QBLH
Chapter XLVIII
The Prince of Cups
Pointless, but Excessively Fast
From Wikipedia: (some editing)
Slingshot effect:
A curious extension of warp travel is the "slingshot effect".
it is a method of time travel. Whereas the actual procedure is intentionally obscure, it involved traveling at a high warp velocity as depicted in Star Trek: Over wap in the direction of a star, on a precisely calculated "slingshot" path; if successful, the ship is caused to travel to a desired point, past or future., The warp factor required for "time warp" is given the name "light speed breakaway factor". The term "time warp" was first used in "The Naked Time" (1966) when a previously untried cold-start intermix of matter and antimatter threw the Enterprise back three days in time. The term was later used in Star Trek IV in describing the slingshot effect. The technique was mentioned as a viable method of time travel in the TNG episode "Time Squared" (1989).
This 'slingshot' effect has been explored in theoretical physics: it is hypothetically possible to slingshot oneself 'around' the event horizon of a black hole. The result of such a maneuver would cause time to pass at a faster rate, relative to the ship within the event horizon. Such a journey would, unfortunately, be a 'one-way' trip into the future — the pilot of the craft would not have 'traveled through time' in the classical sense, but would instead have merely 'fast forwarded' through the intervening years. Travel in entropic directions other than forwards remain impossible to ascertain within the rubric of special relativity, but the "time warp" drive seen in shows and films illustrate some of the issues.
Fans of the show and films have noted the slingshot involves a star, rather than a black hole, and the most normal consensus from its use concerns the nature of warp travel and warp velocities.
A black hole is noteworthy for its singularity and associated event horizon, where not even light possesses escape velocity. Being able to travel at transluminal velocity would not necessarily make it possible to escape a black hole, as the common notion that a black hole merely possesses an escape velocity greater than c is not correct. Rather, inside the event horizon of a black hole, all paths in the space-time geometry lead closer to the singularity
Perhaps the greatest displacement that Jim ever undertook was the time he took his family on a nice space vacation. I understood it took a very long time, but the children were so excited that they barely noticed time pass.
It is rumored, to be perhaps revealed in a future episode, that he let his son drive, and that he managed to make a few wrong turns here and there. Yet fortunately, Jim ensured there was a road with minimal traffic where and when he would let his son drive. He fondly remembered how much his father had enjoyed driving the Pegasus with the Black Box attached.
Well Genie is up to full power, the batteries are fully charged and all systems are go!
It's time to take the family home, but they want to take the scenic route.
Net time displacement of this trip will only be 3500 years, but the atual time is much longer, since they will go backwards perhaps a billion years or more on the first bounce back. Yet since relativistic effects apply, time experienced by our travellers is a day, perhaps a week.
Light yars traversed? Astronomical! I cannot even begin to imagine.
What for?
Jim wants a map.
Isis looked at him sternly.
"Now?"
"Not now, but when you drop me off. He's going to try to stow away without your knowledge, provide him with that opening."
"How do you know this?"
"I'm his mother, and he doesn't know I know. Besides, it is your responsibility to be his father, bond with him for a few thousand years."
Isis took Jim via her private way to her private chamber on board the Pegasus. She resolved to keep Jim hidden from the crew. They had no need to know, nor did Jim wish to reveal his presence.
"We must cleanse ourselves of impure passions." She prompted Jim to her shower chamber. "Let me cleanse your body and your heart of ill feelings as we prepare for our union."
Too Isis, sex was sacred and it always shall be in her eyes. Additionally, she had been long preparing herself for more children and the time was now available. It would have been impossible for Jim to have lived any further if he had even dreamed of denying Isis what she wanted after the shower.
It became apparent that she wanted Jim to demonstrate some special effects on this return to Artemis. Jim was curious as well. He had been involved in too much history-tampering, or had he? Nothing had changed. Of course, the paradox avoidance system had helped. He decided that he would take the Pegasus as far back in time as he could venture, absorbing minimal light only and expending zero energy in the process, invisible to the universe without. Yet Idiot would be gathering much useful information which Jim could use to refine his relativistic control theory. Jim had developed the Box to be able to envelop the Pegasus so that the Pegasus could experience rather elaborate space-time displacements.
