(no subject)

[damselfish]

I'm so fickle. I have a book trilogy I may meander into writing one day about faster-than-light travel, and usually it bums me out because it's not very hard sci-fi (or, uhm, at all, it's space opera all the way!) and lots of sci-fi for years has been turning away from FTL travel because it's not scientifically possible. This is also part of the reason the SF genre has been contracting; because the people who want hard SF have always been a stable, if limited, population. The rest of SF is "stuck on Earth" stories which, while plausible, at not very exciting to me and I tend to shelve them under "dystopian" rather than "science fiction." I know, the future will be a hellish plutocracy wherein we all live Mad Max style off what's left. Also there will probably be zombie-mutants. There is an 88% chance of steampunk technology, also. Women will probably be more oppressed than they are now.

So I figured Space Noir had no marketable future but I was gonna write it because it hit all my buttons. People who are space ships! Commentary on prisoner abuse! Body horror! Forced romance tropes that are not romantic at all! Snappy-dressing aliens! Lots and lots of time alone in space with your lover, perfect for the sort of long conversations I love to write! Giant construction projects in space! Yeeeees.

But no. NASA spoiled it with a real warp drive, which means that the entire premise of Space Noir is now not only hand wavy space magic but also totally undermined because why would you make any other kind of FTL travel.

BOO SCIENCE.

But seriously though. To all the people crowing about how FTL travel is unscientific and has no place in SF: /nelson laugh.

Okay. This is all theoretical, really, and there's a good chance it won't work even though it won't require the massive amount of exotic matter originally thought. It's also based on a decade old theory that I've seen used in SF and discredited as bunk (because armchair nerds know best). Also it will most likely kill all passengers on board. Still. SCIENCE! Also the comments have some stuff about how the same principle could be used as a time machine and sometimes I am just like "science, I don't get you at all and I am a big nerd."