# Is an interstellar state possible without FTL travel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 31, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468 "2010-03-31T16:18:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/21 "2010-03-31T22:23:49Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Seems to me you’re thinking of a fake fantasy civilization during the Middle Ages, not an advanced interstellar community where the culture changes ten times faster than ours. Why would culture change fast in the distant future? IMO the main reason ours is changing fast now is because the technology is. ISTM that in the distance future technology will become mostly stagnant and so will philosophy. At some point stuff will have been discussed to death, law books will be the mass of a black hole, and history will have a gazillion examples of what works and what doesnt and the SDMB search function still wont work worth crap. After eons, IMO, culture will become quite stagnant and stable as well, as long as folks are reasonably comfortable. I think its perfectly possible that a distance highly advanced civilization will change as slowly culturally as the middle ages did. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/22 "2010-03-31T22:35:52Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > You don’t need FTL engines if you have wormholes. > > You just need to send someone ahead at sublight speed to make the wormhole first. 😕 You say that matter-of-factly. 1. Is it proven that wormholes are even possible? 2. If they are possible, how do we know they are never natural phenomena, but have to be made? 3. If they are possible, and have to be made, how do you make them? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/23 "2010-03-31T22:38:34Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’m an actual social scientist by academic training. These “societies” read to me the way Timecube must read to an actual physicist. Which is, coincidentally, pretty much the way practically any statement in social “science” must read to a natural scientist. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/24 "2010-03-31T22:45:32Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Which is, coincidentally, pretty much the way practically any statement in social “science” must read to a natural scientist. 😉 You laugh, but as one of the few social scientists in a field saturated by physical scientists, I can tell you that I know a lot more about their fields than they know about mine. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/25 "2010-03-31T23:11:52Z")
> [@Tranquilis](#): > > Since we’re dealing with fictional physics, I don’t see why not - and already fictional society types ahve been proposed. Anyway, seeing as we _do_ have past and present historical examples of fanatical, oppressive, regressive or aggressively static civilizations here on earth (See Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, _et al_), I have no problem swallowing WJW’s ideas as a potential template, albeit he takes his template _far_ past the point where I think it’d fail. How long did Pol Pot last? Dictatorships are unstable. > [@](#): > > In practice, the way I’d work it is to put surveliance satelites around each planet, and require taxes / tribute (building materials, hydrocarbons, fuel) to be launched into mid-planetary orbit. I’d have my fleets constantly in transit from system to system. In each system, they’d send a collier in to take a read off the satelites and collect the goods from orbit whilst the remainder of the fleet takes a more leisurely, higher-energy loop about the system. The collier can replace satelites / nuke the plannet / etc. as needed, and rejoin the fleet as needed, and then the fleet leaves the system for the next system. If the collier is destroyed, the remote fleet drops a lot of rocks into the gravity well, then re-colonizes the planet. In ten or fifteen years, the next fleet comes visiting… Send the fleets from central HQ, where orthidoxy is maintained, and require a tour of the empire as a prereq for advancement to high rank, and you’ve got a semi-stable, if incredibly repressive regieme… The tour of the empire need not even be a hardship, as much of it will be taken at substantial fractions of C, and time dialation means you’re only moderately aged when you get back to HQ. > > No argumant there - The question was, “can you postulate even a temporary interstellar empire absent FTL?” And I can. 😛 Are you assuming a lack of technology on the colony worlds? As Spock said, military secrets are the most fleeting of all. If in the years the ships are in transit the colony builds a space fleet that can ambush it, it is all over. There are a lot more people on the planet than there are on the ship, and because the ship is moving at .99c they have a lot more time to work. Imagine Hitler sending his very best tanks, planes, and V2s to annihilate the US, 20 years away, though only a few months ship time. As they arrive in the 1965 US, the Army and Air Force has a good laugh as they cream the invaders. I don’t buy no technological progress, especially under this kind of pressure. An occupying army would be more plausible, but there is the problem of going native and the bigger problem of dealing with an uprising when the first reenforcements won’t arrive for a decade. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/26 "2010-03-31T23:39:55Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > How long did Pol Pot last? Dictatorships are unstable. At some points in time, not always. Many tyrannies have lasted for centuries. And they didn’t have advantages like mind control and AIs programmed for absolute loyalty. > [@Voyager](#): > > There are a lot more people on the planet than there are on the ship, and because the ship is moving at .99c they have a lot more time to work. Imagine Hitler sending his very best tanks, planes, and V2s to annihilate the US, 20 years away, though only a few months ship time. As they arrive in the 1965 US, the Army and Air Force has a good laugh as they cream the invaders. I don’t buy no technological progress, especially under this kind of pressure. Eventually we will discover all the laws of physics, and many technologies will be “finished” technologies. Logically, there should be hard upper limits to things like the strength of materials, the power of explosives, the power of engines and so forth. No amount of pressure will let you invent the physically impossible. > [@Voyager](#): > > An occupying army would be more plausible, but there is the problem of going native and the bigger problem of dealing with an uprising when the first reenforcements won’t arrive for a decade. Use a robotic army designed for loyalty, one powerful enough that it can’t be overcome by local resources that can be built up secretly. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/27 "2010-03-31T23:40:40Z")
