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 Hyperspace inhibitors 101
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| Komo val |
Posted on 04-07-2008 11:23
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 Posts: 392 Joined: September 27 2006 |
Ladies and gentleman, we are gathered here to discuss the theoretical and practical side of how hyperspace inhibitors work, as to further our understanding on possible future development of hyperspace based equipment and weapons and tactics to counter them. Your mission, should you choose to except it, is to come up with a more-or-less scientifically plausible (or cool) theory on how hyperspace inhibitors work. I will also put my extensive expertise on the subject :sarcasm: khm... to constructively criticize or applaud your ideas as well as give my own ones. So let us begin shall we... Probably the most famous hyperspace inhibitors outside of the homeworld universe are those of Star wars. Their story is that they project a gravity well in front of the projected hyperspace path of the ship so powerful that it actually pulls the ship out of hyperspace. Now according to Einsteins theory of general relativity gravity is the ''bending'' of space-time as a result of presence of matter. Further more according to said theory matter and energy are one and the same and in proper conditions one can transform into the other. So the SW gravity well actually manages to concentrate energy into a single point without actually emitting it (if that was the case than the gravity ''well'' would be a strait line and not a point) which is, well, interesting and implausible to say the least. More simple solutions would be to input false sensor readings or hack into the hyperspaceing ship's computer via hyperspacial transmissions or creating your own hyperspace window on the projected path of the ship and thus simply interrupting it's hyperspace vector. Much more complicated but still effective solutions would be to collapse the hyperspacial plain thus forcing the ship to make an emergency exit or risk being destroyed. The other solution would be to manipulate the quantum paths of the each of the ships molecules so that the only path they can take is out of hyperspace. And last but not least manipulate the physical laws of hyperspace so that the mathematical probability of the ship exiting hyperspace for whatever reason is risen close to 100%. Now as you can see most of my solutions require sensor readings and the knowledge that said ship is in hyperspace. Several can do without that however that would than affect everything traveling to hyperspace including friendly ships. So to conclude advanced sensor equipment is a must-have. Edited by Komo val on 04-07-2008 11:27 |
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| Warman1 |
Posted on 05-07-2008 05:44
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Posts: 146 Joined: September 08 2005 |
Sensor equipment is not necessarily needed. It all depends on the method your using to inhibit a spot of space. If your method does need for something to "aim" at the target or it's path, then you would need a sensor. But if your method is simply omnidirectional (or almost), then sensors would only be needed to activate it if you didnt have the ability to just keep it on at all times. As for how hyperspace inhibitors work, I'm none to sure about in HW, but at a guess, I would think that it has something to do with causing a distortion of the hyperspace "dimension" in that area. Best guess is something to do with an artificial gravity well. Considering how powerfull the gravity has to be, it would make sense if the projected gravity is not experienced in normal space. Since we are working with homeworld tech, I feel it should be noted that whatever reason we come up with for how the tech works, it should somehow explain why the ships that are inhibited are damaged as they exit hyperspace. Another possibility is not a gravity well (which is like a planets gravity, all of it pointed in one direction) but some sort of gravity turbulance, so that no one chunk of the inhibited space's gravity is pulling with the same power and same direction as another piece. This would explain the damage to the ships, because if the front of the ship has a bunch of gravity pulling it down, while the middle is being pulled sideways, and the rear is being pulled backwards, then the ship is going to undergo stresses that would warp metal and break fragile things as they move from one gravity segment to another. This would also cause problems for the crew I'm sure. As for how the inhibitors only affect enemy ships, there could be some way where if the inhibitor used the gravity turbulance method, then perhaps the ship could have some way to predict the stresses and use some sort of technology to dampen the effects. There would probably have to be some sort of coded message comming out from the inhibitor that would allow the incomming ship to make the modifications it needs to, and yet prevent the enemy from figuring out the turbulance setup. Such codes and the turbulance setup could be changed if one is thought to be compromised. Edited by Warman1 on 05-07-2008 05:48 |
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| Komo val |
Posted on 05-07-2008 10:47
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Posts: 392 Joined: September 27 2006 |
