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"I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'Science Fiction' and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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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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'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
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'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
