The Union of Planetary Republics

What Is Stringwarp? (Part Two)

    “So you wanted to hear the other half of the theory of philotics?”
    You nod.
    “This will be a bit of a stretch, just like the last theory was, Admiral.”
    “That’s all right, Engineer. I just wanted to hear something other than that this was ‘the newest and greatest form of transportation history has ever seen.’ I wanted to hear about it from someone who knew about how it worked.”
    “Well, there are plenty of people who know more about this than I do, partly because half of the information is still classified.”
    “So the Union is still sitting on some of the finer points of stringwarp?”
    “K.O.R.O.N.I.S. Shipworks is the only ship construction site that knows about how to build and operate the engines. They told me only what they had to about how this runs.”
    “I’ll have to have a talk with some of the people behind this,” you say, “this technology certainly has potential to revolutionize space travel and the people should know about it.”
    “You would have to talk to Admiral Pon. And they say that even he is under strict guidelines about what to talk about and what not to.”
    “You think that NeoTerra might be jealous?”
    “That may be one of the reasons that they’re seceding from the Union. So they can come up with their own stringwarp technology.”
    “That’s no reason to risk a civil war.”
    “I think that they’re scared that the Belts will isolate them from the Union. With a KobalThi hive so close to their planet...” Chills run up your spine at the mention of the KobalThi. You remember when your ship was ambushed by them, and the ship wasn’t a pretty sight after you and your crew fought them off. That was after boarding a Union ship that had been adrift for a year. Their log entries explained the KobalThi attacks only in the vaguest terms. But the worst part of it was not the lack of knowledge, it was what happened as a result of that lack of knowledge. Investigating the whole ship, your crew had found no signs of any killings of the crew. It was as if everyone had decided to leave. You knew that just wasn’t what happened.
    “Let’s stay away from that topic,” you say.
    “I’m sorry, Admiral,” she says. Engineer Leis thinks of where she left off, before conducting her errands. She begins again:
    “You remember how everything orbits, right?”
    “I do,” you answer.
    “Well, the Law of Thermodynamics is a bit tougher to explain. Basically, it says that if you don’t keep adding energy to something, entropy will happen. A good example of thermodynamics is boiling water. If you take the boiling water away from the heat, what happens?”
    “The water cools down,” you answer.
    “That’s entropy. When anything loses energy, thermodynamics calls that energy loss entropy,” she continues, “Basically, what we do to the ship is similar to thermodynamics. What we do is capture philotic particles in the engines of our ship, and create a bond between the ship and where we want to go. Since it takes several philotes to form a stable bond, we think of the philotes as beads on a string. It’s not called stringwarp because we warp superstrings; it’s called stringwarp because we string philotes together to create a force that moves the ship.”
    “What do you call that force?”
    “We call it ‘the philotic effect.’ And this is where thermodynamics comes in. What we do is to make the ship behave as though traveling to a certain destination is lowering its energy level.”
    “So you’re using entropy to move the ship?”
    “Not exactly, but that’s a pretty good way of explaining it in layman’s terms. No offense, Admiral.”
    “None taken,” you say.
    “Anyway, a better example is magnetism. What we do with the ship is make it repel the space it’s in and attract the space it’s not in. Except it’s kind of hard to explain that we’re not doing the repelling or attracting with actual magnets, or even with static electricity, we’re doing it with philotes.
    “The way that works is that matching philotes tend to go away from each other, and nonmatching philotes tend to come together.”
    “So your ship will take in as many philotes as possible that match the philotes in the place where you want to go?”
    “Yes,” Leis nods. “We use those philotes to make the ship stop matching the space it is in, and make it start matching the space where we want to go. Only a few rules govern this kind of travel. First, you have to already be in hyperspace, because the philotic effect is extremely weak. Second, you have to pass through at least two areas in space that do not match where you want to go, because otherwise, you’ll drop out of stringwarp there. Finally, you have to go someplace different from where you started. None of our stringwarp engines can capture philotes that already match the space where the ship is.”
    “That’s not all that complicated,” you say.
    “It doesn’t seem too complicated, but it is once you take a look at all the machines and computers you need to use just to get the ship going.”
    “Is it all right if I come back sometime when the ship’s back in port and tour some of the machinery that runs the stringwarp?”
    “Sure. Our first mission is out into the Belts to test the ship. You can talk to Commander Charles MacHaley, or Captain Edlyn Astrid to arrange a visit the next time we’re here.”
    “Thanks for your time,” you say.
    “You’re welcome, Admiral. Enjoy the good in your day.”
    “You too,” you say, as you head back to the airlock that you used to get from the Spaceport into the ship.

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