As you pointed out the inhibitor doesn't affect friendly ships. In case of hyperspace interception at a single spacial point sensor are a must-have. However even in an omni-directional field you would need sensor. Why? E.g a friendly ship wants to pass trough the inhibitor field. The enemy detects the hyper-jump, knows the inhibitor is down and jumps right in, thus you would again need sensors to detect movement of enemy ships in hyperspace. Besides omni-directional fields would require extreme amounts of power, which is unpractical. Gravity distorts space, and if hyperspace is a sub-layer of space, it would distort it also. Thus gravity would most probably just screw your exit point, as mentioned in the hyperspace missile thread an in the hw1 manual. (interestingly that could mean that a black hole could swallow hyperspace, or even more incredibly distort hyperspace as to create an infinite loop thus forever being trapped in hyperspace) Also there is no way that gravity would only affect hyperspace and not normal space. Thus I can say with a degree of certainty that projecting gravity is scientifically implausible if not impossible and it's not the way to go. The damage taken by ships is interesting. Excluding the gravity projecting ideas the possible reasons could be that the ship is actually forced to exit hyperspace without actually ''slowing down'' or if you will making the nececary preparations to exit, so to say and the massive inertia, hyperspace distortion or the quantum distortion wave that a ship leaves behind when it travels trough hyperspace catches up and causes hull integrity to drop. Interestingly the super capitals seem not to take any damage when hyperspace is interupted, although according to previously stated reasons they should get even more damaged according to previously stated reasons. However one possible explenation could be the integration of hyperspace modules into super-capitals, while smaller ships must perform assisted jump within the field of a hyperspace module. Still a think that the simplest solution would be just to open a hyperspace window infront of the projected path of the ship. |
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| Warman1 |
Posted on 06-07-2008 05:10
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Posts: 146 Joined: September 08 2005 |
One point that I just realized was that in HW2 you can get hyperspace sensors. When I was comming up with my ideas in the previous post, I for some reason was thinking a sensor to detect in hyperspace was not going to work well. If I remember right, the hyperspace sensors let you see where (in the tactical map) the ship is going along it's path. So using this information, it could be possible that hyperspace inhibitors do indeed have the sensors. Why building an inhibitor does not give your tacmap the same effect as building a sensor could probably chalked up in game lore as, the scientists either didnt think of putting the ability to communicate that info into the inhibitor, or for whatever reason it was impractical. Since we can assume that the inhibitors do have hyperspace sensors, a point-source inhibiting technique is possible. I agree that projecting a hyperpace window in the path of a ship is a likely way to inhibit a ship. On the subject of why the larger capital ships do not get damage, information would probably be helpful about how a ship normally exits hyperspace. What I mean is that I understand how a ship without hyperspace abilities (frigates) can use another ship's hyperdrive to open a window that they could use. Instead of projecting the window in front of your ship, you project it in front of their ship. But how does this frigate without a hyperspace drive of it's own, leave hyperspace at the end of it's run? Why can it open a window to leave hyperspace, when it cant open a window to enter hyperspace? This information would be helpful in comming up with reasons why the super-capitals dont take damage. The hyperspace engines could perhaps have emergency procedures that are enacted as the ship is forced out of hyperspace and protect the ship from damage. Procedures such as dampening the waves Komo mentioned. The lack of a hyperspace drive would mean that ships being forced out of hyperspace would be unable to dampen the waves and as a result take damage. But if we can figure out how exactly a driveless ship exits hyperspace, then perhaps we can figure out another/better reason for how inhibitors work. |
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| Komo val |
Posted on 07-07-2008 09:15
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Posts: 392 Joined: September 27 2006 |
How could I forget to reply yesterday?! Oh well... One possible reason for the inhibitor not to send exit information to the sensor manager is because, well, the enemy ships won't enter the perimeter or endanger anything thus it has no strategic value. The other possible reason is that it uses some kind of trigger. Instead of monitoring the entire local hyperspace it monitors just the short band of hyperspace outside it's operational area. When an unregistered quantum waveform occurs it just intercepts it. Thus that would again have no strategic value. It is quite possible that opening a window from hyperspace from hyperspace to normal space is much easier than reverse, thus smaller ships like frigates could have some sort of primitive ''gate-opening device'' that only works in hyperspace. However many of the