[PREV - HG_WELLS_ONE]    [TOP]

FTL

                                             March 25, 2022

In the mid-80s I wrote a piece complaining
about the ubiquitous deployment of faster-than-light
space travel (aka FTL) thoughout much of science         One of the titles
fiction, including the supposedly "Hard SF".             for it was:

                                                         "Some SOS about FTL"
That was several years pre-doomfiles, and it's
never made it into these pages, and at the moment
I can't lay my hands on a copy of it.  Let me try
to summarize some points from memory:


   Faster-than-light travel really and truly
   seems to be a physical impossibility.

   FTL is resorted to repeatedly in science
   fiction to the point where the fans have
   the impression there's something plausible
   about it-- any day now, we're going to
   discover warp drive.
                                                         Which is to say,
   FTL is often used as part of the background           for some FTL is
   furniture of an other-wise "hard SF" story,           merely a vehicle,
   e.g. a way to get human beings on the scene so        a device.
   they can explore some strange setting.

   This is very much a cop-out, a resort to a
   lazy cliche to solve a story problem: if you
   *don't* invoke FTL that might very well force
   you to work harder, but that work might steer
   you in a new and more interesting direction.

   If you believe in fiction as a way of exploring
   possibilities, if you feel virtuous about SF's
   respect for scientific knowledge, then you should
   balk at this rejection of reality.



    It is certainly *not* the case that
    we can't write stories about interstellar
    travel without FTL, what *is* true is that
    we can't write direct translations of
    historical fiction about imperial conquests
    and rebellions.


    It's not that hard to come up with examples
    of interstellar SF that doesn't invoke FTL,      The Kith: interstellar
    Gregory Benford sites Poul Anderson's "Tau       traders who live in a
    Zero", and myself I often cite some short        culture somewhat
    stories by Anderson that few seem to remember,   disconnected from
    later collected into the book "Mauri & Kith".    earth-bound society.
                                                     They develop an odd,
    One of my own favorites is Gregory               god-like perspective,
    Benford's own "In the Ocean of Night"            having personally watched
    (1977), and "Across the Sea of Suns"             human cultures rise and
    (1984).                                          fall.

        FIRST_THINKS_FIRST                           A Star Trek-style plot has
                                                     the heroes repeatedly
                                                     arrive and explore a new,
                                                     strange world.  The Kith
                                                     are in the same position,
                                                     though that new world is
                                                     "Earth".



--------
[NEXT - HARD_RIGHT]