The Culture explores 40K II: Now With 100% more Fanfiction

[Gavinfoxx]

No idea what you're talking about. I'm going off the Lexicanum, and that is the Narvhals and gravity corridors. (the only reason why the Culture can spot them mid-flight, but it's still an unlikely occurance)

Ah, New canon then. Previously, they used the Warp. There is some discussion on this page and maybe the previous about this; maybe you should reread the comments?

[The Glyphstone]

If you give them REAL FTL, even a weaksauce one like the Tau drive, it gets multiplied by the distance contraction from hyperspace.

My point is that the Tau don't have REAL FTL. They still use Warp drives, it's just a primitive version like the cogitator machines used by Imperial ships who don't have Navigators aboard. They make shallow 'dives' into the Warp, but they still enter it...since as you said, the Warp doesn't overlap with hyperspace or the regular 4 dimensions, the Culture FTL has nothing to multiply.

[jseah]

My point is that the Tau don't have REAL FTL. They still use Warp drives, it's just a primitive version like the cogitator machines used by Imperial ships who don't have Navigators aboard. They make shallow 'dives' into the Warp, but they still enter it...since as you said, the Warp doesn't overlap with hyperspace or the regular 4 dimensions, the Culture FTL has nothing to multiply.

Actually I have been saying that they DO overlap, all points in the 4dimensional hyperspace (which also includes the 3D realspace) have a corresponding point in the Warp. This was a necessary conceit because it otherwise means that the Culture flying around in hyperspace suddenly lose their biologicals' warp connection.

The idea for the hyperspace-warp hybrid drive is that they have an FTL warp jump from one hyperspace point to another hyperspace point. Tau drives are still significantly faster than light and that gets combined with the way that two points in hyperspace aren't separated by as much distance as their corresponding points in realspace.

EDIT:
Does anyone have some details on the old Nid FTL using the warp?

[Tiki Snakes]

Actually I have been saying that they DO overlap, all points in the 4dimensional hyperspace (which also includes the 3D realspace) have a corresponding point in the Warp. This was a necessary conceit because it otherwise means that the Culture flying around in hyperspace suddenly lose their biologicals' warp connection.

The idea for the hyperspace-warp hybrid drive is that they have an FTL warp jump from one hyperspace point to another hyperspace point. Tau drives are still significantly faster than light and that gets combined with the way that two points in hyperspace aren't separated by as much distance as their corresponding points in realspace.

EDIT:
Does anyone have some details on the old Nid FTL using the warp?

The way I understand it, the whole point of Hyperspace is that it's just another, usually untapped dimension/directional axis, one which we can't really percieve but is entirely real and present. Right?

If so, then the whole point is that the Warp exists just as much in that particular corner of real-space as any other part or region, but as the warp is not real space but instead a weird, metaphysical gumbo underpinning/coexisting alongside real space, the same is not true in reverse. Even the Classical 3 dimensions only exist in the less warpy parts of the warp or inside a geller field, after all.

[Forum Explorer]

Didn't we already agree that there was no overlap with the warp and hyperspace and if the Culture got stuck in the warp (or even the webway) they wouldn't be able to access hyperspace and anything that could be done with hyperspace?

In a really old novel a Navigator is said to have seen something like 8 dimensions while traveling in the warp.

[jseah]

Think of it this way:
Normal Tau warp drives go from point A to point B through the warp. Let's say the distance is 10 light years and their speed is 365 lights, it takes them ten days.

A Culture vessel has a speed (in its current plane) of 91.25 lights (1/4 that of the Tau drive), but it goes from point A to point A' in hyperspace and then to point B' before coming back down to point B. The distance between point A and point B is still 10 light years but the distance between point A' and point B' is 0.1 light years.
The Culture vessel travels 25 times faster than the Tau one or just under 10 hours.

A Culture vessel equipped with a hybrid drive at point A goes to point A' in hyperspace. It then travels through the warp to point B' at 365 lights before coming back down to point B. This hybrid drive is 100 faster than the Tau drive and 4 times faster than the Culture one. It takes 2.4 hours.


Of course, the real thing is rather more complicated and the speed numbers are just for demonstration, but that is the idea I have been going after.