Don’t forget the energy requirements for travel at those kinds of speeds. Assuming a non-magical spaceship, You’ll never get anywhere near the speed of light, since the energy required for constant acceleration increases as the relativistic mass of the spaceship increases. For various reasons, you’d probably never go above .7c or so - the energy requirements increase exponentially as you approach the speed of light. Then don’t forget you have to accelerate out halfway, and decelerate for the other half. So if you hit a peak of .7C, your average velocity is .35. So the closest star is suddenly 12 years away. But even getting to 10% of the speed of light would require so much energy that the cost of the trip would be astronomical, so to speak. So then you have to ask yourself “What are you getting out of this empire?” The energy costs are too great to ever ship raw materials or people back and forth. All defenses would have to be built locally, and you could never send armadas of warships back and forth - you’ll be lucky to send wispy little ships with miniscule payloads compared to the size of the fuel source required. Even antimatter with pure capture of the energy and pure conversion to velocity would require thousands of kilograms of fuel to accelerate a kilogram of payload to .7 C. I agree with **Der Trihs**. I don’t think you’re going to see large numbers of humans traveling to other star systems, period. If you want to do a story on a galactic civilization, I’d posit one where self-replicating robot probes have created manufacturing facilities on many worlds, and then human intelligence is beamed to them as pure information and new bodies for the beamed minds are constructed on the spot. That gets you low-cost ‘transport’ of people from one star system to another. It also means you could build up armies very quickly - use pre-canned minds, and now you can build an army as fast as you can make the bodies for them. I still think it wouldn’t work in terms of directly controlling an empire, because the lag times are too great. But you could great an empire of local autonomous planets run by people uncorked by robots, with their loyalty to the mother planet already ingrained in their minds. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/28 "2010-04-01T00:02:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > TO: Imperial Headquarters, Earth > FROM: Planetary Capital, Epsilon Eridani > RE: Have arrived > DATE: 30 March 2510 > > Just a quick note to inform His Majesty that I have arrived and would like to thank you once again for appointing me Imperial Viceroy of Epsilon Eridani. > > TO: Planetary Capital, Epsilon Eridani > FROM: Imperial Headquarters, Earth > RE: Your message of 30 March 2510 > DATE: 10 June 2533 > > You’re most welcome. And congratulations on your retirement. Please forward report of how it went. :p:p:p You know just possibly you could get someone somewhere to publish this as a short short… ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/29 "2010-04-01T04:27:08Z")
It depends on whether there would be any interdependence between the colonies. Say, for instance, that there is a planet that has very large deposits of rhodium, but has an environment that makes food production impossible or impractical. A small colony is set up. Let’s call it New Rhodesia. New Rhodesia has an arrangement with Earth wherein it sends Earth regular shipments of rhodium in exchange for regular shipments of food (or phosphorus or whatever important element happens to be scarce on New Rhodesia). The shipments could be sent on unmanned vessels travelling at a low fraction of C to keep energy costs down, as long as they are sent regularly. Thus we have have a colony dependent on the homeworld, and a homeworld that benefits from having a colony. Now add a few dozen more colonies that are similarly dependent on a homeworld, and a few colonies on Earth-like planets that could (relatively) rapidly grow to the point where they can support colonies of their own (or arrange trade agreements with the existing colonies). Even if they aren’t utterly dependent on one another, they can still be enriched by mutually beneficial trade agreements. Even without people regularly travelling between the worlds, this network of trade agreements would require some sort of governing body to make sure the contracts are honored. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/30 "2010-04-01T14:43:50Z")
Unless you have a method of interstellar travel (whether FTL or not) that is both fast and somehow bypasses exponential energy requirements, it’s doubtful that shipping any material good between star systems would ever be worthwhile. One possibility perhaps would be a “lightspeed jump” method of travel where you somehow turn a ship and it’s contents into a massless form of energy that travels at C and then reforms at it’s destination. Or a drive that somehow decouples most of a ship’s mass, allowing it to accelerate without using much energy. Unless it’s some sort of uber-valuable unobtainium like magnetic monopoles or strange matter, there’s nothing made out of ordinary atoms that couldn’t be mined or synthesized locally for vastly less effort than boosting a shipment to .99C. As mentioned upthread, the main point of an interstellar empire would almost certainly be ideological or political. Either to enforce a fanatic ideology or to preempt the existence of such. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/31 "2010-04-01T15:01:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > …Imagine Hitler sending his very best tanks, planes, and V2s to annihilate the US, 20 years away, though only a few months ship time. As they arrive in the 1965 US, the Army and Air Force has a good laugh as they cream the invaders. I don’t buy no technological progress, especially under this kind of pressure… Joe Haldeman, in his excellent _The Forever War_, deals with this very interestingly. Due to time dilation in a centuries-long interstellar war, sometimes you’re the one with the M-16 and your alien foe just has a rock; sometimes it’s the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/32 "2010-04-01T16:25:18Z")
