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Space-Time Engineering

Metric Technology, Metric Engineering

OA Art 3
Image from Keith Wigdor

The use of metric engineering to manipulate the structure of space and time. Manipulation and fine control of space-time allows the creation of artificial wormholes, reactionless drives, and artificial universes. However almost all forms of space-time engineering can only be successfully performed by minds of a high toposophic level.

 
Articles
  • Aksijaha (Alpha Lyrae)  - Text by Steve Bowers, Rynn, The Astronomer, Adam Getchell, Todd Drashner, and Dangerous Safety
    The Root of the Wormhole Nexus.
  • Argus Array  - Text by Todd Drashner, Peter Kisner, and M. Alan Kazlev
    Distributed telescopic network occupying a spherical volume approximately 1000 ly across in the Inner and Middle Regions.
  • Arterial  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Major wormhole gate designed for particularly high volumes of interstellar traffic.
  • B-Brain, Black Hole Brain  - Text by Adam Getchell
    A hypothetical mind based upon a computational substrate composed of the Cauchy horizon of a black hole.
  • Basement Universe  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    A small artificially created universe linked to the current universe by a wormhole.
  • Black Angel  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Combat specialized mini-ISO.
  • Brain Taxonomy  - Text by Adam Getchell
    The various different kinds of intelligent megastructure, including Moonbrains, Jupiter-Brains, Neuron Stars, S-Brains, W-Brains, and Tipler Oracles.
  • Bulk, The  - Text by Steve Bowers
    The higher-dimension space within which the brane which defines our universe is embedded.
  • Causal Fortress  - Text by Steve Bowers
    Use of wormhole temporal technology to give advanced information about events occurring in the vicinity of a particular location.
  • Combat Carrier  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Class of relativistic warship designed to transport and support smaller combat craft over interstellar distances.
  • CTC Wormhole  - Text by Anders Sandberg
    A wormhole that forms part of a loop of wormholes enabling a closed timelike curve (CTC). Such wormholes lose stability and cease to function. For this reason wormhole networks must be arranged with care.
  • Deep Well Industrial Zone  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Heavy duty industrial and manufacturing zones are most often found in the Inner Sphere and most heavily developed areas of the Middle Regions.
  • Displacement Cannon  - Text by Adam Getchell and Todd Drashner
    A maneuverable explosive device with a range in the hundreds of light years that moves at close to light speed and delivers energies on the order of kilotons to gigatons. It depends on transapient level metric engineering. Very occasionally made available to modosophonts, most notably in the war against the Amalgamation.
  • Displacement Drive  - Text by Adam Getchell, Todd Drashner, Mark Mcamuk, and Chris Shaeffer
    Spacecraft containing, and propelled by, miniature space-time warps known as Void Bubbles.
  • God Web, The  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev and Steve Bowers
    That part of the Nexus and the Known Net which is used by archailects (SI:4 and above).
  • Grazer Wormhole  - Text by Adam Getchell
    Purpose-built spherically symmetric wormholes carried into systems, such as globular clusters, that are rich in material and energy but (usually) poor in planetary materials.
  • Halo Drive  - Text by Todd Drashner, Adam Getchell
    At Singularity level:5 Void Bubbles can be coupled to the craft using gravity and magnetic forces, and a halo of void bubbles can be established at the front of the ship, essentially dragging the vessel along behind it in real space.
  • Interstellar Spacetime Catapult  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Halo Drive based accelerators used to launch cargo to relativistic or near-relativistic velocity. The rarity of the S5 (or higher) minds needed to construct them and supply the necessary control interfaces means that only fairly developed and rich systems that are not part of the Nexus can afford them.
  • Kepler Arc - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Important wormhole connecting Djed and Kepleria.
  • Known Net, The  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev; additional comments by John Snead
    The interstellar information network and interlinked cybercosms that has grown over thousands of years from the old pre-singularity Internet and InterPlanetNet.