It doesn't matter if the Warp doesn't have hyperspace (apart from a temporary slowdown of the Mind), it only needs that hyperspace has access to the Warp.

[Fan]

I thought we specifically agreed though that the slow down would be like suffering from massive head trauma for a person.

Also, I thought that by saying that hyper space didn't work in warp it meant that it didn't work in the warp. We agreed on this.

[jseah]

I thought we specifically agreed though that the slow down would be like suffering from massive head trauma for a person.

Also, I thought that by saying that hyper space didn't work in warp it meant that it didn't work in the warp. We agreed on this.

It isn't using hyperspace in the warp, it's using the warp in hyperspace. There's a difference there.

And it will likely require putting the Mind into hibernation or something similar.

[Fan]

It isn't using hyperspace in the warp, it's using the warp in hyperspace. There's a difference there.

And it will likely require putting the Mind into hibernation or something similar.

But again, how would they know that their first go through?

Also, if the Warp doesn't have hyperspace and the drive requires you to enter the warp where there is no hyper space, how does one use the warp in hyper space where there is no warp and vice versa?

[jseah]

Firstly, there has to be the warp in hyperspace or any time a GCU goes into hyperspace, all it's citizens who have warp bits... go where?
Also, it makes the Culture completely invulnerable in hyperspace to warp effects if the warp doesn't extend there.

We had previously decided that there is no hyperspace in the warp, and that there is the warp in hyperspace. That is all that is needed to use the Tau drive in hyperspace (I may call it a hybrid drive but its really more like a hyperspace drive and a Tau drive ducttaped together).

Sure, the Culture won't know about the lack of hyperspace in the Warp but they're already very carefully experimenting with IoM warp drives and the Tau drive will be subject to just as much tests as per normal. Its unlikely that they'll fail to notice the lack of hyperspace wherever the Tau drive disappears to when its used.

[jseah]

part 9.5 Rogue Trader

Spoiler

Show

We indicated our desire to help the Hive World from mass starvation and the Rogue Trader came up with a plan.

The Rogue Trader has arrived in the system (faking a re-entry from the warp, closer than would normally be expected for a warp drive) and proceeded to rendevous with the Imperial space defence forces around the planet using his normal drives.

He has indicated that he is a Rogue Trader who was in the area and had heard of the troubles facing the Hive World. He has brought a large quantity of food (Seb made sure to check with Golden Goose that we could indeed provide edibles) and is willing to help relieve both the siege and provide what food he has available in his cargo holds.

He never managed to relieve the siege as the now out-numbered Chaos forces, when challenged and approached by the IoM forces led by the Rogue Trader, left into the Warp.

The IoM ships then returned to orbit while we Displaced as much food into the Rogue Trader's cargo holds of the Lunar and Dauntless as they could handle. The Rogue Trader is just now completing the final agreement on the price for the food he is selling with the planetary governor, Mikael.

Given that the Rogue Trader did not actually engage the Chaos forces, we have insisted that this does not count as a battle he was supposed to fight for us. Instead the payment for this encounter will be our provision of edible materials he is about to sell.

Golden Goose will now proceed to remotely scan the space hulk using autonomous non-sentient drones with effector backup. We have denied our crew's request for an away team as significant Warp activity on the hulk has been detected; we suspect that there will be some Chaos activity on board given the Chaos fleet's stance around that hulk. We have postponed scans of the Hive World save for tracking its security and civil service forces, there probably isn't anything new there anyway.
The astropathic station on the world has been given a message to inform neighbouring systems that the siege has been lifted.

------------------
One day later
After some pestering from our crew, Golden Goose has allowed SC and combat-trained Contact members to conduct an away team operation on the ground. This is aimed at analyzing the social structure of the Hive World under sudden relief of starvation stress.

[The Glyphstone]

Firstly, there has to be the warp in hyperspace or any time a GCU goes into hyperspace, all it's citizens who have warp bits... go where?
Also, it makes the Culture completely invulnerable in hyperspace to warp effects if the warp doesn't extend there.

You're making the mistake of assuming the Warp is another intertwined dimension like Hyperspace. People with 'warp bits' can go into a place that has no connection to the Warp, it just ranges from uncomfortable to painful depending on how strong their Warp connection is. Sort of like being in proximity to a blank/untouchable, they're separated from an integral part of them, but it's not inherently or immediately fatal.