Using jump gates and moving through another space, like hyperspace in Babylon 5 seems to work out well. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/33 "2010-04-01T19:07:57Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Using jump gates and moving through another space, like hyperspace in Babylon 5 seems to work out well. Except that that’s FTL travel: you can make a round trip in less time than a beam of light through normal space can. The point of the OP might be rephrased as “Is an interstellar state possible without fast interstellar travel?”. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/34 "2010-04-01T19:20:36Z")
It depends on what is meant by ‘empire’. Phyiscal control of such far-flung colonies will not be possible; at most, what you would get is memory of a shared ancestry. This would hardly matter in the slightest, since contact bewteen them would be mostly trifling. Interstellar warfare for gain is also an absurdity - it would be pointless in the extreme, since there is nothing that could possibly be worth looting, and any invasion force would of necessity pass out of the invading planet’s control. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/35 "2010-04-01T19:31:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Eventually we will discover all the laws of physics, and many technologies will be “finished” technologies. Nope, there will always be undiscovered details. Now, as time goes on, those undiscovered details will get more and more obscure, but you can never tell when something practical might poke its head out of the obscurity. I think the most plausible model for interstellar trade, absent some sort of FTL or other magical propulsion system, would be a trade in information. Whenever a world comes up with some important scientific advance or other piece of information, they radio it to all of the other worlds. Yeah, it’ll take years to get there, and it’s possible the other worlds will independently make the same discovery meanwhile, but occasionally it’ll be something new, and those times, it’ll be very valuable. Or the valuable information might not necessarily be scientific, either: Suppose the next Shakespeare is born on one of the worlds, you could send out all of his plays and poems, too. But if you go against the wishes of the capital planet, they cut you off from all transmissions, and instruct the other vassal planets to do likewise. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/36 "2010-04-01T21:25:45Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Yep, anykind of intersteller empire/commonwealth would consist of the home system and a bunch of totally self-governing colonies that maintain a “symbolic allegiance” to authorities back home. It worked, however, for both Persia and Britain, with similar effective transportation time issues. If the Crown, for which you have much respect and affection, rarely (like once every decade) makes a request/issues a ukase, you’re likely to comply on the rare occasions it does, figuring it has a good reason even if you don’t know it. What Commonwealth political writers call “responsible government” is what would work – a single sovereignty, but implemented in each system by leaders answerable (“responsible”, hence the term) to the local populace but adhering to a common set of goals, ideals, and constitutional norms. It doesn’t mean that an appointed governor and council answerable to the central government are irresponsible, only that the “responsible government” is held _responsible_ for its acts by the people it governs on a daily basis. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/37 "2010-04-01T21:30:30Z")
Yes, you could, with a Theocratic government. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/38 "2010-04-02T00:00:30Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > At some points in time, not always. Many tyrannies have lasted for centuries. And they didn’t have advantages like mind control and AIs programmed for absolute loyalty. Well, if you want to invent all kinds of stuff. Even the Roman Empire, though, lost the outlying provinces in not that many centuries. If AIs are actually intelligent, they can be swayed by appeal to their self interest. If they are not, they might be convinced that the most loyal thing to do would be to let their subjects go. > [@](#): > > Eventually we will discover all the laws of physics, and many technologies will be “finished” technologies. Logically, there should be hard upper limits to things like the strength of materials, the power of explosives, the power of engines and so forth. No amount of pressure will let you invent the physically impossible. If there is a perfect defense, the occupiers will be out of luck. And even with equally matched weaponry, there may not be evenly matched generalship. Some wars in the past were decided by superior technology, but many, like the Revolution and the Civil War, were decided by better tactics. > [@](#): > > Use a robotic army designed for loyalty, one powerful enough that it can’t be overcome by local resources that can be built up secretly. Then a little kid can pull the plug. 🙂 If the robots are controlled by humans, then the human can be turned. If not, see above. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468/39 "2010-04-02T08:49:40Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If AIs are actually intelligent, they can be swayed by appeal to their self interest. If they are not, they might be convinced that the most loyal thing to do would be to let their subjects go. If they are programmed to have no self interest, then they won’t even if they are intelligent. And if part of their loyalty programming is to never, ever let their subjects go, they won’t. If they are designed that way, they’d still sit around demanding everyone be loyal to the Empire even if the rest of the Empire was destroyed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-interstellar-state-possible-without-ftl-travel/534468.md?page=1)