fh_trips | Arrakis - Sietch Tabr - Wednesday Morning & Afternoon

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field trip 2009: arrakis

Arrakis - Sietch Tabr - Wednesday Morning & Afternoon

It was around dawn when the scent of food began wafting up from the kitchens. Fresh baked bread, coffee, and the lilting tones of Fremen chattering in a mixture of Galach and Chakobsa as they went about their lives.

If they were a bit more outgoing and less-wary of the visitors than they had been the day before, well, going out into the desert to meet with Shai-Hulud had shown a certain daring and respect, and those were two traits that the Fremen held very dear.

The portal would arrive to pick them all up around three, but until then, the visitors from Fandom had the run of Tabr.

Although it still didn't make you safe from the Aunties.

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Remembering Leto's dream, Dinah said, "Pretty much goes on forever 'til you get to the opposite pole, I think. Which kind of makes me wonder about the people who colonized here. Did they just get stuck and make the best of it? Or were the insane optimists?"

"Or maybe they preferred the desert to start with," Ender said, glancing around. "Earth isn't without its desert people."

"That's true. A ton of bedouin wanted their own place?" Dinah speculated, then grinned. "Your sister will be sure and get that down when it happens, I guess. She was telling me she planned on going out with the space pioneers."

"Val likes to write," Ender replied, and if that wasn't an understatement... "But the colonies are likely to be where all the action is over the next few decades."

"Almost makes me want to join the space program. Not that I'd qualify, I'm no physics genius." Dinah grinned. "But we're a ways off from being able to do that, I guess. Are you going to head out too? Val said you were more into engineering stuff."

"I think I will. I'd like to see the vast reaches of space if I can, before I die ~~which if I stick to canon will be about 20,000 years from now~~," he said, and smiled lightly. It also wasn't a lie - it just danced around the actual issue. "I like engineering mostly because I'd like to have a working knowledge of what I'm getting on."

Edited 2009-07-02 16:05 (UTC)

"Smart. Do you have any idea how this one works without a computer?" Dinah asked, squinting at the 'thoppter. "I still don't get how that works."

"They'd need something living that can mimic the properties of a computer," Ender mused, glancing at it as well. "Somebody who can make the right calculations. The rest is just gears turning."

"So it's all down to the pilot?" Dinah tilted her head, trying to imagine that. Leto had mentioned the navigators of the guild before, and how they navigated through space, but she hadn't made the leap to normal transport. "Wow. I mean, serious wow. Leto's flown these before, and he's really good at it. I guess I didn't think that through."

"Atmospheric flight isn't as difficult as space flight," Ender reminded her, a little amused. "They used to manage it before computers, too."

"That's true. I forgot that. I wouldn't want to take a long trip in one of these, though. Especially if a sandstorm came up." Dinah shook her head. "But a short trip works!"

"A short trip works," Ender agreed. "I am wondering how deep-space travel works out in this particular galaxy, though. Some of the universes attached to Earth seem to defy the laws of physics."

"The Spice," Dinah said immediately. "It can make you precognitive? Prescient? I don't know what the right definition is. Anyway, Leto said the navigators take it so they can navigate space by just knowing where to go." Dinah rubbed her head. "If you're already inclined that way, I guess it works, opens up your mind. I don't want a job with them though, sheesh."

"But that still doesn't account for the distances," Ender noted, thoughtfully. "Although again, it might just be a universe that corresponds to its own laws of physics." He smiled wryly. "It's come up now and again."

Dinah grinned. "Yeah? So, what, the speed of light isn't a multi-versal constant? Or there's more gravity here?"

"According to the laws of physics, we can't approach the speed of light without bending time," he explained, "Actually going the speed of light would be impossible - but there's worlds connected to Fandom where spaceships can jump from one end of the galaxy to another in under a few days."

Dinah listened, frowning in concentration. "Soooo, where does the actual time travel that some people have done work into all of this? And the portal we used to get here? Are they breaking the same laws too?"

"Very little in Fandom makes sense if you apply physics." He nodded, slightly. "Generally, it's better to blame the island's sense of whimsy. Although you could appear to be time travelling, in a sense, if you took a ship out near the speed of light, and travelled forty years, and returned; back home, that would at best mean you gained eight years, yourself, because time within the vessel works differently."

He paused.

"Unless I've just horribly confused you."

Dinah gave him an 'eep!' face and admitted, "More than a little. Does light slow down time or something?" She shook her head, kind of impressed that Ender knew this stuff so well. "Although, I guess I don't need to know it, since back home in 2009 New Jersey, it isn't going to make much difference. But I'd like to know when things are going pear-shaped."

"The closer you get to the speed of light, the more space-time folds on itself," Ender said, making a little gesture of his hands to illustrate a reverse mountain, slowly folding in on itself. "Time in and on the moving object is pulled 'tighter', so to speak. When you reach a certain speed, one year within can become ten outside, or more than that. You don't notice the time compression because you're inside the vessel. If you put a ship at a relativistic enough speed, and you kept going, you could be a century ahead and have barely a decade on you."

"Hunh." That actually made sense ~~unlike most explanations the mun has heard~~, so Dinah said aloud, "So you're right, kind of like time-travel to the future, but mostly it's just that you didn't notice. Neat. But I guess there'd be limits, because ships only go so fast. Sooo... forty years, and four hundred years?" she checked.

"Something like that," he said, nodding. "That's why they've developed stasis systems, too-- that way there's no wait at all, except for the captain."

"So you guys, you could go out to the new planets, and it could take a couple years or so to get there, but you'd only maybe notice a couple days on the ship anyway." Dinah blinked, thinking of that. "No way to get rescued if something goes wrong, hunh? Just have to trust that the ship's in good shape and the pilot knows what he's doing."

"The autopilot systems we have on board usually pick up the slack," he said, wryly. "But it takes a lot of maneuvering to get ships where and when you want them to be. Back home they'd be interested in dissecting anything from Fandom if I was inclined to give it to them."

Dinah gave him a curious look. "You're not?" She remembered what Val had told her about their future; Battle School, insect-invaders, and the Hegemon. "You think they should work for it?"

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