This article is classified "Fictional"
Most of the research potential in the known Universe (and probably much
of that of London, too) is heavily inclined towards finding ways to
accomplish things faster. The efforts of the Sol III-based sand-derivate
manufacturer Intel, to generate faster customer-feedback by producing a
piece of really hot electrodynamically active sand, can be seen as a good
example of this trend. This Si-lump produced just the wrong spark at the
wrong time every 10,000 years or so (as extrapolated from the zero sparks
they got in the week they tested one of them).
In technologically developed areas, however, most of the fastness research
is heavily centered around the swift transportation of matter through vast
amounts of space. As in time Zandax the Five-and-a-Halfth of Maximegalon
University, Hilbo Quenur, L'Loqstrup, Grabbol, Einstein, Stallux, or
whatever the name of your local smartass may be, have been proved wrong,
theories have been developed to encompass the energy barrier involving
having hoards of photons travelling at nearly the same speed as you. The
main problem with these particles is their attitude: whenever you feel like
going a bit faster, they automatically get the tendency to speed up to
retain a 3*10^8 m/s speed advantage over you. In this process, called
"invariance of the light speed," they absorb kinetic energy from all nearby
objects, including the traveller they try to outrun in the first place.
Eventually, when you get really near their speed, they resort to
disgustingly low tricks to maintain their goal, such as making time slow
down for you and hooking extra mass (ballast) to your ship.
Since every single attempt to re-educate these delinquons (as L'Loqstrup
calls them) has failed, research has turned in the direction of finding
different ways to mislead them. Three major viewpoints have emerged from
the great minds in holiday travel, which will be described briefly:
Hyperspace Travel
-----------------
The basic principle behind this theory is to generate a huge light flash
accompanied by a really great optic distortion in order to fool the photons
("warp their mind") into thinking you're not even near catching up with
them. As optic effect technology improved (Sirius Song And Dance
Systems(TM), Industrial Light And Magic(TM), Magrathea Mist(TM), etc.),
maximum "warp speeds" have increased.
The more confusion you cause, the more head start you can get, and the
farther you are from the aforementioned influences of the enraged mob of
photons in your wake. During the travel, all passed photons will equally
try to slow you down, but as they can only be alerted by their kin of your
arrival (they claim to be the sole carriers of information) they equally
end up in your wake.
Once you finally get to your destination, and "drop out of warp," the
zillions of photons finally catch up, and produce a secondary light flash.
Mind Travel
-----------
Some races really can't be bothered to do a lot of research on this
subject and have found a totally revolutionary approach on this subject.
Unfortunately, the combined scientific community of the Known Universe
disagrees, as their way of travelling involves taking various hallucinogen
substances (Melange, Meringue, LSD, etc.) and dreaming they really are
where they want to be.
To quote the late Zandax The Five-and-a-halfth on his fatal opening speech
of the Fifty-Sixth Annual Mindtravel Convention at Arrakis: "... with all
you reality-dodging bunch of Freeloaders, no wonder this planet is one hot
worthless maggot-infested sandpile!"
Improbability Drive
-------------------
Although this theory still is marked as "revolutionary," the principle is
not much different from straight hyperspace travel. The improbability
field is merely used as a confusion generating device, so that the photons
begin to doubt whether you really were there, or somewhere else, and
whether or not it really is worth the trouble trying to catch up with
someone who might not even be outrunning them. Doing thus avoids the wake
of photons behind you, thereby allowing virtually infinite speeds.
The Improbability Drive has -- mainly immediately after its discovery --
been considered as the /nec plus ultra/ of travel, and many a respectable
travel researcher has turned to manufacturing papier mache warp coils out
of pure boredom. But soon after, the major disadvantages popped their
heads up. As one traverses all points of the physical universe at the
same instant of time, the timing for re-entry in normal space is rather
difficult to calculate, and involves a large amount of divisions by zero
(Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is alleged to have made a mega-Ningi
contract with an unnamed sand manufacturer in the Western part of the
Spiral Arm for the production of devices capable of performing these
operations).
Another disadvantage of Improbability travel resulted in the extinction of
the only known remaining species of walking handkerchiefs, when a four-
kiloton Sirius ImprobCruiser passed right through them on reentry.
Several of these accidents have gotten the remaining researchers back to
work on a different approach on this delicate subject. This time the
efforts are no longer concentrated on the interactions with photons, but
rather on the second travel theory. In this case, however, reality is not
battled with chemical substances, but with itself. There appears to be a
security peephole in physics, a bug in reality. This bug appears on the
quantumphysical level.
A young graduate student, the late brother of the late discoverer of the
Infinite Improbability Generator, who had been bored after he cleaned the
lab, started to examine the Heisenberg Principle:
dp * dx > h
He reasoned: If we could really narrow down the place where one is, the
uncertainty on the momentum could become huge. And as it is an uncertainty,
the speed involved can be any, from none to infinity.
At first this idea may look like a bunch of dingo's kidneys and at least as
impractical and dangerous as the Improbability Drive, but as the entire
galactic research staff plunged into the subject, the huge paper waves
came up with ideas to control the certainty of the place only in one
direction, say the length. This will narrow down the velocity vector in
the same direction, thus making a directional travel possible (always a
handy feature) and thereby even outperforming the adirectional steering of
Improb Drive. By measuring the length of a teaspoon really accurately,
Grabbol was able to fling it straight forward, unfortunately into the skull
of a passing cleaning lady. He was able to avoid criminal prosecution by
calculating its speed from the impact depth, thereby removing the evidence
according to the same theory.
Further experiments revealed an unexpected effect: as the Heisenberg
equation uses dp (uncertainty in momentum) instead of just velocity,
sometimes the object just stays put and its mass increases exceedingly
("Elvis-effect"). Current experiments involve tossing livestock between
(sometimes "tossing through" or "transforming into") planets.
At the current research rate, this New Technology of Quantum Leaping should
be available Real Soon Now. However, as failed experiments tend to use up
researchers, the progress rate decreases. "Is Reality fighting back?", as
Oolon Colluphid writes in his latest blockbuster, God Really Screwed This
One Up.