Transportation in science fiction crossword 4. Ten fantastic transport technologies that do not make sense

Traditionally, most science fiction films showcase many technologies that could theoretically appear in the distant future. In this way, the filmmakers are attracting the viewer to something unusual that we can see in the future. But sometimes not quite ordinary technologies appear on the screens, which cannot be explained rationally, and do not make any sense. Here are ten fantastic transport technologies from cinema that don't make sense from a scientific point of view.

10) M / f Futurama: Vacuum pipe for the movement of people

In the popular animated series Futurama, viewers were shown New York in the future, where a vacuum tube is used to move people. The system for moving people appears to have been borrowed from vacuum mail technology used in some countries in the 19th century.

According to the creators of the cult animated series, this type of transport for people can replace the subway and other public ones.

According to the idea of ​​the scriptwriters, the entire city of the future should be wrapped in vacuum pipes through which people must move. By the way, in the 20th century, many experts really believed that this type of transport could appear in the future.

But in fact, this type of transport cannot appear for many reasons. For example, in a large city, such a vacuum transport will not be able to cope with a massive crowd of people. That is, these tubes will not be able to pass through a large number of residents and guests of the city.

9) Harry Potter: Hogwarts Express

Another pointless mode of transport in the fantasy Harry Potter movie. We all know the express train that took the heroes of the film from the secret platform. There is absolutely no point in this slow steam locomotive. What were the filmmakers thinking about when they used a slow steam locomotive to transport students.

Wouldn't it have been easier to use magic to instantly move all the students to the Academy. Especially since the teachers want to keep the secret about the hidden platform and the parallel world. Why take the risk of inviting future Hogwarts students to a hidden platform in the train station that can only be accessed through a brick wall.

8) The Jetsons: Spaceships

In the American sci-fi animated cartoon, the creators came up with a flying family transport of the future that is not equipped with any safety features.

As much as we respect this animated series, we don't want a future where unsafe flying vehicles can fall on us from the sky. So it is unlikely that such a mode of transport will ever appear even in the distant future, since it is not safe and does not, in principle, make sense.

7) Star Wars: AT-AT Walker

Many Star Wars fans admire many vehicles, believing that sometime in the distant future, many of them will actually appear in our lives. Remember the giant "AT-AT Walker" vehicles?

Everything looks amazing on the screen. The meaning of this mode of transport is that AT-AT Walkers can move in any terrain. But the filmmakers positioned them as vehicles for military operations. But in fact, AT-AT Walkers are meaningless, because due to their long legs, these robots are vulnerable to any attacks.

6) I'm a Robot: Futuristic Audi RSQ Wheels

Luckily, today's generation of the R8 won't see the weird, futuristic wheels that were featured in the movie.

It seems to us that this type of wheels is not rational and does not make sense even after 30, 100 and even 200 years. No one will cancel the laws of physics, even after 1000 years.

5) Knight Rider: Turbo Boost Mode

In the movie "Knight Rider" the hero of the film, in order not to collide with the car, turned on the "Turbo Boost" mode and jumped over an obstacle. It is worth noting that the director and screenwriter should be given credit for the vision of the future, since many of the technologies invented in the film have already come into our lives. But there are many questions about the included "Turbo Boost" mode.

For example, we understand that this mode turns on the turbo mode of the car, resulting in an increase in engine power. But why, then, when the turbo mode is turned on, the hero of the film and his passenger do not stick into the seat from an increase in engine thrust? All the more questions arise, how the machine reacts to pressing the "Turbo Boost" button.

4) Futurama: Space Express

Surprisingly, the Futurama animated series has become popular thanks to an unusual look at the possible future of mankind. It is noteworthy that this cartoon was once watched even by adults who seriously believed that many of the technologies presented in the animated series would indeed someday appear in our future.

Then the question is to the space express, which in the cartoon did not fly in hyperspace, but moved the universe around itself. For example, what if another exactly the same ship also flies with the same technology? What happens then. What ship will the universe move around? Seriously, of course this mode of transport of the future is not real and does not make sense.

3) Star Trek: Transporters

If anyone watched the cult TV series "Star Trek", then they will surely remember the amazing transport of the future - teleportation using an electronic transporter. The meaning of this technology is based on the destruction of the human body into molecules and its subsequent restoration.

There are many scientists in our country who really believe that this type of transport will someday be invented in the distant future. But in fact, even if such a technology appears, it will not become a mode of transport, since any transport should be as safe as possible. But the teleportation of molecules is really dangerous. There is a big risk.

2) Total Recall: Gravity Train

In Total Recall (2012), the viewer was presented with a gravity train that can travel from one end of the earth to the other in 30 minutes. It's amazing if it could actually exist.

Unfortunately, such a transport cannot exist, since the center of the earth has an incredibly high temperature that no chemical substance in the universe can withstand. Although the idea in this film is amazing!

1) Wonder Woman: Stealth Plane

In the Wonder Woman comic, which was filmed by Hollywood, an invisible plane was invented. We are not opposed to this type of transport, which could make sense if the crew and passengers would become invisible. But in this film, despite the fact that an invisible plane is used, all those inside it remain visible. As a result, this technology is devoid of any meaning.