Similarly...culture in Hyperspace would, yes, be immune to things in the Warp. That's entirely expected, because things in 3-dimensional space are also immune to things in the Warp - a demon cannot attack someone unless it materializes, for instance, it has to cross to our dimension. They would not be immune to psychic attacks, though, because the whole point of psychic ability is the power to breach that barrier between Warp and realspace and draw power from it, acting as a bridge between the Warp energy and their realspace target.

[jseah]

I added a short bit at the end of the story update.

Similarly...culture in Hyperspace would, yes, be immune to things in the Warp. That's entirely expected, because things in 3-dimensional space are also immune to things in the Warp - a demon cannot attack someone unless it materializes, for instance, it has to cross to our dimension. They would not be immune to psychic attacks, though, because the whole point of psychic ability is the power to breach that barrier between Warp and realspace and draw power from it, acting as a bridge between the Warp energy and their realspace target.

It's a bit more than that. If the Warp is inaccessible from hyperspace then it's exactly as if all of hyperspace is like a completed Necron pylon field. Demons can't go into hyperspace (no Warp connection to bend laws for them), psykers can't do their thing and people lose sentience.

[The Glyphstone]

It's a bit more than that. If the Warp is inaccessible from hyperspace then it's exactly as if all of hyperspace is like a completed Necron pylon field. Demons can't go into hyperspace (no Warp connection to bend laws for them), psykers can't do their thing and people lose sentience.

If someone spends their entire life in Hyperspace, they might die, and being born in hyper-space would probably render you non-sentient, but simply popping in and out of it wouldn't have severe long-term effects. Demons couldn't materialize directly into hyperspace from the Warp (also logical), they'd have to materialize in Realspace as normal, and rely on their own stored power to stay coherent (though that would present interesting metaphysics questions, if a Demon who somehow managed to get into Hyperspace would be invincible, since he'd have nowhere to go if he tried to discorporate). Psykers being unable to use their powers while in hyperspace also makes sense (though if they're not in hyperspace, they can tap the Warp, then attack hyperspace from realspace).

Maybe I'm just not getting the 'Warp exists in hyperspace, but hyperspace doesn't exist in the warp' one-way barrier you're using. It is your story, I presume you're planning it this way for hilarity and not simply a reason to make Culture even more excessively and hilariously OP.

[Lostintransit]

As far as I can tell everyone decided that the differences between hyper/warp/real space were as follows:

Real space and hyper space are similiar, but with hyper space being 'layered' on top of real space. While Warp space is basically the underlying base of reality. Kind of like a cake really...

I.e:

Hyperspace
3D Reality
Warp

So to get to the other you have to interact with 3D space at somepoint, and need awareness/safety to go to either of the others. Also worth noting that warp space isn't a wonderfully open plan highway, you actually follow warp 'currents', its more like sailing an ocean instead of space. So trying to access hyperspace from within the warp would most likely result in the ship either dropping out of the warp, popping into real space then up into hyper space or just flat out fail.

Regards

[Gavinfoxx]

So we kept the separation to make a large chunk of Minds inviolable, as stated earlier in the first thread. So what happens if a daemon enters into normal space corporeally, is brought into hyperspace, and is slain? Would they die completely, since their normal link back to the warp and their method of reincarnation is blocked off?


Also, I would say that canonocally, the Warp has several spacial dimensions that allow gross movement in general, and that implies that part of the genetic heritage of Navigators is the ability to visualize in far more spatial dimensions then most folk.

[The Glyphstone]

So we kept the separation to make a large chunk of Minds inviolable, as stated earlier in the first thread. So what happens if a daemon enters into normal space corporeally, is brought into hyperspace, and is slain? Would they die completely, since their normal link back to the warp and their method of reincarnation is blocked off?

Either that, or they would immediately reincarnate on the spot, since they can't 'go' anywhere. Either one could be argued for, since we're way off the edge of the map in terms of canon.

[Gavinfoxx]

Or disperse into a mist / energy field that gradually reincarnated on the same spot... but over a period of weeks or months? That Holocaust psycker power would likely work better in hyperspace....

