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"The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer. Day after month after year after story after book."
- Harlan Ellison
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| Collapsar Jump | ||
| Travel between collapsed stars in no time at all. |
| Twelve years before, when I was ten years old, they had discovered the collapsar jump. Just fling an object at a collapsar with sufficient speed, and it pops out in some other part of the galaxy. It didn't take long to figure out the formula that predicted where it would come out: it travels along the same "line" (actually an Einstein geodesic) it would have followed if the collapsar hadn't been in the way - until it reaches another collapsar field, whereupon it reappears, repelled with the same speed at which it approached the original collapsar. Travel time between the two collapsars ... exactly zero. |
| Technovelgy from The Forever War,
by Joe Haldeman. Published by Not Known in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Collapsar jumps were mostly preprogrammed:
Compare to jump point from Bill for Delivery (1964) by Christopher Anvil,
hyperspace jump from Foundation(1951) by Isaac Asimov,
Alderson point (Crazy Eddie) from The Mote in God's Eye (1974) by Niven and Pournelle,
planoforming from The Game of Rat and Dragon (1953) by Cordwainer Smith,
jumpdoor from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert.
A convenient way to go AWOL, since once you were out of the chain of collapsar jumps you'd be practically impossible to track down. Unfortunately, your jump sequence was preprogrammed by Strike Force Command; the human navigator only came into the picture if a miscalculation slipped you into the wrong "wormhole," and you popped out in some random part of space.
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| The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds |
| Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again? |
| Reflect Orbital Offers 'Sunlight on Demand' And Light Pollution |
| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
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'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'Not like me. A T-1000, advanced prototype. A mimetic poly-alloy. Liquid metal.'
'It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...'
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...'
"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