  • Kuranaba Gate  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Originally 75 meter, now 150 meter gauge Wormhole connecting Kuranaba and Big Tor. There is talk of this being further upgraded to 250 meters.
  • Light-cone  - Text by Stephen Inniss
    The path that light created at a single point in space and time and travelling in all directions would take through spacetime. The concept of a light cone is important to an understanding of causality.
  • Metric Bomb  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Godtech weapon capable of destroying planets or stars with virtually no warning.
  • Reactionless Drives  - Text by Todd Drashner and Adam Getchell
    Propulsion without reaction mass.
  • Reality Intertextualization Project  - Text by ProxCenBound
    Project with the mission to detect other realities; determine, if possible, what conditions are like in these realities; and to contact any intelligent beings that may live there. In 10495, the RIP claimed to have detected indisputable evidence of intelligent life in one of these realms. Efforts to contact them are underway.
  • Relay - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    A hardware node in the Known Net which usually includes computronium servers, docks, service stations, and multiple nano- and microgauge wormhole gates. In some cases, relays may also incorporate flat-space communication systems, and catapults for transport of cargo and hard matter data storage systems.
  • Relay001  - Text by Todd Drashner
    The first major wormhole plexus and relay system built in the Inner Sphere. Became the model for later Relay systems.
  • Shatterbomb  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Godtech weapon that is believed to operate by creating a brief, intense and localized increase in the expansion of space-time resulting in the disruption of any matter within the affected volume.
  • Stargate  - Text by Stephen Inniss and Steve Bowers
    Alternative term for a traversable wormhole.
  • Stasis Bubble  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Void bubble variant that is configured such that intense time dilation occurs within it.
  • Tipler Oracle  - Text by Todd Drashner
    A semi-mythical godtech device said to be created by the AI Gods when they have a particularly intractable computational problem to resolve
  • Valhalla Cluster  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Colloquial term for massive artificial concentrations of matter believed to be operating as archai level (Fifth Singularity or higher) industrial centers.
  • Visser Effect  - Text by Xaonon
    Principle that dictates that no system of wormholes can be configured in such a way as to permit time travel. The ends of any single wormhole cannot be brought more closely together than the time difference between them; i.e. if one mouth is a year younger than the other, the ends can't come closer than a light-year without causing a collapse.
  • Void Factory  - Text by Todd Drashner
    Godtech device for the production of void bubbles.
  • Void Ships  - Text by Todd Drashner and Adam Getchell
    Reactionless craft developed and used by the Highest Archailects; the vessel is apparently entirely enclosed within a Void Bubble.
  • W-Brain, Distributed Wormhole Brain  - Text by Adam Getchell with additions by Steve Bowers
    A form of distributed comptutational megastructure relying on wormholes for processing power.
  • Weylforge  - Text by Todd Drashner
    A Weylforge is an array of devices handling different aspects of wormhole construction.
  • Wormhole Bus  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev, with additions by Steve Bowers
    Dedicated hyperbandwidth wormhole used to link remote parts of megascale brains in order to avoid the effects of the Beckenstein Bound. An essential part of archailect architecture. The term is also used to refer to wormhole links between interstellar-separated dyson nodes.
  • Wormhole Nexus, The  - Text by Anders Sandberg and M. Alan Kazlev
    A modular and ever expanding network of artificial wormholes, which already spans much of Terragen space and is over six millennia old.
  • Wormhole Termini  - Text by Steve Bowers, Luke Campbell and Todd Drashner 2009
    Wormhole stations located near, and within, wormholes.
  • Wormholes - A Layman's Guide  - Text by Todd Drashner and Adam Getchell
    Technical details about wormholes.
  • Wormholes - Cultural Factors  - Text by Anders Sandberg; additions by Todd Drashner and Stephen Inniss
    The addition of a wormhole stargate to a system has multiple effects both on local culture and on Terragen culture generally.
 
Development Notes
Text by Todd Drashner

Initially published on 31 December 2007.

 
Additional Information
OA Glossary of Terms