[The Glyphstone]

Or they remain 'alive', but discorporated, trapped in a poltergeist-ish half-state until the ship returns to realspace and they can escape back into the Warp...

[Gavinfoxx]

The thing with tau ftl is that it is ambiguous as to whether it is just short hops with a computer like pre navigator imperial ftl or if they are going into the warp at all or if they are going towards the warp and diving away without going in or if they are in some sort of proto warp dimension or whatever... it never is exactly clarified.

[Gavinfoxx]

So, which Tyranid Codices have them as using the warp for FTL? Only the 5e has them doing the gravity tunnel thing, right? So 2nd - 4th should maybe have something about them warping into systems?

[hamishspence]

Accounts of the Battle of Macragge have them described as dropping out of warp, after Admiral Rath and Calgar have caught the first fleet in crossfire and crushed it. In the Battlefleet Gothic magazine, at least- it may have been copied from the 2nd ed codex.

[jseah]

The thing is that given that all their technology works as given, the Culture have no trouble birthing citizens in hyperspace. In their home universe, their GSVs can spend years in hyperspace going in circles around the galaxy (the Culture doesn't like to waste too much energy making it stop or speed up).

To make it consistent with their described capabilities of living perfectly normally in hyperspace, hyperspace has to be as identical to them as realspace. If their citizens have a warp connection, then so must hyperspace.

RE technology advancement:
I won't pretend I didn't see this argument coming but IMO, the Culture being a post-singularity means that ridiculously fast tech advancement is part of their 'kit'. This was the only part of the "overwhelmingly smart" Minds that I could actually use without being "overwhelmingly smart" myself.

If you throw them something new and powerful like the Warp or a "SF writers have no sense of scale" like the Necrons and fractal shaped materials, they'll start by finding all the synergies with their original tech base first. (I'm already heading down that road with the Necron's subatomic engineering)

Right now, this hybrid drive can still be steered away from without a retcon so we ought to settle this first though.

Real space and hyper space are similiar, but with hyper space being 'layered' on top of real space. While Warp space is basically the underlying base of reality. Kind of like a cake really...

It's got to be a bit more complicated than that because in the case of the Culture's hyperspace, there is this:

Gridfire wall (maximum positive 4th dimension coordinate)
Hyperspace (positive 4th dimension coordinate)
Real
Ultraspace (negative 4th dimension coordinate)
Gridfire wall (maximum negative 4th dimension coordinate)

Ultraspace is basically like hyperspace, the distinction isn't made clear in the novels and ultraspace is specifically mentioned to be the negative axis of hyperspace.

Additionally, the Culture hyperspace isn't a layer of reality the way it is with something like the Ethereal plane in D&D. It's an actual 4th dimensional coordinate with Hyperspace 0 being the real, you do actual 4 dimensional movement and mathematics.
I thought we settled this with a quote from Hydrogen Sonata?

The Warp I have interpreted as another axis perpendicular to the hyperspace axis.

[Tiki Snakes]

The thing is that given that all their technology works as given, the Culture have no trouble birthing citizens in hyperspace. In their home universe, their GSVs can spend years in hyperspace going in circles around the galaxy (the Culture doesn't like to waste too much energy making it stop or speed up).

To make it consistent with their described capabilities of living perfectly normally in hyperspace, hyperspace has to be as identical to them as realspace. If their citizens have a warp connection, then so must hyperspace.

RE technology advancement:
I won't pretend I didn't see this argument coming but IMO, the Culture being a post-singularity means that ridiculously fast tech advancement is part of their 'kit'. This was the only part of the "overwhelmingly smart" Minds that I could actually use without being "overwhelmingly smart" myself.

If you throw them something new and powerful like the Warp or a "SF writers have no sense of scale" like the Necrons and fractal shaped materials, they'll start by finding all the synergies with their original tech base first. (I'm already heading down that road with the Necron's subatomic engineering)

Right now, this hybrid drive can still be steered away from without a retcon so we ought to settle this first though.

