Comment by Recurecur
19 days ago
FTL starships in an SF story don’t need a detailed explanation, just a new invention.
It’s the exact same thing as a speculative story in the 1920s discussing supersonic flight, even though the jet engine hadn’t been invented yet.
For instance “Tunnel in the Sky” bypassed the whole issue in the 50’s, later imitated by “Stargate”…
True but at that point objects travelling faster than sound had been demonstrated.
It was just hard to engineer a manned plane that could do it. For example during WWII the V2 rockets travelled much faster than sound. They were just unmanned. Or more simple, bullets were supersonic for longer too.
What I mean is, nobody thought the sound barrier was a hard limit we could never break.
Just specify an Alcubierre drive. Job done.
Massive implications from that
A magic unobtainium drive which works in a consistent way is fine, just call it “hyperspace” or whatever
There’s a difference between hard sci-fi and soft sci-fi, but they are both still sci-fi, you can tell optimistic stories of the future with a “battle drive”, as long as you keep it consistent. If the drive cancels relativity effects and allows travel at 5000c that’s fine. Just ensure you travel at 5000c, no hoping across the galaxy in a few days, but travelling to another star in a few days or even hours is fine.