I think that's pretty much the entire story arc of the Phantasm series.

"Boyyyyyyy!!"

Perhaps, that's an entirely reasonable assumption, but not a requirement.  Bluntly, as with FTL, we simply do not know.  Anything is speculation.

Some science fiction does that, but there is as much to be learned from it as there is from any work of fiction, regardless of setting.  In other words, there is little practical to be learned from it, and likely nothing 'scientific'.  Now I will grant that some may gain a deeper interest in 'science' from reading science fiction, and they may seek to answer some of the questions posed in various Sci-fi novels, but those questions exist outside of the fiction anyway, so I'm hesitant to grant too much credit to sci-fi as teaching us much of anything.

As to the question of what happens when 'we' transcend.  Again, I don't know, you postulate one outcome which I deem nearly irrelevant as the entire concept of transcendence (as far as I am concerned) is that 'we' leave all cares and concerns for the physical world aside.  Let them be gods or devils, they would show no interest in the workings of the physical world.  These are not simply thought turned to energy released into the universe, this is an entirely different form of consciousness and probably dimensionality.  But, we are each free to consider it in our own way.

 

I'm not sure how time travel really enters into this, but FTL is more tangible to most people because they've seen it represented in so many different ways through books/TV/movies/...  The problem is that most of the sci-fi we are exposed to, is so completely unrealistic (and yes, I know how that sounds) that it tends to warp peoples perspectives of what is realistic.  Star Trek is probably the worst 'big' offender of this, but also one of the most enjoyable universes created for us to enjoy.

I like the cut of your jib.  We get them drunk, roll'em in the alley and take their keys.  Nice! 

Re: How time travel fits in.

Faster than light travel with some methods means time dilation. You would end up in the future, far beyond where you began. I would simply search for a race that has perfected a means of reversing the effect, ergo time travel.

AFAIK, Star Trek explores the possible different methods of FTL travel better than any other story. If you want to claim they don't, your knowledge of the subject is now necessary. Please elaborate.

But,  The aliens are already here, making sure we don't acquire dangerous technology before we 'mature' as a species.  

(We have a ways to go on that since we still kill each other for profit.)

Uhm, no, Faster than light travel just means that you can find a referential where you arrived before you left. It's more like going into the past (although it's much more complicated than that).

Hence the joke about the FTL neutrinos non-discovery:

and orders a drink. A neutrino walks into a bar,
 

lol...  Pie in the sky fantasies are really cool.  Good luck with your search! 

 

What do you mean 'explores the possible different methods of FTL'?  Do you mean 'made up warp speed and created some star trek 'physics' to explain it'?

Now I admit I've never read any of the 'Physics of Star Trek' stuff so maybe there's more to it than I give credit, but on it's face, it's just another sci-fi contrivance to allow humans (and aliens) to warp around the galaxy to tell the stories they want to tell.  That is, there's no actual substance to it.  Yet, due to its popularity, a lot of people seem to give the 'science' more credit than it deserves.  But the ST universe is not just about warp speed, it's also about transporters and shields and phasers and holodecks and all matter of alien whateverness.

It's great sci-fi (well I think it is anyway), and it's very enjoyable, and much of it is well done, in the cinematic/story telling sense.  Its just got little to nothing to do with the realities of physics as we understand it.

No one has mentioned the UWTB method? Just imagine where you want to be and how fast you want to get there. Then do it.

     Operative words...as we understand it. Physics is a concept based on theory. Well thought out and applied but still a theory. It can change...has changed over the course of a century or two. What do you suppose our understanding of physics will be say fifty or a hundred years from now? Einstein wrote his theories nearly one hundred years ago while working as a clerk in the patent office in Germany. I was three years old when he died in 1955. To date his theories still hold but have been modified according to new data collected within the last two decades. Twenty years from now might see the beginnings of manned exploration within the solar system and new propulsion systems will be a priority, much more so than they are now. Whose to say that some brilliant mind won't come up with a way to achieve FTL even on a minor basis. Food for thought......in the early sixties putting a man on the moon was said to be impossible. Between 1969 and 1972 or thereabouts saw four more moon landings. In the early sixties the know how to put a man on the moon already existed. The means to put him there however did not, it was very much still in development. FTL is different only in that there has been no serious attempt at creating the necessary technologies. Time, money and resources are needed plus a dedicated team of scientist/engineers to start the ball rolling. Its only a matter of time before our understanding of the physics involved allows it to happen.

No one. But if the most resilient theory ever says it's not possible, then saying "we don't understand everything about the world yet" is really light as a justification to believe in the possibility of an FTL drive. "We don't know everything yet" doesn't mean that what we don't know holds the secret to what we wish for.