It's got to be a bit more complicated than that because in the case of the Culture's hyperspace, there is this:

Gridfire wall (maximum positive 4th dimension coordinate)
Hyperspace (positive 4th dimension coordinate)
Real
Ultraspace (negative 4th dimension coordinate)
Gridfire wall (maximum negative 4th dimension coordinate)

Ultraspace is basically like hyperspace, the distinction isn't made clear in the novels and ultraspace is specifically mentioned to be the negative axis of hyperspace.

Additionally, the Culture hyperspace isn't a layer of reality the way it is with something like the Ethereal plane in D&D. It's an actual 4th dimensional coordinate with Hyperspace 0 being the real, you do actual 4 dimensional movement and mathematics.
I thought we settled this with a quote from Hydrogen Sonata?

The Warp I have interpreted as another axis perpendicular to the hyperspace axis.

It's only that last line that I'm not sure about. It's much more like an alternate plane which shares barely any of the fundamental laws of real-space than it is another dimension of Real Space. Only, it spills over, links in, and is fundamental to life in real-space.
There is an element of it being like a dimension in the hyperspace sense, in as much as you can skim it and you can go deeper, but that's as far as it goes and I think it's worth playing down the conceptual similarities there.

[Gavinfoxx]

I would say that Warp is not a spatial dimension, but a conceptual dimension. How far it is to The Culture's set of spatial dimensions, I couldn't say... I would say that it is probably more closely linked to the main real dimension than others, in general though.

[The Glyphstone]

It's more like an alternate plane of reality than a dimension, but if it's a dimension, it is more conceptual than spatial. Inside the warp, the only dimensions are the ones you bring with you and have the power/tech to enforce on your surroundings.

[Gavinfoxx]

It's more like an alternate plane of reality than a dimension, but if it's a dimension, it is more conceptual than spatial.

Okay, yea, alternate plane of reality... which in a different set of jargon, is described as dimension. But I think jseah is using a different definition of the term 'dimension' than we are...??

[The Glyphstone]

Okay, yea, alternate plane of reality... which in a different set of jargon, is described as dimension. But I think jseah is using a different definition of the term 'dimension' than we are...??

Yeah, I think he's using the definition of dimension as per mathematics and physics...1-dimensional, 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional, etc. Hyperspace being the 4th or 5th or whatever-th dimensional reference frame.

We're using dimensions like the typical squishy sci-fi writer does, more like a parallel reality/universe, the sci-fi- version of a fantasy setting's planes. The way I'm seeing it, Hyperspace is kind of like the Ethereal Plane in the D&D cosmology- concurrent with meatspace and overlapping it everywhere, and one can exist partway between them or transit from one to the other easily and anywhere. If turning Ethereal made you move faster instead of slower (to replicate the 'hyperspace is more densely packed' effect), it'd be a perfect analogy.

The Warp would be more like the Astral Plane - it can be reached from anywhere in the real world, and touches everywhere in the real world, but no point in the Astral can be correlated to any actual point in meatspace, parallel but non-concurrent.

[Douglas]

The way I'm seeing it, Hyperspace is kind of like the Ethereal Plane in the D&D cosmology- concurrent with meatspace and overlapping it everywhere, and one can exist partway between them or transit from one to the other easily and anywhere. If turning Ethereal made you move faster instead of slower (to replicate the 'hyperspace is more densely packed' effect), it'd be a perfect analogy.

Since the version of hyperspace in question comes from the Culture novels, this is objectively wrong. As I understand it, hyperspace being a 4th dimension in the mathematics/physics sense is explicitly the way it works in that setting.

On the flip side, I think the parallel universe sense is a better fit for describing the Warp.

In any case, I don't see any holes in jseah's chain of implications.
1) Culture vessels can and do spend enormous lengths of time "in hyperspace" with no negative effects.
2) Culture citizens have a connection to the Warp, just like everybody else, and being cut off from it would affect them the same.
3) As per 1 and 2, all points in hyperspace are connected to the Warp.
4) As per 3, it should be possible to use the Warp to travel between points that are "in hyperspace".

[Fan]

One thing that strikes me disturbingly is that in Surface Detail it describes the digitised souls of the dead that The Culture keeps in VR space.

They have literal huge depositories of souls that aren't guarded in any significant manner against infiltration by data daemons.

This terrifies me.