questions raise here would be more easily answered if we knew the basic fundamentals of hyperspace. EDIT: Finally found the HW manual. Quote The solid-state Hyperspace Module is a quantum oscillation device capable of generating a waveform throughout any surrounding structure. It does this in order to induce an effect known as quantum tunneling. Because the device was reverse engineered, the exact workings of the module are still very uncertain. All our scientists know about the effects of hyperspace transport has been derived from limited empirical data - theoretical data is almost totally nonexistent. Quote Another problem with our current understanding of hyperspace is that we can only take limited gravimetric readings of the normal space through which we are tunneling. This means we can detect a mass that disagrees with our navigational data, but should we wish to know anything about the anomaly we must interrupt the Hyperspace Module. Gravity wells also have a destabilizing effect on hyperspace travel. Test ship losses have taught us that a hyper drive must be shut down far outside any star system's gravitational curve. Quote The module is projected to have a range of 2,500 light years for a single waveform event, and in order to trigger the drive we must charge the module with all the energy required for such a stunning distance. Should we wish to travel a more appropriate and cautious distance, we must crudely halt the wave effect by discharging the module?s energy and dropping back into normal space-time. Basically if an energy discharge is used to halt a ship, a sudden stop would overcharge the energy grid as the hyperspace module would be full of energy, but with no way to travel trough hyperspace. Think of it as a propeller out of the water. It still works, however it can't propel the ship as it's in the wrong medium, which burns out the engine if you don't shut it immediately. Multiple failsafe devices on super-capitals could inhibit the energy grid overcharge, thus preventing any damage. I will continue my research further... Edited by Komo val on 07-07-2008 09:34 |
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| Komo val |
Posted on 07-07-2008 11:27
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Posts: 392 Joined: September 27 2006 |
It just hit me. The generation-of-portal-in-front-of-hyperspacing-ship method (or simply Portal interception method) has a big hole in it. It doesn't explain why ships within the Inhibitor field can't hyperspace out. Anyway found this on Encyclopedia Hiigara: Quote The inhibitor field works by disrupting the quantum wavefront generated by a ship's hyperdrive, which is a crucial process required for ships to sustain a jump. Most interesting, still that doesn't explain how it actually disrupts quantum wavefront. However let us approach this trough logic. Quantum wavefront - obviously something on the quantum level and wave based. How do you disrupt a wave? By creating interference. And how do you do that? You make a wave of the same amplitude and velocity however phase shifted so that the crest of the first matches the trough of the other. Thus due to interference wavelength becomes zero and the wave disappears. So to conclude: Hyperspace inhibitors work by generating a quantum wave equal in amplitude and relative velocity to the quantum wave used by the ship traveling trough hyperspace however phase shifted by half a period (so that the crest of the first quantum wave matches the trough of the second) as to create interference which reduces the quantum waves wavelength to zero thus removing the ability to successfully travel trough hyperspace and forcing a ship in hyperspace to drop to normal space, as well as preventing quantum wavefront generation within the inhibitor field. It should be noted that the phase shift doesn't have to be precise, it just has to interfere with the original wave enough to drop the quantum waves wavelength below the minimum sustainable level. :hmm: Edited by Komo val on 07-07-2008 11:28 |
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| Warman1 |
Posted on 08-07-2008 01:04
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Posts: 146 Joined: September 08 2005 |
Very well done Komo, and I think I might have figured out how the ships without a hyperspace drive can come out of the hyperspace jump on purpose, or by force and recieve damage as a result. The idea is that the hyperdrive charges all matter that is making the jump, and as a result of the charge the ship's matter oscillates at a quantum level, making the waveform that permits hyperspace travel. As the ship moves throughout hyperspace, the charge causing the oscillations slowly decreases, eventually reaching the point where the oscillations no longer maintain the waveform that is keeping the ship in hyperspace, and so the ship drops out. For how the inhibitor would work, is that instead of simply sending a burst of interference, it would be a constant signal (for a period of time). The effect could be explained by saying that the waveform which now no longer exists, is trying to be created by the charge in the ship, but because the interference is preventing the charge from creating the oscillations to make the waveform, the energy in the charge has to go somewhere, and simply explodes into the ship causing damage. Something in the construction of a hyperspace drive, allows this energy to be safely dischared with