     Think about this then. What lies inside a black hole. A singularity right...right. Physics, as we understand it, breaks down inside one of those beasties. Meaning it doesn't apply. Is all matter squeezed into infinity? No. Does matter, read energy, in the form of high energy x-rays, light in other words, escape a black hole where most say light cannot escape. Yes it does. If an observer watches another approach a black hole and is caught by the event horizon all the observer will see is his friend 'stuck' on the horizon seemingly frozen there. What the observer does not see is his friend torn apart by the force of gravity the black hole exerts. Why he can't see his friend killed is because beyond that horizon 'our physics does not work', he can't see anything because what does go on inside the hole is beyond our 'current' understanding. To say FTL will never happen is a bit premature simply because it can and will out of sheer necessity. If mankind wishes to go to the stars he'll need a reasonable way of getting there in a reasonable amount of time. It isn't possible today not because the knowledge isn't there but because what is needed to build an FTL, the technology, does not yet exist. We can generate the power, albeit on the order of a few seconds, but sustaining it, necessary for an FTL drive is beyond our present capabilities. Improbable today but not tomorrow. 

Not trying to be an ass, but I have a serious problem with these statements...physics ALWAYS WORKS, and physics ALWAYS APPLIES...we may not have a complete understanding but "it doesn't apply" and "beyond our 'current' understanding" are two completely different types of statements...

Also, we do understand very well why you can't see anything that is within a black hole...and we also have a pretty good model for why black holes actually "emit" radiation...

Again, "we don't understand everything" isn't equal to fairy dust and "all my dreams come true". Black Holes aren't the magic wands of physics (they are in Science-Fiction, but that's different).

By definition, there's quite a lot we don't understand about black holes since (aside from possibly Hawking radiation) nothing comes out of them -make them hard to measure on. However, that doesn't mean that suddenly all laws of physics become different or wrong or whatever. Nothing even begins to indicate that black holes are the key to FTL, not to mention that it doesn't solve causality violation. Saying "we don't know what's in there so it must hold the key to FTL, I'm sure of it" is  a very strange line of though.

For now, we have lots of solid stuff saying FTL is impossible, and only sci-fi inspired dreams and very wild, unsupported speculation on the side of FTL possibility. So I'm sorry to say that it's a very long shot.

We'd be better off with a WTF drive.

I didn't say black holes are the holly grail of FTL. I merely stated that the physics involved breaks down inside the event horizon. The point I'm trying to make is that the amount of energy needed to achieve the beginnings of an FTL drive is slowly being realized. I direct your attention to this article. It isn't there yet but at least its a start.

http://news.yahoo.com/atom-smasher-collides-particles-record-energies-204204938.html

"The point I'm trying to make is that the amount of energy needed to achieve the beginnings of an FTL drive is slowly being realized.''

Umm... No, it's isn't, because at this stage the issue with FTL is not simply a lack of energy. Better powers sources is positive for space travel no matter how you look at it, but simply throwing more energy into something is not going to create transportation/propulsion technologies that have not even been proven to be possible.

-Assessing the energy requirement of a non-existing, not-yet-imagined and most likely impossible technology makes no sense. It's like discussing the true color of unicorns. They're white in fiction, that's the best thing we can say.

-I'm not sure what you're trying to prove with a link to an article discussing the LHC. The Ph.D thesis I'm working on is based on LHC data, and I can assure you there's absolutely no link to anything FTL-related (aside from the 'FTL neutrino' error, which almost no one trusted since it smelled very, very fishy from the start). The only achievement of the LHC is collision energy. It doesn't produce energy, it accelerates nuclei that it collides (and wastes a lot of energy in the process). 

Others have addressed you already, but I just want to remind you that my quote was about the physics of Star Trek.  Not abstract physics we certainly do not understand, and may never be able to use.

Star Trek created a universe (not the same as the one we live in, right?) and gradually built up its own physics to allow for explanations for how various 'impossible' things were possible.  I take issue when people are lazy and just use sci fi as justification for what's possible, though usually they don't mean possible, they actually mean likely.

Now, I fully realize that we don't know what is actually possible.  However, to assume that by not knowing if something is possible or not means that it must be possible is a rather large logical fallacy.  I won't delve into the implications to religion if we actually followed this line of thought off of 'science' and into 'spirituality', but hopefully you can see far enough down that tangent to not want to travel it.

So you can stick with 'it may be possible' and I can stick with 'it probably isn't possible' and we can both be happy.  Of course your side can eventually 'win' while mine cannot, but I'm cool with that, because I don't see it as a competition

I think we're likely to integrate ourselves into the substrate long before we start sending meat-versions of ourselves to other planets.

That is, I think that the time will come when we incorporate all that is "us" into what we would call the digital leaving behind the organic forms. Then we'll send out machines that can convert other planets into the same substrate material to other planets.

