Quantum Entanglement as FTL; Deconstructing Space Elves

I'm writing a story about contact between humans and a very similar humanoid species with massive earfrills that hang parts of a cowl over their necks and shoulders. Obviously this aspect is very soft, but I am trying to make the FTL technology in the story relatively hard. The focus of the story is more on the pitfalls of first contact than the science, but in the backstory the two species encountered each other in the first place because of the fact that they were expanding toward each other from opposite ends of the galaxy. Now, they also have very similar technology, and in order to travel FTL, their ships have to switch places with each other. They use quantum entangled devices to exchange places in spacetime with other ships. The crews have to collaborate in order to do this, so as a result, FTL is a little bit more like a Portal Network than warp drive- an unusual Portal Network, though being that the spaceships originally explored beyond the solar system using a relativistic drive with the effects of time dilation, and later used the quantum entangled devices to form this "swapping" network (they use a similar but slightly more versatile form of quantum technology for long-distance communications). So basically, these two empires, Earth's and the aliens', expand toward each other, until their networks begin to overlap due to their extreme technological similarity (it's mentioned that the alien and human civilizations evolved along very similar, parallel lines), and eventually they discover each others' existence when an Earth ship and an alien ship's artificial intelligences attempt to exchange swap codes and cannot due to incompatibilities in the human and alien programming languages. So the artificial intelligences work together to understand each other, and then build a translation matrix, allowing First Contact.

I thought it would be interesting to use an FTL system that's more unique and has different rules than what we're used to in sci-fi, but I'm no scientist, and this story is more about cultural differences anyway, but I still wanted to make the effort to put some hard science in this. Any suggestions to make it harder?

By the way, in case you're wondering about the aliens, they're closely humanoid but have some minor aquatic adaptations (such as the earfrills), and although their internal physiology is very different, they evolved from their planet's niche-equivalent of primates. They're technologically slightly ahead of humans, with technology a hair more advanced (they have nanotech, for example, and some advanced biotech like designer genes and such), but they are more conservative than humans (they're also more homogenous and they are a caste society) and their technology has stagnated in the last two hundred years whereas ours has progressed more rapidly. They've had spaceflight since the 17th century, FTL since the 19th century. The main difference between them and humans (and this is very soft, I know) is that they can all read each others' thoughts, have no concept of privacy, and believe themselves to be a superior species of higher tech utopians, despite being only slightly more advanced than us, stagnant, and actually rather totalitarian (their totalitarianism is explicitly tied to their telepathy and other aspects of their psychology; beings that crave order and harmony, they live in a society where every single citizen is as much a spy or "thought police" figure as the next person. They're also pretty condescending toward humans, despite wanting to establish diplomatic relations. They're my attempt to deconstruct the Space Elves trope.

Any suggestions for the aliens and their culture would be welcome.

edited 10th May '12 8:51:35 PM by fulltimeD

I'll just add to the discussion about the science as I am relatively positive about the rest of the story.

Quantum entanglement, as we understand it, cannot be used to transfer information at FTL speeds. Coordination would have to be done at some kind of STL speed. You could say something about place swapping for your FTL but not describe the science underneath it, merely how it works, how you go about doing it and the cost of it.

So generally speaking the way we do quantum entanglement studies right now is like this. We have some kind of common object that spits out a particle in two directions. We make a measurement on one particle, record the result and then make a measurement on the other particle and record the result. Then we use an STL method to communicate what those results were and find that they were opposite to each other, and they are always opposite to each other. I don't know if that description helps you or not but ask questions as I know there's a few other people on this forum that seem to have knowledge of quantum physics.

edited 10th May '12 9:12:46 PM by breadloaf

Well, that's why they call it science fiction...

But to be honest, I feel that quantum entanglement as FTL is one of those 'hot' SF tropes right now, so I've tended to avoid studying it in any detail and can't really provide any feedback. Be aware that your idea has probably been done in some form or another already, though that shouldn't make you automatically rule it out.

The 'space elves' seem like the more plot-critical area, so I'll have to take some time to think about them. It's a trope I've tried to mess with as well, and - while my eye does a funny twitch at telepathy and "hard science" in the same post - my immediate feeling is that you're going in the right direction for what it sounds like you want to do. I'll post in more detail later.

