Talk:HyperSpace

I don't think it's particularly necessary to mention the composer of the HyperSpace theme song and not the composers of the background music for TrueSpace, QuasiSpace, the Starbase and all the alien races. If we are going to mention it, we should mention that the *reason* is that HyperSpace is a more famous and more commonly used and remixed song than the others, or the reference doesn't make sense..

It used to be part of the article, but somebody moved it into brackets at the bottom for reasons unknown... -Fadookie 05:22, 23 Nov 2004 (CET)

I created a page about all the music (Star Control Music), and linked from here with a "See also". It might be nice to do that for all races, etc. -- SvdB 19:01, 23 Nov 2004 (CET)

Is even that necessary? It seems to me it'd be better to just do a front-page link for the music page and link to that once, rather than cluttering every page with links to the music when it should be clear from looking at the music page what things have music for them. Someone looking for info on the music would probably just go to music rather than, say, going to the page for Arilou La'leelay to find info on who wrote the Arilou La'leelay theme. In general I'm in favor of doing more to separate the aspects of Star Control 2 the game (details about the programmers, the music, the gameplay, etc.) and Star Control 2 the story. I've been trying to consistently put information from beyond the fourth wall in brackets.

I think that having such info on the race page could be helpful and informative. One of the main points of having a wiki is that all related pages are linked together for ease of navigation. Information on the alien race music is most definitely pertinent, as the page should eventually contain external links to download the music and its remixes, composer info, etc. This is too useful to be considered "clutter" in my opinion.-Fadookie 07:06, 24 Nov 2004 (CET)

I agree. We shouldn't limit ourselves to three walls. The wiki software has support for sections, which can be used to separate in-story information and "out-story" information. I'd like this wiki to be as complete as possible. -- SvdB 15:31, 24 Nov 2004 (CET)

Interesting ideas about the nature of light and the physics in hyperspace. I made s light change to keep the physics consistent. If the speed of light is different in hyperspace, we really should only expect the wavelengths to go longer and not the frequency to get higher. Otherwise how do you determine whether you red shift or blueshift. A good analogy would be changing the density of air to change the speed of sound. The pitch of a guitar string goes up because the wavelength changes but the frequency is the same. I would think the same would be true as we manipulate the 'quantum ether' that determines the speed of light. Also, if we could flesh out inter-hyperspace medium and the analogy to microwave and cosmic background radiation. The two are different phenomenon. Interstellar hydrogen radiates in a very specific band - 21 cm - deep in the microwave, while cosmic background radiation is blackbody radiation from the cooling of the universe since the big bang. If you want the medium to radiate across the spectrum, probably the best thing to do is to have it radiate thermally at some temperature. We could also do away with the medium entirely and have the brane of hyperspace be at a different temperature than TrueSpace, with a blackbody spectrum that peaks in the red spectrum (or the equivalent of the red spectrum for the different speed of light). Fyzixfighter 05:43, 28 Jan 2005 (CET)

Interesting. What I was trying to do was mess with the description to fit TFB's rather vague language about the "speed of light being different in HyperSpace" causing a "redshift" as well as maintaining an "invisible force" that slowls things down in HyperSpace. The reason for there being some sort of medium is less the red glow and more that there's something that yanks you to a dead stop relative to the galaxy if you don't keep accelerating -- as though you were moving through a sea of thick fluid that was exerting friction on you.130.58.225.137

Aah, I see now <he says as he pulls out the old SC2 manual>. Yeah, the language is extremely vague. I'd be more willing to think that the hyperspace 'drag' is more likely due to the different laws of physics. The reason I say that is that the lack of inertia and gravity are mentioned together in the manual. Gravity and inertia are also closely tied in physics. If we posit that gravity never broke off from the other forces in the hyperspace universe, we could invoke unknown physics to claim that a direct consequence of no gravity is no inertia. Or we could say that hyperspace is in some wierd entropic state such that a very low-density interstellar medium or even the space itself could literally suck the kinetic energy from the ship. I'm just stating these possibilities because I don't think a thick medium is the only way to explain the drag. And while we're all doing the trekkie thing, would the ship and its occupants themselves be subject to the new laws of physics? Or can we invoke some kind of froonium drive to maintain truespace physics within the ship? --Fyzixfighter 18:26, 28 Jan 2005 (CET)

