h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wrote a short story once that didn't go anywhere so you're welcome to have one of the ideas. A society was religiously based using as a symbol the sphere as an object of worship. The idea was that they tried to use it wherever possible. That resulted in *ball in cup* wheels (somewhat like a castor) for primitive carts and eventually as technology progressed the balls were rotated and kept from the *cups* by maglev.

Just a thought as I said, you're free to use it if you want.

Uncertainty is good.

How about a Schrodinger Box?

You step in, choose your destination, and close the door. After 30 seconds, the attendant at your destination (who knows you're coming and therefore has an expectation that you'll be there) opens his box and collapses the waveform. You step out, having not been converted into energy at any stage, but having used the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment and the Observer Effect to ensure your safe arrival.

The 'Bad News Drive' wasn't Pratchett, although it is one of the very few ideas he hasn't already used. He used Monarchy, which is instantaneous, and was planning to send instant messages by selectively torturing a small king. I can't remember which book this is a footnote in.

You could pinch an idea from Robert Rankin and use Crowds. I think travelling by Crowd formation might be interesting.

*hmmm.... thinks...*

This is a bit like the "stay still and move the universe" thing, but what if everyone gets bored of waiting for buses/trains/etc, and their coverage increases until the world is more public transport than static ground. So everyone lives their whole lives inside trains (yes, I think trains work better than buses) and "travels" by getting off and standing still for a while!

Actually, I rather like that concept; so much, that if you don't want it, I may just try and use it myself.

And maybe I'll have to steal some of the leftovers from this thread for my own story one day...

That's a good idea, IMSoP but I think in view of where my character is in this novel, it probably wouldn't work for me, so you may use it yourself. Of course it would be funny if you made millions out of the idea and became a best-selling sci-fi/comedy author, heralded as the successor to DNA, Asimov and HG Wells... Imagine how I would feel!

But anyway, I've already used something similar to the Schroedinger Box. Thanks Gradient anyway.

How left field do you want to get?

What does that mean?

OK, just off the top off my head:
All our atoms are entangled, this is true of those in our mental synapses as much as any in any Physics experiment?

This entanglement extends through time, as well as space?

So what you need to do is locate an individual with enough entangled subatomic particles, and do some kind of switch. The 'enough' bit bothers me, I expect the experience would be unpleasantly like being drunk. I had to say that though, there is no way I couldn't.

Then "you" (as all you are is a lot of subatomic particles, when you get down to it) could travel through time and space.........

Beats travelling by Virgin trains, I guess.

'Left field' is an unfortunate americanism I don't appear to be able to shake off. It means "arriving from an unexpected angle".so it's probably a baseball term.

So...how odd, strange or inexplicable do you want this method of transport to be?

Thank you, gadarene. That makes sense. And you know, physicists have already quite successfully 'teleported' a single sub-atomic particle across a short distance using entanglement. All it would take is a much more advanced civilisation to do it with a batch load of particles.

Re: "Beats travelling by Virgin trains, I guess"
You mean Virgin trains actually travel?

Gradient - the idea can be as odd, strange or inexplicable as we can possibly make it. It's preferable for it to be somewhat amusing at the same time though.

There is a scale that you may or may not have heard of called the Hawking Reality Scale that measures how fragmented a certain scenario is from reality in a unit called the deciReal. 1 dR is 10 times more fragmented than reality and it goes on exponentially.

So from that angle I'm looking for anything from 40dR to 130dR, where 140 is the maximum (it would be impossible for us to conceive of a 140dR idea because it is so incoherent from everything we're used to).

OK.

Two staples of science fiction...

The Reaction Drive. Normally this would be something like a fusion engine that kicks out a whacking great flame or somesuch. Larry Niven loves 'em.

The Over-Reaction drive, on the other hand, is based on the discovery that there is a limit to the sort of behaviour the universe will accept. The basis for the drive is simple: a carefully trained very bad actor is presented with stimuli that he must react to. As each over-reaction occurs, the universe recoils in horror at the appalling performance and pushes the object containing the actor away. The more over-reactions, or the stronger the stimulus, the faster the motion.

Now, the Reactionless Drive is usually a sort of antigravity deal that just moves people.

The Serenity Drive is all about the Zen principle of letting the Universe get on with what it's doing and sort of gliding through in an uncomplicated way.
There are two common models.
The richer sort of person can afford the Zen Master, which is based on the sort of cosmic awareness and sense of completeness that only a Zen Master can project. On encountering this system, the Universe sort of shuffles to one side a bit to let the Master through.
The poorer sort of person is saddled with the 50's English Family unit which usually ignores everything inconvienient or troubling and glides through existence utterly removed from all tribulation and discomfort.
Both work equally well, but the cheaper unit breaks down eventually as the kids grow up and rebel against parental authority or the father realises that his politics have been responsible for the repression of native peoples all over the world.

And then there's the Denial Drive.

Take one very powerful and very highly strung psychokinetic.
The navigation system basically consists of convincing said psychic that the desired destination is his or her 'happy place'.
Then the psychic is irritated to the point of outburst, at which point the force of the psychic denial hurls the ship to the 'happy place'.

There you go.

Oh, I like that last one - can you imagine the protest marches of angry psychokinetics wreaking havoc as they (try to) get to the government offices, though!

How about using a chainsaw that has been boosted with time travelling capabilities to cut a doorway in time and space?

Sorry I read so much SF/Fantasy that I just can't come up with anything original.

Incog.

That's the Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman, except it's the Subtle Chainsaw.

I love Gradient's ideas. Thanks a lot!

In an infinite variety of universes, one of you is already where you want to be.

The manner of becoming that person would need either a , , , or

Did you want an apparent physical presence, a real physical presence, a spiritual one, or a sensory awareness?

I don't mind.

Well then, you have Astral Travel, Quantum Tunnels, Pan-Universal Interdimensional Travel, a Space Ship with a Time Machine in it, Psychic Distance Viewing, or a machine that puts you everywhere simultaneously but leaves you somewhere else. Oh, and the imagination.

Seriously, is this supposed to be *hard* or *soft* Sci-fi? If it's *hard* the current science flavour of the week is quantum theory, isn't it? Your best bet is to go with the most current theory and extrapolate from there. Otherwise you're just making it up from whole cloth and may as well use a combination of things or something as alien as you can imagine.

Some of it's hard; some of it's soft; if that makes sense. But I understand what you're saying and that's plenty to go with. Thank you.

I think various people have experimented, in the literary sense, with Quantum mechanics.

The thought of a Quantum Mechanic, though, is appealing.

'Can't help you, mate, being as that there is a down quark. Can't help you with a down quark. More'n'myjobsworth. What you want is an Up Quark! I could sort you out a lovely set of filters for an Up Quark. Hang on...have you had the back off this Cosmic String? Because that invalidates the warranty...'