Effects of a warp field based super-speed power
While something like a warp drive is a staple of ftl technology in sci-fi, I wonder how this sort of spatial warping would operate on a smaller scale on earth.
The idea has occurred to me to have a character with gravity and antigravity powers try to warp distance. This distance warping wouldn't extend more than half a meter from the character's body at most, and at minimum would only be skin-tight. This special warping would bear some resemblance to a alcubierre warp drive, though based on answers I am now informed a natario drive is more plausible. This power can't used to reach anything approaching relativistic speeds, however I wonder how this would work as a form of superspeed.
Another detail that needs to be covered is how it works when the character interacts with objects: What happens when the character tries to move a stationary or slow moving object? What about trying to move bullets and other objects that are fast in relation to the hero's actual speed, and are slow compared to the movement of them and other stuff in their warp bubble.
(The hero is also a vampire which grants the required secondary powers)
How exactly would something like a warp bubble work in a atmosphere at non-relativistic speeds? Could it avoid the collateral damage normal super-speed entails? How would this spatial warping affect the atmosphere that occupies the warped space? What would this power do when the character interacted with objects not in the field: both slow moving objects and stuff like bullets. What would such a power look and sound like, both to the user and bystanders (I'm assuming the hero has super fast perception and some degree of super senses to cope, and can already run ~400 mph without warping space, or otherwise using gravity control).
Ultimately I'm really hoping this power will allow things like this scene (except with superspeed that isn't wildly inconsistent)
Bonus Question: What other clever uses would you use a gravity control power for, other than the standard and obvious uses. Assume you have all the other powers mentioned as well:
Super senses, super toughness/strength and a baseline speed around 400 mph, In addition assume an ability to increase perception speed to a nigh unlimited amounts. Super-reflexes also protect you by immediately ramping up perception speed in response to danger sensed by super senses, effectively one's subconscious is always perceiving things in slow-motion watching for danger.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/33903. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
He can already move at 400 mph on the ground. At those speeds you don't want to do anything that requires maneuvering, like dodging a tree.
There is a reason they use the salt flats for things like that.
26,000 mph is past escape velocity. Anything moving that fast will be leaving the planets gravity well shortly, no matter what it is.
It's faster than reentry speeds, where ablative shielding is needed to keep things from disintegrating. Mach 25 is only 19,031 mph, and thermal control is a dominant design consideration at that speed.
Anything going that fast near the ground will cause major damage to people and property.
A better idea would be to use the gravity power to lift up to altitude, then engage the super speed, assuming he can survive the thin atmosphere and wild temperature fluctuations.
It seems like a time dilation would be what you really want, where he isn't actually moving that fast, it just seems like it to outside observers.
Getting to close to a large gravity source will slow down time, which is kind of the opposite of what you want.
BUT he does have some kind of anti-gravity. Since the further you get from a gravity source, the faster time passes. If you had a way to make negative gravity in a localized area, then you could get maybe speed up the rate that time passes inside the bubble, which would look the same as slowing down time outside of the bubble.
So he would be moving very fast compared to the rest of the world, dodging bullets and anything else. He could even have a bit of a throttle, depending on how high he turned up the anti-gravity field.
Edit:
Ok, as Joe Bloggs points out the Alcubierre drive as theorized doesn't work well with anything much denser than interstellar space.
However, with a fine control of gravity manipulation you could get a similar effect that would have less damaging results. The problem is the atmosphere.
You ram something through it hard enough and the shock wave caused by all the little air molecules being violently pushed out of the way will do some damage.
The higher the altitude, the less air molecules there are, and the smaller the shock wave.
But you want to run it at ground level. So you use the gravity manipulation to reduce the air pressure directly in front of him to a partial vacuum, and allow it to return to normal pressure right behind him.
This would remove the air resistance and fix the sonic boom problem, and the high pressure behind him would be pushing into the vacuum, which means pushing on him, boosting the super speed.
You could even increase gravity immediately in front of him to pull him along even faster.
You might not be able to get the full 9,000 to 20,000 mph Quicksilver speeds, but you should be able to double or triple the 700 mph Flash speeds.
That'll take you across North America a little over an hour...
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