Oh, while I'm at it...

Beta wanted for Star Trek Reboot AU... by Lily Winterwood on 2013-11-22 15:47:00 UTC Reply

...where everyone is human and a writer. Except Bones, because he's a doctor, dammit, and an editor.

IntellgentAirhead and I are cowriting this and thinking of releasing the first chapter on the 26th, since that's when the fic technically begins in-universe. Hope someone can help us check for continuity and a bit of SPaG, and maybe a bit of characterisation (though that might be hard considering it's an AU).

Oh also, anyone interested in a tiny Multiverse Monitor article or drabble thing about the plagiarism... thing... that happened down there? Since that's definitely newsworthy.

I could, if you don't have one. by Kittythekatty on 2013-11-23 00:56:00 UTC Reply

I would like to beta. I believe you have my email? Is Google docs alright?

No, actually, I don't have your email. by Lily Winterwood on 2013-11-23 01:19:00 UTC Reply

Give it to me and I'll add you to the gdoc.

kittythekatty@gmail.com (nm) by Kittythekatty on 2013-11-24 03:21:00 UTC Reply

It's been shared, in case you're wondering. (nm) by Lily Winterwood on 2013-11-24 19:41:00 UTC Reply

Can't do the beta, sorry, but... by SeaTurtle on 2013-11-22 18:03:00 UTC Reply

...I know that one Penny Chang would be thrilled to provide the Multiverse Monitor with some recently "declassified" DoI transcripts concerning the plagiarism incident.

Is that acceptable?

That'd be greatly appreciated. by Lily Winterwood on 2013-11-22 18:13:00 UTC Reply

I'm not too sure on making an entire issue just yet, but this article is something that's gotta be written.

Ekyl and I also wanted to flesh out the reporters for the Monitor a bit more, too, so it might end up as like a tiny interludish thing, like what hS did with the DOI in the thread.

Oh, while I'm at it... by SeaTurtle on 2013-11-22 19:57:00 UTC Reply

...d'you think you can answer a little Doctor Who lore question? I'm thinking of writing something about the Time Vortex and I want to make sure what I've got in mind makes sense.

Specifically, do you know what it takes to survive exposure to the Time Vortex? A full-on time capsule like a TARDIS is obviously preferable but a Vortex Manipulator is described as being highly uncomfortable, yet serviceable. Considering what happens to Captain Jack and some paper posters hung on the TARDIS, direct exposure is fatal.

Could someone welded inside a EVA-rated armoursuit survive a long-ish (ten minute) exposure in the Vortex?

Most definitely. (nm) by 99Hedgehog on 2013-11-23 04:55:00 UTC Reply
I'm not sure, but... by Lily Winterwood on 2013-11-22 23:59:00 UTC Reply

According to the TARDIS data core, the energy within the Time Vortex is summed up in E=mc^3, which suggests that there's a great deal of energy in there or something (don't look at me I'm not a physicist).

If that armoursuit can survive ten minutes of exposure to a great deal of energy that also doesn't follow the laws of normal space-time, then I guess you could use it?

Fortunately, I am a physisist... by SeaTurtle on 2013-11-23 09:13:00 UTC Reply

...or studying to be one, at any rate. I think I can explain the modified Einstein equation thing going on here...

What we mean by E=mc^2 is simply: "the faster you go, the heavier you get". It's the main reason why we can't go faster than light: when reaching speeds near c, it takes an exponentially greater amount of force to simply accelerate your mass.

Remember: F=ma, and a=F/m.

As velocity--> c, m--> ∞, and so a--> 0m/s^2 for a constant force F.

Science fiction usually gets around this by either having a ship jump into hyperspace (Star Wars), create a pocket distortion that bends space-time around it (Star Trek), or decrease the ship's mass itself and therefore push the light-speed asymptote back (Mass Effect). It also conveniently eliminates the time dilation effect that is predicted by Einstein's special relativity (aka: the faster you move, the slower time passes by for you). To an outside observer, a ship at FTL velocities looks like this:

Notice the correct use of the Doppler effect: everything behind the ship is red-shifted and everything in front of it is blue-shifted.

...but that's enough about FTL, let's talk Time Vortex.

Now, I'm going to be completely honest and say that I have no idea what E=mc^3 will do the the light-speed-limit. It may very well be that it will dramatically affect the speed of light by increasing the slope of the original E-over-mc^2 curve. What will this do? Well, c has been redefined and suddenly everything has more potential energy. I have no idea how this will affect classical mechanics, let alone quantum theory. I think we can all agree on that it is a Very Bad Thing to be caught up in...

Upon reading the entire article on the Vortex, one thing that I found to be very clever is the fact that it takes less energy to go to the future than to travel to the past. Why?

It's because you're riding on entropy's coattails.

Anyhoo, thanks for the answer! I'll do some extra research on this...

Out of interest, by the Irish Samurai on 2013-11-29 22:09:00 UTC Reply

What craft is that in the image, and where does it come from? It looks really familiar, but I just can't place it.

That is the SSV Normandy SR-2... by SeaTurtle on 2013-12-01 07:48:00 UTC Reply

...from the Mass Effect continuum.

If you want a complete look at the spaceship, feast your eyes on this.

Ah, that's why it looks familiar... by the Irish Samurai on 2013-12-01 14:17:00 UTC Reply

Consider my eyes feasted, that was a very cool intro to the ship.

I've never actually played any of the Mass Effect games, but I've got a bunch of trailers for ME3 saved on my PS3's harddrive. I've heard a lot of good things about the series, and it's definitely on list of things to get round to playing at some point.

I was fooled at first by the Normandy's slightly unusual design. You don't often find larger vessels with wings like that, they tend to be all fuselage - without anything to give a sense of scale in that clip you posted, I'd assumed that it was a Star Wars-style snubfighter.

DERP by SeaTurtle on 2013-11-23 18:43:00 UTC Reply

Actually, forget what I said about redefining the speed of light in E=mc^3. "c" is a constant, herp-de-derp.

*facepalms*

What E=mc^3 will actually do is change the rate at which mass is added to an object that is accelerated towards the speed of light. Consider:

E=mc^2

m=E/(c^2)

Differentiate with respect to E to find the rate of change:

dm/dE = 1/(c^2)

and so in the case of E=mc^3:

m=E/(c^3)

dm/dE = 1/(c^3)

...which— if I am not mistaken (again)— means that ships approaching a velocity in this system won't gain weight as fast as in E=mc^2.