the ship to 1 percent, add nicroburst to push off a ring shaped anchor on the ground. You get a hell lot of acceleration to lift up.
The anchor should be ring shaped so it won’t hit your ship, but provides a stable and predictable thrust vector, plus the possibility to adjust course off single anchor.
At next instant ( maybe with the help of speed bubble for timing ), increase mass to 100 times and nicroburst pull on the anchor, so the ring anchor shoot pass the ship. Now the ring move at a higher speed ahead of the ship.

Then we pull hard on the ring ahead of us with 1% mass to shoot pass it, and then pull with increased mass to bring the ring back in front of the ship. You should be able to see the linear horse shoe trick in effect (It is not that different from the idea of project orion.)
We should be able to continue this a few dozen round to get close to light speed, only consuming a few bucket of iron and a gallon of nicroburst.

To make the ship to actually go FTL, we will need to throw more speed bubbles related assumption in.
In this I assume that, the planetary coordinate framework for speed bubble will eventually wear off when you are far enough from the planet. When you think of it, this coordination framework needs to end somewhere. And if there is a place in space where no planet's coordination framework is in effect, the spacecraft will eventually become the only object that is fit for the base of coordination ( relativity takes over )

So when we get to this self-coordinated zone, we should be able to finally throw a constant speed bubble around the ship.
As we can now throw constant speed bubbles, lets throw two at a time.
One large enough to envelop the anchors in the steel push / iron pull process, and use a smaller speed bubble around the ship or just the ship controller to get the precise iron / steel push timing.

With speed bubble to assist on the timing, it can be theorized that the larger speed bubble need not be too big, as we can start nicrobursted high-mass pulling as soon as the ship is ahead of the center of the ring, and run the low mass pulling as soon as the ring shoots past the ship. This way one propulsion cycle can be done in the time it take for two nicroburst, plus the minimal ring travel time. This should only be a few seconds for the space ship point of view, and in split second level for the stationary observer.

If all the above could happen, as soon as we went into self-coordinated zone, we can be warp speed in no time, then we maneuver the ring anchor to somewhere ahead of the ship, stop accelerating and just maintain the momentum.

And once the ship is closing in another planet, and starts getting near the edge of the self-coordinate zone, we maneuver the anchor to the front of the ship and do the reverse propulsion to slow down below light speed. Then we approach the other planet in sub light speed, and gently slow down with the reverse propulsion.

The end. FTL and minimal fuel cost.

I guess if we spike Wax to give him Iron pull, and strap Wayne on his back, we can start prototyping this method already..

Edited October 27, 2015 by moejarv