| Starships |
Invisibility | Introduction |
The Asari | Bibliography |
Like in any science fiction story, starships are the main transportation. In the Mass Effect universe, starships and other technologies are powered by a Mass Effect Field. What exactly does that do for space travel? Mass Effect Fields allow for mass to be decreased or increased depending on whether it is a positive or negative current. This allows you to travel faster and farther! |
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| Here is the main characters ship from the
game, the Normandy. It runs off of Mass Effect
Fields, effectively decreasing its weight. This allows it
to have faster than light travel. |
Here is a vehicle in Mass Effect
called the Mako that has built in Mass Effect Fields. As
seen in the caption, it's on the Moon. The Mako is dropped
off by a spaceship, so the crew must use the fields to
reduce the weight for landing, or in the case of a battle
heavier for greater traction while shooting. |
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Since you now see that as you go faster you also get heavier, we can approach a solution. Because of this, there is not only a certain amount of fuel you can carry without sacrificing speed, but the necessary speeds required to travel fast distances would make you heavier! This is a huge problem because you can never get enough fuel to travel to place far away, nor can you make a large spacecraft. Since we obviously don't have that kind of technology, scientists have decided to go with the Alcubierre Engine, or as most science fiction has labeled it, the Warp Drive. Scientists at NASA are already figuring out the physics behind the Warp Drive, which as time goes on seems like a possible idea. However according to Dr. Sebastian Fiedlschuster, things such collisions and energy requirements are limiting our progress towards creating a major spacecraft: "A warp driven starship may collide with objects in front of the ship during the flight, which may be hazardous to the ship and its crew." (30, Warp Drive Theory) "The energy requirements for the creation of a warp bubble are enormous: 3x10^64 J for a warp bubble with a radius R=700m." (29, Warp Drive Theory) That amount of energy is huge! As NASA states on their website, the sun produces 3.8x10^26 J/s, so we would need to harness the power of the sun for at least one second! Dr. Michio Kaku of the City College of New York states in his book The Physics Of The Future, that there are three types of civilizations each with their own energy capabilities. Only a type two civilization and beyond can control the power of a sun. He also states that we aren't even a type one, we are a type zero! It will be a long time until we ever get the technologies to fully pursue space travel, but that doesn't mean it will never happen. |
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