no damage. The reason why the inhibitor's signal would be constant, is because it would make sense that gravity and other natural events would cause irregularities in the waveform and depending on the size of the irregularities, the energy released into the ship could be anything from a small static shock (or smaller) to the disasterous explosion that causes damage. So it would make sense that if it was just a tiny burst of interference, then nothing much would happen to the ship, but a constant signal (such as how a gravity well is constant) would force the ship out of hyperspace and cause damage. Note: The charge mentioned in my explainations is most likely NOT charge like electricity, but increasing the potential energy somewhere in such a way that it has to be released. In the "natural way" it is released it causes the oscillations which cause a hyperspace jump, but if this is interrupted then it is possible that the other way the energy is released IS by creating an electric charge. Edited by Warman1 on 08-07-2008 01:10 |
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| CIWS2000 |
Posted on 08-07-2008 01:12
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 Posts: 41 Joined: January 23 2008 |
ships enter hyperspace via a process called quantum tunneling all this is explained in homeworld canon and to be strictly accurate, at the quantum level there is no such force as electrical and magnetic or any of the forces we currently understand |
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| Warman1 |
Posted on 08-07-2008 01:14
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Posts: 146 Joined: September 08 2005 |
Check my last post, I edited it to kind of explain about the use of the word charge and such things. |
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| CIWS2000 |
Posted on 08-07-2008 01:16
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Posts: 41 Joined: January 23 2008 |
look here for the explanation of quantum tunneling as well as the principles hyperspace inhibitors work on http://homeworld.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperdrive |
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| Warman1 |
Posted on 09-07-2008 04:53
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Posts: 146 Joined: September 08 2005 |
The problem with that place is that it doesnt exactly explain why/how things happen. It just explains that things work and that other things stop them from working. It's not specific enough. |
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| CIWS2000 |
Posted on 09-07-2008 15:59
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Posts: 41 Joined: January 23 2008 |
well we are talking about a technology that doesnt exist, and likely never will would be like a ancient roman trying to describe exactly how a nuclear reactor generates electricity i guess the thing to do is come up with some plausible sounding technobabble and basically BS your way through it like you know what you are talking about, and hope the rest of the members accept it as canon. of course they should accept it , unless they can describe it better or more convincingly anyway |
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| aspasticninja |
Posted on 09-07-2008 17:33
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 Posts: 97 Joined: May 28 2008 |
According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, upon which the theory of Minkowski space is formulated, the universe exists, not as a plane, but as a sort of saddle-shape. If you picture in your head a giant saddle floating in nothing, that's what Einstein said the universe would look like if viewed from outside. Of course, since it's impossible to view it from outside (at least, at the moment) this is entirely theoretical. However, if one was able to get Outside, then they could take a shortcut through the Nothing "under" the universe, on the inner curve of the saddle, thus bypassing a large amount of travel. Einstein suggests that the way to do this would be to find wormholes that go through. A wormhole is supposedly two black holes whose gravitational depressions have fused, forming a corridor. Through a wormhole, you would theoretically be able to travel great distances instantly. For that to work, one end would have to be a white hole however. Think of a pipe. If water is being pushed in both ends by pressure and you drop in a penny, the penny isn't going to come out. It will get stuck in the central high-pressure area (this isn't the best example, but I just made it up). In order for the penny to make it through, the water would have to flow into one end and out the other. A white hole, therefore, would be where all the stuff the black hole sucked in came out. This would mean that wormholes are one-way affairs, and that once you were out you couldn't go back through. This theory was then taken and used as the basis for "Hyperspace" in science fiction. Basically what it comes down to is gravity. With enough gravitational control, you could make your own wormholes on demand. I don't really have any ideas for how disrupting it would work, save even more gravity (create the exit in a different spot than was intended, forcing the ship into real space.) Alright, I'm done using my brain for the day. Ford, I don't mean to alarm you, but there are an infinite number of monkey's outside and they want us to go over their screenplay for Hamlet.