It's pretty clear that the ship is surrounded by some sort of "TrueSpace bubble" -- we even hear stuff about how the collision between two TrueSpace bubbles forces ships that meet each other out of HyperSpace. As far as why there's some sort of drag, the medium is the explanation I first thought of -- they don't actually say that there's "no inertia", but that inertia doesn't quite work the same way. I'm not, after all, totally sure what no inertia at all would mean, but it seems problematic to say that just removing inertia means you suddenly have Aristotelian mechanics with an absolute reference frame that you constantly slow down to when you run out of impetus. In any case, what the SC2 manual actually says is that there *is* an "invisible force that keeps slowing you down", like friction, which implies some sort of medium or something. The only way I can imagine HyperSpace being at all similar to TrueSpace and working the way it does is if *something* -- doesn't have to be ordinary matter, doesn't have to be anything we know of -- is physically present that makes up the "framework" of HyperSpace, so that there's something you can grind to a halt relative to.130.58.225.137

I guess I did misread that statement about inertia in the manual. I agree, no inertia would play hell with basic Lagrangian mechanics. But I think that we should say that source of the invisible force is speculative. It could be a field effect, warpage/nature of hyperspace-time, the entropic state of that universe, or some other type of physics (as you put it - doesn't have to be anything we know of). To me, this medium sounds too much like a luminiferous ether. Friction might be a good analogy for the source, but it doesn't mean it is the source. As for the Truespace bubble, the only place I've ever heard of that is in reference to the Arilou homeworld and here in these articles. The manual/canon only speaks of hyperdrive fields interacting and masses intersecting as the cause of the drop out of hyperspace into truespace. If we're going to make the speed of light much larger and keep the physical laws in hyperspace similar to our own, are only real option is reducing the permeability of vacuum (can't mess with the permittivity). --Fyzixfighter 07:40, 29 Jan 2005 (CET)

I tried to find a balance between the speculation and canon on this article. I think that there is some merit to fleshing out some topics, extrapolating from the canon to what lies between the lines. But the extreme speculation (like the HyperSpatial medium and its nature) needs to be indicated as such, and not necessarily stated as fact. And some of the now excised fan-fic here actually contradicted some of the canon. I've also reordered some of the paragraphs and introduced some organizational headings so the article flows a bit better, but I'm definitely not attached to any of them. If you're so inclined let me know what you think. Fyzixfighter 02:48, 29 Aug 2005 (CEST)

IMHO, the edits are a start. I don't see any reason for going so far beyond the facts by mentioning theories that are so loosely connected to the game. It's not as if the topics discussed have any influence on the plot or even ever come up in fan talk. If we are going to include these vague theories, it should at least be clear what is fiction and what isn't. None of this "some physicists have theorized" crap. -- SvdB 17:15, 29 Aug 2005 (CEST)

I guess then the question becomes how much between the lines should we read, and how in character are these articles meant to be. For example, the comment I made on the permeability is a natural extrapolation from two statements in the manual so I think it could be included, whereas the hyperspatial medium speculation is a much larger leap into the realm of fanfic. The medium stuff should probably then be cleaned up here and in the HyperWave Caster and QuasiSpace articles (and where ever else it appears). How would you suggest we delineate between canon and reasonable speculation in the articles? Are there any precedents in wikis for other video games? I'm not attached to any of the stuff I've put up, so no harm no foul if it's removed. This is just a community effort after all. Fyzixfighter 19:23, 30 Aug 2005 (CEST)