I don't think there's a future in transporting meat around the galaxy.

And that's how the Dark Yor were born.

All will join the Unity...then there will be no need for travel.

Yes, in a few billion years (or is it 100s of millions) we would have to relocate. Hard to imagine what technology would be available then.

A more interesting question would be about exploiting the resources of this solar system. Your talking about some huge journey. We haven't even collected valuable ores from an asteroid.

I have come from one of many futures and I have to tell you FTL is dangerous!

Spoiler Warning!

2039: A massive nuclear exchange between the powers which dominate the Earth (identified as the United States of Eurafrica and the Northern Condominium) destroy most major cities (the Thirteen Day War).^[1]

2129: After 90 years of chaos Earth is united under the United Government of Earth based in the capital of Brisbane.^[2]

2166: What will be a massive research installation on Io is begun.^[3]

2253: A slower-than-light vessel is launched for Alpha Centauri but never returns.^[4]

2360: The first faster-than-light drive is developed, but turns out to have deleterious effects on females.^[5]

2391: The problems with FTL are solved.

2402: A habitable world is discovered near Canopus.

2404: As the first colony ship is launched for Canopus, Earth's government establishes a Navigation Safety Department of the Ministry of Space, which later was renamed into the Department of Public Peace.

2428: The Department of Public Peace was reorganized to the Space Defense Corps.

2484: The Space Defense Corps reorganized itself as the Space Force.

2682: Disgruntled colonies unite to complain about high taxes, interference in local administration, and their lack of proportionate representation in the Humanity Congress which is weighted to ensure that Earth will always have the deciding vote. Earth responds by trying to make Sirius into a scapegoat, accusing them of spreading subversion as part of a plot to take over (The Sirius Threat).

2685: Earth's denunciation of Sirius makes it into the natural leader of the dissident colonies. They establish the "Sirius Congress" and begin to gather military power.

2689: Earth attacks Sirius VI (aka Rondolina) to suppress the dissidents. Earth's forces become increasingly undisciplined, culminating in a massacre of the city of Laglane (Earth–Sirius War)

2703: The lack of discipline among Earth's forces leads to a devastating defeat at the hands of the much smaller rebel "Black Fleet" (Black Flag Force).

2704: The Black Fleet blockades the inner Solar System for two months and then attacks the starving population, killing most of them.

2706: The leader of the revolution, Carle Palmgren, dies of a heart attack. The rebels fragment into numerous factions that fight for control.

2801 (1 U.C.): The Galactic Federation is formed, centered on Theoria, the 2nd planet of Aldebaran, and a new calendar era is adopted, "Universal Calendar" beginning in this year.

2906 (106 U.C.): In order to deal with the ongoing threat of space pirates descended from elements of the Sirius/Earth war who never reintegrated into civilisation, the Galactic Federation authorises the creation of a large military to combat them.

3088 (288 U.C.): A military genius named Rudolph von Goldenbaum leads the Galactic Federation Armada in wiping out the resurgent pirates, becoming an idolised hero similar to Pompey or Caesar.

3096 (296 U.C.): Rudolph von Goldenbaum, having rocketed up the ranks to Admiral by the age of 28, retires to run for a seat in Parliament, forming the National Reform Alliance. The public is eager for a strong-willed leader to take over since the U.S.G. has become decadent and disorderly.

3110 (310 U.C.): President-for-life Goldenbaum declares himself Emperor of the Galactic Empire and a new calendar, the Reich Calendar.

3120 (320 U.C., 9 R.C.) Emperor Rudolph declares the Inferior Genes Exclusion Act which mandates sterilisation of the handicapped and execution of the mentally ill and terminates all social assistance of the poor. He begins selecting "superior genetic specimens", all of whom are white and have Germanic names to form an aristocracy with titles handed out by Rudolph.

3141 (341 U.C., 42 R.C.) Emperor Rudolph is succeeded by his grandson Sigismund, and widespread democratic rebellions break out, only to be suppressed. A lot of people lose their citizenship and become serfs for being family members or associates of executed rebels.

3263 (463 U.C., 164 R.C.) Arle Heinessen, reduced to serf status for being a member of a rebel's family, masterminds the escape of 400,000 serfs from a labour camp on Altair VII.

3327 (527 U.C., 218 R.C.) The refugees, travelling more than 10,000 light years to flee the Empire, arrive at a habitable world and decide to start the Free Planets Alliance from there, reviving the Universal Calendar.

3440 (640 U.C., 331 R.C.) The Empire discovers the Free Planets Alliance and war between them begins.

Why Dark Yor? The normal everyday Yor would be the result I think. The Dark Yor come much later. This reminds me of that beautiful speech that Cylon gave at the end of BSG about how much it sucks to be a HU-MAN. 

@Ratatosk7.....interesting time line.