FTL in Elemental Worlds - Heliomance/Uncharted-Horizons GitHub Wiki
FTL Endgame · Design document §4
Strip the tech names from the six methods and each is a claim about what space and matter fundamentally are. Five of those claims are ontology-neutral — they hold or fail regardless of whether matter is atomic or elemental — and one on each side is ontology-locked:
- Malleable space (Warp), foldable space (Wormhole), higher strata of space (Hyperspace), and a superluminal mode of matter (Tachyonic) need only a deep theory of space and matter, which every world reaches. They are universal.
- Discreteness — a thing here becoming a thing there without crossing between (Quantum Tunnelling) — exists only where matter is quantised: atomic-only.
- A continuous rideable medium (the Plenum Drive) exists only where space is a plenum: elemental-only.
So each world offers five candidate methods — the four universal ones plus its matter-axis method (Tunnelling in atomic worlds, Plenum in elemental ones) — of which exactly one is viable; six methods across all worlds. Tunnelling and Plenum are not an awkward asymmetry: they are the same axis that forks the whole physics tree, expressing itself one last time at the finale.
The universal methods reach the same capability primitives by two accounts, so an elemental civilisation pursuing (say) the Warp-equivalent invests in the same kind of research an atomic one does:
| Capability primitive | Atomic account | Elemental account | Method(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Malleable space | spacetime geometry (QP08 + RC01) | the plenum's gravitation — the Aether's rarefaction, or the world-eddy's inward draw (QM-E27 + RC01) | Warp, Wormhole, Hyperspace; Plenum |
| Exotic matter | negative-energy matter (QP11), fabricated (MS08) | Aether made heavy or light; broken-cycle matter (QM-E06), fabricated (MS08) | Warp, Wormhole |
| Traversable geometry | black-hole horizons and closed timelike curves (RC04, RC07) | the dark star and closed circuits of the medium (RC04, RC07, read through Lorentzian aether-mechanics) | Wormhole |
| Medium energy | Casimir / zero-point (QP12) | aetheric vacuum / void-cycle tap (QM-E13) | Wormhole |
| Higher strata | extra dimensions (QP09) | strata of purer Aether, or a cycle of higher order than the five (QM-E12) | Hyperspace |
| Superluminal matter | a tachyonic sector beyond the Standard Model (QP15), and dark energy as a tachyonic field (RC06) | a superluminal form beyond the catalogue (QM-E28), and a superluminal mode of the medium (RC06) | Tachyonic (the medium's mode also Plenum) |
| Rideable medium | — (vacuum) | the celestial currents, charted from orbit (QM-E19) | Plenum Drive |
| Deep high-energy theory | QP05 | Unified Field Theory (QM-E04), which grants HIGH_ENERGY_PHYSICS | Tachyonic; shared prereq |
| Endgame power (W9) | ES14 Advanced Fission or ES08 Fusion Reactor | QM-E05 Re-Tempering / Self-Feeding Cycle Reactor | Warp, Hyperspace, Tachyonic |
Because the primitives line up, the strategic lane of each method is preserved across worlds: Wormhole is still the widest-investment "Renaissance path" whether you fold spacetime or fold the aether; Hyperspace is still the lean theorist's path whether it proves extra dimensions or charts the medium's higher strata; Tachyonic still centres on cosmology and a converter ring (NP15, or its mirror TH20 in elemental worlds). Relativity itself is dual-framed by Lorentzian aether-mechanics (see the Relativity & Cosmology note), so the RC nodes stand in both kinds of world.
The guidance reports follow the same shapes in elemental terms, and every method can be ruled out in both kinds of world: see Conditions and Their Tests above, which gives every condition in both ontologies.
(Coherent light is itself dual-framed — see OP07: atomic worlds reach it by stimulated emission, elemental worlds by resonant aetheric/phase emission drawing on QM-E03 — so lasers, and the laser-dependent RC03 gravitational-wave route, exist in both kinds of world.)