[Processed] An Accidental Adventure into Phoron Lore

[Resilynn]

Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System): Physics, so, general I guess?

 

Founding/Settlement Date (if applicable): N/A

 

Region of Space: N/A

 

Controlled by (if not a faction): N/A

 

Other Snapshot information: I think I found a way to make phoron make sense, and it explains a few other otherwise nonsensical mechanics in the game.

 

Long Description:

 

I started this line of inquiry while trying to figure out travel in game: how fast it is, how expensive, etc. Mostly, I was tired of people telling me they lived 1400 LY away. I figured all of that out pretty easily, down to how much phoron is needed to power a bluespace gateway. For shits and giggles, since I knew how much phoron was needed, I decided to figure out how much energy phoron would need to store. And so I looked into some of our current theoretical physics, modeled after some bored Ph D student's inquiries into Einstein Rosen bridges- fancy talk for wormholes.

 

So, if bluespace drives work by creating a wormhole to the bluespace dimension, there would need to be some substance with a negative energy density to negate the positive energy of whatever you're pushing through the wormhole. That's some pretty basic crazy theoretical physics. Well, that's perfect, because we have this weird made up substance called phoron which is already canonically super rare and, for some reason, powers bluespace drives.

 

This would mean phoron has a negative energy density. It would be exotic matter, then, and frankly, we don't know what that looks like. Which leaves us with a lot of flexibility for our sci fi lore.

 

Some of the few things we CAN assume about this kind of exotic matter: It would react inversely to gravity, which means it would not be found planetside except for very rarely, when embedded into rocks. On a tiny asteroid, though, this is negligible. Also negligible when on a station with artificial gravity.

 

When near planets, and when pushed to relativistic effects, phoron would react inversely to gravity: pushing, instead of pulling. This means bluespace gateways would not be able to exists easily on planets (without a ton of artificial gravity negating the pushback), and it means that ships/things near bluespace drives would have a lot of trouble. Well, haven't we always wondered why miners suddenly go plummeting back to the asteroid? We could argue it is the pushback from the bluespace drive on the arrivals shuttle.

 

Anywhoo, it's a neat thought with some physics taken into consideration. It'd be neat to have our universe make some scientific sense, what with it being science fiction.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Coalf

[Bygonehero]

We've debated our magic McGuffin, phoron for some time and have come to the same conclusion as you for the most part, that Phoron has to have a negative energy density. You don't need much negative energy to make a wormhole to start with, but there are some problems with your lore application which I will disclose.

1. Bluespace gateways were canonically made before phoron was ever discovered, the debt incurred by Solgov building one to Tau Ceti was one of the original moments of contention between the two in our lore. Furthermore, its likely that blue space gateways operate without using a negative energy dense object, at least before. This is possible due to the Squeezed Light phenomena. In it, it basically overviews that you can produce negative energy by some clever manipulation of high energy waves focused onto a single point. This approach is likely much less cost-effective than phoron and is likely the reason warpgates/bluespace gates were so expensive to begin with.

2. Phoron is found planetside, albeit rarely. Elyra being the only confirmed planet in our lore with phoron deposits. Sedantis is technically a moon, so the degree to which gravity interacts with phoron could be argued.

3. From a narrative standpoint, you want to avoid totally explaining your magical McGuffin as long as possible. It can have rules, sure, but to fully explain it is to make it inflexible. As for where phoron comes from? We have debated that significantly too, I am of a mind that phoron was brought to our dimension from another dimension, as to explain why it would have a negative energy density, to begin with.

[Resilynn]

We've debated our magic McGuffin, phoron for some time and have come to the same conclusion as you for the most part, that Phoron has to have a negative energy density. You don't need much negative energy to make a wormhole to start with, but there are some problems with your lore application which I will disclose.

1. Bluespace gateways were canonically made before phoron was ever discovered, the debt incurred by Solgov building one to Tau Ceti was one of the original moments of contention between the two in our lore. Furthermore, its likely that blue space gateways operate without using a negative energy dense object, at least before. This is possible due to the Squeezed Light phenomena. In it, it basically overviews that you can produce negative energy by some clever manipulation of high energy waves focused onto a single point. This approach is likely much less cost-effective than phoron and is likely the reason warpgates/bluespace gates were so expensive to begin with.

2. Phoron is found planetside, albeit rarely. Elyra being the only confirmed planet in our lore with phoron deposits. Sedantis is technically a moon, so the degree to which gravity interacts with phoron could be argued.

3. From a narrative standpoint, you want to avoid totally explaining your magical McGuffin as long as possible. It can have rules, sure, but to fully explain it is to make it inflexible. As for where phoron comes from? We have debated that significantly too, I am of a mind that phoron was brought to our dimension from another dimension, as to explain why it would have a negative energy density, to begin with.

 

I'm cool with waving a dismissive hand at those aspects and keeping things vague, I'm just excited that there are physics to explain it.

[Coalf]

This has been here since March, [mention]Resilynn[/mention][mention]Senpai Jackboot[/mention].

Can I just archive this or is there any further elaboration from either side?

[Resilynn]

Do it!

[Coalf]

Sorry for the delay, locking and archiving.