[Diaspora] Greetings, and a technical speculation...

[C. W. Marshall]

> Has anyone discussed or postulated about the technical details  
> behind the slipdrive? Is it the drive itself that generates all the  
> heat from slipknot translation? Would it be reasonable to speculate  
> that failure to disperse this heat might, among other things,  
> damage the slipdrive after the translation event? I'm writing up an  
> adventure to run at DunDraCon in February, and I wanted to bounce  
> my sci-fi physics.


Dear Brian,

When we were writing Diaspora, we had a few models going for the  
black-box slipdrive technology, but in the end, we decided to leave  
it open -- it can be different for each cluster.  By its nature, it  
breaks the laws of physics (and gets arrested for speeding), but  
pretty much any story you want to tell is still there: an unexplained  
T4 technology, a resource-dependent mechanical device, something that  
intersects with the slipknots, whatever.

We did define the location of the slipknots, though, because we  
wanted to make people want to leave the plane of the ecliptic. To go  
in the wrong direction for anything useful, only to find the secret  
of FTL. That was exciting to us, and it continues to fuel interesting  
stories.

So knock yourself out, and let us see what you come up with!

Hope this helps.

Toph