Incidentally, this seems more like the kind of thing you'd see on World Building then Writer's Block.

edited 10th May '12 9:47:01 PM by nrjxll

Thanks for the comments. Would it make more sense if slower-than-light radio messages were beamed through microwormholes in order for the ships to communicate before they exchange places?

re: telepathy

I know, it is a very soft element. That is why I limited their telepathy among their own species; they get massive headaches and even suffer brain damage if they try to read a human's thoughts. At the same time, they come off as arrogant and condescending once the language barrier has been surpassed.

Don't worry too much about it. The fact that Psychic Powers are considered a legitimate subject for science fiction is an enormous pet peeve of mine; it has nothing to do with your story as such.

@nrjxll: I'm curious, in what ways have you tried to play with the Space Elves trope in the past? My concept is pretty much a race of telepathic thought police obsessed with order and harmony who don't realize that they're not the benevolent utopians they think they are.

I should clarify, it's not that I'm trying to depict a genuinely "hard" 'verse in this (short) story, but I wanted to do something different when it came to the FTL technology. I thought it would be interesting if the tech operated under different rules than FTL technology usually follows, so I made the prerequisite that ships had to switch places (with ships of approximately equal mass) in order to travel any faster than about 99% of the speed of light with a relativistic drive.

@ micro wormholes

This works, just try not to think about implications about time travel issues or the engineering issue of creating the wormholes in the first place. For a science fiction novel, I can fully accept that somehow society figured out a way around that in the indiscriminate future.

Actually, I really like the idea of ship swapping because it is very unique. So keep it.

@ space elves

So generally, you are trying to show space elves as being a bunch of dicks?

What I essentially did was try and figure out how your typical "elves" could exist - why everyone would seemingly look up to a bunch of smug xenophobes, and how they could maintain such a condescending attitude with a supposedly utopian society. I had them be the products of uplifting by a more advanced (but even more xenophobic) species to basically act as their middlemen. This resulted in them being more advanced then everyone else, thanks to the portions of the uplifters' technology they had been given, but having the same belief as their creators that they were a Superior Species. They maintained their civilization's attitude by essentially being an Orwellian society that brought a lot of societal pressure to bear on dissenters, meaning that while in many ways they were utopian, it was only for people who followed the party line.

Everyone else tried to avoid provoking them not because the universe was on their side, but because nobody wanted to anger the most technologically superior culture that was actively involved. At the same time, though, they were almost totally technologically and culturally stagnant - because they had been uplifted, they never really got the knack of developing new concepts themselves, and their attitude towards external ideas meant there could be no input from those. They were really only at the top of the galactic totem pole for so long because of how far the uplifters were beyond everyone else.

edited 12th May '12 2:40:23 PM by nrjxll

Re: space elves are a bunch of dicks?

It's a little more nuanced. They are dickish, but they're also extremely interested in diplomacy... their manners and values end up alienating humans though, and the xenopsychologist assigned to the diplomatic party comes to the conclusion that no matter how close the two species might be evolutionarily and technologically, Earth should really have nothing do with these creeps, and really humans might have no business interacting at all with aliens. So think of the space elves as the people hosting the most uncomfortable dinner party in the universe.

@nrjxll

Interesting. We seem to have hit on some similar ideas.

Incidentally the species I describe is based on an alien race I came up with when I was a child, who at that time were supposed to be a utopian society of telepaths, in my mind, anyway. There would be no competition, no bullying, no conflict on their planet. As an adult I became interested in subverting that by making them all a bunch of natural-born thought police who take extreme pride in the "police" aspect and therefore attempt to enforce universal rules on the universe. How far other species go along with them (in various continuities) depends on whether those other species can match them technologically or not. In some quarters they're respected for the work they do by people who simultaneously disdain their hardliner attitudes and obsessive compulsive approach to law enforcement. In the space elves' minds, they're just a bunch of really good, decent, law-abiding folk who want to make the universe a better place... but no one else can stand them, and they're at best tolerated because of their high technology. All the various different continuities in which I use this species are unrelated to each other though, so their depiction, abilities, and perception by other species and individuals varies.