/-/S'pht-Translator-Active/-/


Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1
Posted By: jonnyDate: 5/28/13 9:05 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1 (Yossarian)

: Another thing that has perplexed me, in regards to the above map, is the
: relative proximity of the Pfhor Homeworld to Earth. It seems to me that
: the Pfhor would have detected and invaded Earth long before they ever made
: it Lh'owon, and long before humanity had any appreciable technology to
: resist them. In fact, how could the Pfhor have possibly been near enough
: to Tau Ceti for Durandal to contact them and they not be aware of Earth?

: What gives? By the time the Marathon launched from the Sol System there would
: have been light-speed radio transmissions emanating from Earth for over
: 500 years.

Hi there. First time poster here. I was looking for info about the Pfhor's FTL tech, specifically if it's instantaneous or is it some multiple of light speed, and found this thread. Pardon me for resurrecting it if that's bad form, but I thought I could add something here. Why the Pfhor didn't find Earth before Durandal contacted them is actually not too hard to explain. A few points:

- The Milky Way galaxy is on the order of 100,000 light years across. Just eyeballing that diagram from Waterloo Waterpark, I'd say the distance between Sol and the Pfhor home world is at least 1/50th of that diameter, and certainly more than 1/200th (500 light years). It's a fairly safe assumption (based on that diagram alone) that radio signals from Earth would not have reached the Pfhor homeworld by 2794.

- Even if we assumed that Sol is with 5-600 light years of the Pfhor home world, there is the issue of signal strength, which decreases dramatically with distance. At a distance of 500 light years, it's a safe assumption that any signals generated to be received within the Sol system would be extremely hard to detect at a distance of 500 light years or more.

- The Pfhor ship that attacks the Marathon is a scout ship. It must be scouting somewhere very near Tau Ceti when it receives Durandal's signal since Durandal is limited by the tech available on board the Marathon, which does not include FTL communication. In fact, the Pfhor ship must be somewhere within 21 light years (assuming Durandal starts signaling shortly after arriving at Tau Ceti, which was always my interpretation).

- Given the sheer size of the galaxy in terms of space and numbers of stars, it might make sense for an imperial star faring race to move towards the galactic center first. I am troubled by the idea that the Pfhor not only reached the galactic core, but were conquering species as sophisticated as the S'pht 1000 years prior to Marathon without finding the relatively closer worlds in Sol's neighborhood, but I suppose one could make an argument loosely based on the Fermi Paradox to help explain that.

I hope that helps. I'm no expert on Marathon canon, but I think it all fits.

As for my original search (which has so far been unsuccessful), does anyone have any "data" on the speed of the Pfhor FTL drives? My guess is that the travel time in FTL mode is instantaneous, as the ships are generally described as "folding", which in SF trope terms has always implied instant movement between two points in spacetime. (Should I move this question to a separate new topic?)

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Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Yossarian 8/28/12 2:05 p.m.
     Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 8/28/12 11:04 p.m.
           Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 8/29/12 5:16 a.m.
                 Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Jabberwok 8/29/12 5:35 a.m.
                       Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Yossarian 8/29/12 10:36 a.m.
                 Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Yossarian 8/29/12 10:42 a.m.
           Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Yossarian 8/29/12 10:15 a.m.
                 Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Jabberwok 8/30/12 5:50 a.m.
                       Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Philtron 8/31/12 9:11 p.m.
                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1chiasaur11 8/31/12 11:07 p.m.
                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 9/1/12 2:45 a.m.
                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Bob-B-Q 9/1/12 7:23 a.m.
                                   Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 9/1/12 1:34 p.m.
                 Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1jonny 5/28/13 9:05 p.m.
                       Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Dispatcher 5/28/13 10:03 p.m.
                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1jonny 5/30/13 7:30 a.m.
                       Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 5/29/13 11:55 a.m.
                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Bob-B-Q 5/30/13 5:09 a.m.
                                   Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 5/30/13 7:18 a.m.
                                         Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 5/31/13 11:18 a.m.
                                               Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 5/31/13 2:07 p.m.
                                   Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 5/31/13 11:31 a.m.
                                         Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Bob-B-Q 6/1/13 6:21 a.m.
                                               Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 6/2/13 2:14 a.m.
                                                     Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Bob-B-Q 6/2/13 7:02 a.m.
                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1jonny 5/30/13 7:22 a.m.
                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Simon Araque 5/30/13 9:50 p.m.
                                   Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Bob-B-Q 5/31/13 8:12 a.m.
                                   Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 5/31/13 10:03 a.m.
                                         Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Simon Araque 6/1/13 9:24 p.m.
                                   Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 5/31/13 10:46 a.m.
                                         Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Hopper 5/31/13 11:20 a.m.
                                               Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 5/31/13 12:09 p.m.
                                                     Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Hopper 6/1/13 11:50 a.m.
                                                           Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 6/1/13 12:43 p.m.
                                                           Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 6/1/13 1:05 p.m.
                                                                 Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 6/1/13 3:46 p.m.
                                                                       Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Simon Araque 6/1/13 9:19 p.m.
                                                                             Re: the Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Dispatcher 6/1/13 10:44 p.m.
                                                                                   Part 2: Lh'owonDispatcher 6/2/13 5:30 a.m.
                                                                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 6/1/13 10:52 p.m.
                                                                       Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Godot 6/1/13 11:03 p.m.
                                                                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 6/2/13 10:17 a.m.
                       Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Yossarian 5/30/13 9:46 a.m.
                             Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 5/30/13 9:53 a.m.
                                   Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1Bob-B-Q 5/30/13 6:27 p.m.
                                         Re: Come and Take Your Medicine Term 1.1PerseusSpartacus 6/1/13 11:01 p.m.

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