That could be parsed as, Batty’s ship and another ship were both in the Solar System, and as Batty looked out his window, he saw the other ship on fire against a backdrop of the constellation Orion.
This is the series I wanted to mention as well, even though the human’s aquisition of the hyperdrive from the Outsiders is a major plot-point and the series goes FTL from that (chronological) point forawrd. It could work as an “Outer Limits” style anthology show (though some of the novellas from the books might cover a two- or three-episode arc).
Put all the “canon” works into chronological order, write in some expository “filler” episodes to explain the overall situation to the viewers (although I think Angel’s Pencil could be fleshed out to do this fairly nicely; I wouldn’t want a lame, 20 minute long voiceover opening the narrative). Heck, even some “side episodes” taken from Ringworld or Crashlander would be pretty neat, but obviously later in the series.
The Alien-verse does have FTL, they just don’t delve into it visually or story-wise very much (if at all), much the same way Farscape doesn’t delve into the FTL mechanics of non-Leviathan ships (Peacekeepers, Nebari, Luxan, Scarran, etc.,) aside from some brief, rare comments about travel time. I think Scorpius once told Chrichton that it would take a Command Carrier 60 years to reach Earth via non-wormhole travel.
Even if you rule out FTL, for ships to travel at relativistic speeds you need some kind of constant-boost drive. At present, space travel consists of giving the spaceship one big push and then letting it coast at constant velocity until it reaches its destination. Hard to get relativistic speeds out of that. Harder still to have a constant-boost drive without expelling a vast amount of reaction mass which has to be carried along with the ship – unless the Bussard ramjet concept can actually be made to work (it depends on controlled nuclear fusion releasing more energy than is invested in the process, something not yet achieved even in a laboratory, AFAIK). In Star Trek, the way spaceships are able to move without expelling any reaction mass is almost as amazing/impossible as their ability to move FTL. They never use the term “Dean Drive,” but what other explanation is there?
Even with a perfect fusion drive, a ramscoop ship can never get up to more than 0.12 c. Past that, drag from the interstellar medium is more than the thrust your engine can produce. You could, of course, do better with a total conversion drive instead of fusion, but those are a bit more difficult to produce.
I’ve been hoping for a really good series to come about that is just about what life might be like for “people” on other worlds. No need for spaceships, fancy laser guns etc.
I’d like to get some technical “NASA” type minded people involved in the project.
One idea I thought would be cool for such a project would be these aliens on this particular world had a completely organic kitchen. Like various fruits and vegetation growing out of the walls a celing. Fish like animals swiming around in a tank. Live land type animals roaming around in the pantry.
Also on another world, transportation would be something one subscribed to in the same way one might subscribe to a cable service here on earth. When ever you need to go somewhere you just punch a few keys on a keypad and an automated pod would come zip by your home and take you where you need to go. For a monthly service fee of course.
The ideas for a show like that would be endless.
It just started, but Defyng Gravity doesn’t seem to have FTL travel
Gattaca didn’t either, it was pretty close to the current space program capabilities. Though I don’t know if you could really make much of a series out of that.
In Vernor Vinge’s book A Fire Upon the Deep the galaxy is divided into three zones; the Slowness, in which FTL is not possible and the Beyond and the Transcend, where it is possible.
It also doesn’t seem to be science fiction.
No, but there are plenty of reasons why extraterrestrial intelligent life can’t be found in the Solar system. This kind of thing now belongs to the Future Past. And the idea of finding lichens or microorganisms just has not the same frisson.
What about Tannhauser Gate?
The Kurt Russel movie Soldier takes place in the same universe as Blade Runner. That movie had FTL travel.
With the way their fighters moved? I think they did have it.
Really?
You could do one on a Ringworld variant. Instead of two great oceans, have a couple dozen or so, each too large to travel across. The land masses would be far enough apart that they could be completely independent species-wise, so you could have whatever you could have on separate planets. There would also be the overarching “who made this place, and why” question. Getting from one land area to another only requires a level of technology that we already have IRL.
The biggest problem would be that everyone in your target audience has heard of the Ringworld, and it might be hard to get past that.
Red Dwarf (the JMC starship) had no FTL drive, and generally, 'Dwarf avoided using time-travel eps as a plotline, mainly for a laugh
Season 1 Ep 2; Future Echoes- RD has been accelerating steadily at relativistic velocity for 3,000 years, and breaks the Light Barrier in this episode, Hilarity Ensues
Season 1 Ep 3; Stasis Leak-a leak in a Stasis Pod allows L, C, and R to go back in time to an earlier Red Dwarf, Hilarity Ensues (technically a time-travel ep, not a FTL ep)
Season 1 Ep 6; Paralell Universe- Holly creates what he hopes is a Hyperlight drive (the Holly Hop drive), it sends L, C, and R into an alternate universe, Hilarity (and Fatherhood) ensues
Season 3 Ep 1; Backwards- K and R end up traveling through an Orange Whirly Thing In Space (Time-Hole) and end up on Htrae, where time is running backwards, Hilarity ensues (technically an Alternate Reality ep, not an FTL ep)
Season 4 Ep 5; Dimension Jump-L,C,K,and R encounter Ace Rimmer (what a guy!) as he jumps into their reality, collides with Starbug, and has to help them repair the crashed 'Bug, Dueling Egos (R and AR) ensue (another Alternate Reality ep)
Upon further review, the only real “FTL” or “warp drive” eps in 'Dwarf is “Future Echoes”
The Mad Max movies are SF, and they don’t use FTL.
I’ll let others discuss whether the series is good.
why isn’t it science fiction? Its got space ships, a manned mission Venus nano-tech, and maybe even some kind of alien presence.