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| Warman1 |
Posted on 10-07-2008 21:26
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Posts: 146 Joined: September 08 2005 |
For CIWS2000, if I understand Komo Val's opening, the idea of this thread was to come up with a plausible way for the inhibitors to work based upon whatever knowledge of the systems that is available to us. So it doesnt totally matter that the technology being discussed is something we wont actually understand for many years in real life. As for aspasticninja, the idea with wormholes is similar to the tunneling that is used in HW2 in that your taking a shorter route to get from point A to point B, rather than simply going the long way. As for how to actually cause a wormhole/tunneling event, there are many theories. Gravity is not exactly the only way to cause a W/T event. For example, exotic matter is usually called upon as the ideal way to open and maintain a wormhole aperture. A wormhole that is sustained in this way is actually a two way wormhole that can be kept open indefinitely with no negative consequences. |
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| Komo val |
Posted on 11-07-2008 11:40
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Posts: 392 Joined: September 27 2006 |
Obviously this is only a lot of BS. We are trying to understand something that may not even be able to exist in real life, in a hyperspace context we don't understand, in an universe that doesn't exit. Gravity is a bitch. You need to have large amounts of mass and extremely high energy to compress the matter below it's Schwarzschild radius to create a black hole. Then to create a white hole I don't know what should be done. If in the event horizon of a black hole all timepaths point towards the singularity, then in a white hole all timepaths should point away from it. How to do this is questionable. Even without this problem you can't create a wormhole at your destination without someone else being there, and creating a white hole so this would only work as jump-gates, if at all. Besides gravity would rip any ship to shreds. And as according to our understanding anti-gravity doesn't exist (although it's theoretically possible). And last but not least, there are no gravitational effects on ships in hw universe when a quantum tunnel opens thus I think we can rule out gravity as a way of travel. |
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| Warman1 |
Posted on 12-07-2008 05:48
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Posts: 146 Joined: September 08 2005 |
Well, actually, just because we see no gravity effects, does not mean that there is nothing gravitational happening at that time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubier...rre_drive In the case of an Alcubierre warp drive (AWD), space is being contracted in front and expanded in back thereby pushing the space around the ship to faster then light speeds. Gravity was not mentioned specifically, but it would seem to be the most likely option for bending space in such a way. Granted the opening of a hyperspace gate like in HW2 looks nothing like turning on an AWD would, but I am just using it as an example. And just as a bit of a tossup idea. There is research currently into something called metamaterials. If I remember the definition right, a metamaterial is a material that has properties caused by the material and how it's designed as well. Such materials have been used to bend microwaves around a target, in essence making it seem to the detector on the other side of the target as if the target was not there (IE Invisibility cloak type stuff). It may be possible to make a metamaterial that could somehow have gravitywaves bend around it, and at a guess that would give the object a sort of neutrality to gravity. Gravity shouldnt be able to push or pull the object. |
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| CIWS2000 |
Posted on 12-07-2008 06:21
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Posts: 41 Joined: January 23 2008 |
i prefer the idea espoused in futurama of a dark matter engine the ship stays still and moves the entire universe around it |
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| Warman1 |
Posted on 12-07-2008 09:22
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Posts: 146 Joined: September 08 2005 |
Heh, in a book that I read once, the engine of the main ship (which was a cylinder that rotated so the people on the inside had gravity and was sort of a generation ship in that people had kids who carried on their work, yet everyone who started the journey at the teens, would not even be "middle-age" for the ending) made universes that it shot out of the rear of the ship. As the universe's bubble would expand dimensionally (really freaking fast) it would eventually separate from this universe forming another one. Later in the book it kinda says that the universe the book was taking place in was a manufactured universe like the ones the ship made to go forward. The idea behind it was that universes made from ships, are somehow better at supporting ships. So the first one could have had one ship in the whole universe, but a thousand times down the line, there could be trillions of ships in that universe. It made sense on how the book explained things, heh. |
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| Komo val |
Posted on 12-07-2008 11:07
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Posts: 392 Joined: September 27 2006 |
Yeah warp drives... I also think that this is the way to go for a possible future FTL drive. Actually it's quite similar to the dark matter engine. In both cases the ship doesn't move, the only difference is that one manipulates space around the ship, while the other manipulates the whole universe. However, as Warman pointed out warping and quantum tunneling are two different things, at least as far as we understand it. Anti gravity is paradoxical actually. Even if a hypothetical particle existed that has an anti-gravity field that would mean that every normal particle would be pushed away from said particle. A particle with negative mass would have that properties but today there is a scientific consensus that such particles don't exist. The theory of graviton particles that carry gravity like photons carry the EM energy would make it possible to produce a particle exactly opposed to it and thus anti-gravity, however gravitons are not accepted as a scientific fact. In my humble opinion the gravity bending solution has too many holes in it. First, gravity is described as bending of space-time, not as a wave like the electromagnetic energy of microwaves and light. Thus you cannot bend gravity. Second to unbend space time in a gravity field you would again need negative mass which does not exist (obviously everything according to present day understanding). The ''universe propulsion'' can actually be extremely practical if you manage to get the immense energy requirements and the fundamentals of universe creation of which we presently know nothing about. Certanly fast besides since it seems that the expansion of the universe is accelerating it would be just a mater of creating a new universe and you wouldn't need any further energy to power the reaction Speaking of new FTL drives, my favorite is by far the infinite improbability drive  : |
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| CIWS2000 |
Posted on 12-07-2008 12:19
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Posts: 41 Joined: January 23 2008 |
Warman, what you are talking about is called a O'neill cylinder a ship of this sort was the type of ship detected in the excellent sci fi series of books by Arthur C Clarke beginning with Rendevous with Rama. soon to be made into a movie starring Morgan Freeman. |
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