Idiot was an expert map maker. Many of its subroutines specialize in complex hyper space map creation as information is retrieved. Idiot also had the ability to make intelligent projections of estimated probable space-time future locations with a clearly defined cost in energy units. Interfacing with Jim, it could provide possibilities, almost as if multiple-choice, but not quite that simple. Space warp propulsion requires that space would be bent both in front of and behind a spacecraft; that empty space behind the craft would then expand, pushing and pulling it forward at the same time There was much more than simply making warp speed to be possible by making the vehicle able to travel faster-than-light by bending space around it and essentially making distances much shorter than they actually are. Time travel was much more difficult as mapping space in motion very much involved and complicated control variables. Idiot needed to remember the space where it had been or still was. Dimensional warping would require Idiot to relativistically shift or transform its map model into a new map which would, in the absence of light, provide navigational guidance. The new map in turn, which had only microseconds before been produced, would provide Idiot guidance. Confirming light samples could be obtained to confirm course or make needed corrections. Jim's next course would involve displacements of millions of space years to his second. He knew she would be fascinated by this journey and would be jealously angry if he ever dared take anyone to the dawn of time before her.
Some may successfully argue that it was she who placed the idea in his head. After all, he was under the influence of her ambrosia when he gave Genie a pre-flight brief, while inserting instructions with keyword commands. She wasn't paying any attention to his technical secrets in the first place, she simply believed he could perform these miracles as a matter of his will.
It would seem that Jim was planning on taking Idiot and the Pegasus to the limit, and he was going to do this with his wife and family aboard. Yet was he really, or was he simply projecting Genie into that space and simply simulating it all; but for the fact of the results.
When displacement ceased, they would be in Artemis space and the ladies would be grounded. The Box shedding the Pegasus but keeping Jim would return to Earth as the Flying Dutchman.
Hours later, Isis awakened Jim. He had been through some most amazing dreams and was quite ready for his queen's ambitions.
"Darling, I wish you to teach me all about the stars before you see me to my palace stateroom. Can you make it simple enough for the children to understand, have Genie keep a record of the lecture."
"How about, show and tell?"
"Where and when are we now?"
"It's not quite that easy. Genie has us nowhere in hyperspace, we are currently suspended in time while it calculates and effects energy displacements to maintain external stasis. It is awaiting our instructions."
"Well, remember your promise of showing me the full capabilities of the Pegasus. It seems that you will have to show me some of them now. I would like you to tell me how we are going to travel, where and when. Genie assures me that you have a flight path to Artemis. Why is it that you have one, and we could never solve this mystery?"
"We must return to the point at which you arrived. Time reversal is necessary. My standard practice is to overshoot my target date a little then settle into a landing. I shall simply make a very large displacement backwards so that we may witness the evolution of our universe on our bounce back Genie shall shield us from effects of the evolutionary process, so we shall be able to sit back and safely witness these cosmic sequences that span billions of years within just six or seven days of our own time. Genie can provide us with a very nice graphical model to illustrate the process."
"How positively enchanting! This shall fulfill my greatest desire, my love! To actually witness the Creation unfolding! It must be a most beautiful spectacle. How wonderful!"
Isis was thrilled. She kissed him gratefully and was as elated as a little girl of seven. Jim now would have to make plans as to how he was going to fulfill this latest promise. Anything to get her away from this time. Still he had loose ends to wrap up, and it was imperative that he provide Idiot with a better interstellar map model, and he could best accomplish this by mapping Creation.
While mapping Creation, the Merkabah would be constructed by Idiot as a conduit through which Jim could travel accompanied by transformed matter. Luggage, starships, and living beings would all have to be transformed to fit inside the conduit, which on the exterior was classified as the Box. The most pronounced characteristic of the Box was that it appeared larger on the inside than the outside. By such trickery it could fit a starship the size of the Pegasus through the eye of a needle which is quite immense in comparison to the size of a naked singularity. To reverse itself backwards in time, the starship would necessarily be reduced to singularity before it simply vanished. Similarly the mass would also vanish. The Pegasus, mass-less and pointless, could then travel faster than light in this fashion.