If many people think that an invisible aircraft cannot be seen by radars, then this is not so. Even if the aircraft is not visible externally, radars will detect it anyway.

Zero-transport

Generations of science fiction writers have been blowing bubbles for the second century in anticipation of a null transport that will be able to instantly transfer people and cargo over wild distances through undocumented folds of spatial cellulite. But it is not necessary to have knowledge of physics to understand: this is anti-scientific. Instantaneous movements in space are impossible, they contradict the foundations of science and the essence of human nature.

How will the Earth-Andromeda null transport work in the far future? It's not hard to imagine. Honest people will have to order a ticket to the other side of the galaxy six months in advance, otherwise the cost will be purely oligarchic.

Null-port, of course, will be located from the metropolis in three hours by ordinary transport without traffic jams. And you will have to arrive at the zero portal six hours before the start, because registration will end in four hours, and during this time you have to have time to go through a suite of turnstiles, X-rays, ultrasound, check in heels and earrings, everything metal, everything valuable, everything electronic , everything hard, everything heavy, everything dry and liquid, as well as all objects in which the length exceeds the diameter.

Having finally got through the winding labyrinth of customs buro into a closed area, passengers will have to wander for a couple of hours between souvenir shops, closets and fast food.

When there are two hours left before the start, they will be summoned to a corner and lined up in a column of two, according to the numbers on the coupons - at the same time they will check the coupons again. They will force them to join hands and keep them standing in the column for another half an hour. Then they will slowly lead to the terminal area, where the briefing will begin.

Passengers will be divided into groups, and in each group a costumed steward will play a one-man show on the theme of an exemplary stepping foot through a hole in the null portal. And also about the rules of behavior in the event of a sudden stumbling, staggering and slipping - these little tragedies will be played out with artistry that the ancients would envy. Silent, in fact, the performance will be accompanied by a soundtrack with comments in all languages ​​of the galaxy.

Exactly half an hour before the start indicated on the ticket, passengers will be taken out into an open field directly to the null-portal hole, seated on the ground specially equipped with belts and forced to sit like this for another hour, fastened, with mobile phones and players turned off. Of course, none of the stewards will be able to explain the meaning of these requirements, and they will not - they will refer to the rules.

If the start is delayed for technical reasons, everyone will sit even longer. All this time, the stewards will stand at the counter near the null hole, without blinking. And the captain of the step will anxiously run, look into the hole and nervously fiddle with the mysterious scarlet valve on his helmet, horrifying especially impressionable and religious passengers.

And only then will a command be given, according to which the slender Pairs of passengers will begin to step over the Andromeda field.

When the whole group passes to the other side, the first half hour and hands will be occupied with applause.

Then the ordnung will repeat itself: waiting, building, checking, two hours of languishing in the lobby, where the only available entertainment for a person is the same simple transfer of organic matter from local fast foods to local closets.

Then again queues at checkpoints, formations and, finally, access to the open air - to Andromeda taxi drivers with non-humanoid mugs, to the dubious prospect of having time to get to the local metropolis before the planet plunges into darkness and dies out.

Transport, which would allow just to come up and step, scientists will never invent. For one simple reason: these scientists are long gone. Scientists, physicists and chemists have gone into a weak past, as well as alchemists. And all the discoveries of mankind have long been made by other scientists - marketers. Only this science can be called natural, all others are secondary and humanitarian. From the point of view of modern marketing, a rapid step from the Earth to Andromeda is impossible in principle: the passenger who has taken a step in the next moment will ask "why so much money?", and an insoluble scientific paradox will arise.

This theory I leisurely outlined to Kolya in the VIP lounge waiting for the flight. Kolya bought tickets for us by no means business class, so I had to confidentially ask for the VIP-lounge, complaining to the servants of the administrator's desk about toxicosis of early pregnancy. Kolya, introduced by her husband, was at first taken aback by such a renommee, but soon realized his role, and even more than he should: as soon as we sat down and continued the conversation, he began to show off putting his hand on my stomach with the fake face of a provincial actor - The first couple of times I defiantly did not pay attention to this, and then he received a bang in the face, after which the staff and surrounding VIPs had no doubt that we were really a harmonious young couple expecting offspring.

Until the landing, Kolya was dumbfounded but silent and only listened. And on the plane, he yelled and began to apologize. I had to explain that a blow to the face was a necessary element of my script. However, what kind of scenario - on this account, I tactfully kept silent. Perking up, Kolya began to treat me to everything that he managed to beg for me from the stewardesses. And having completely thawed, he timidly looked into my eyes and, stammering, asked if he could ask me about my personal life. I was not averse to indulging in memories, and while the flight lasted, I told him the story of my marriage. It wasn't exactly what he wanted to know, but Kolya didn't deserve more than that.

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When we say "science fiction" most of the time we mean " space science fiction". In the sense that the future seems almost unthinkable to us without space exploration.
And if with the development of our solar system everything looks relatively simple and understandable - the methods of transportation differ only in the degree of the authors' disregard for the laws of momentum, inertia and astrodynamics, then with interstellar flights everything is much more interesting. There are a variety of options - from classic ones that do not offend physics in any way with sending ships on conventional jet propulsion, loaded with either frozen carcasses or equipped for long-term residence of populations of people for generations, to very exotic ones, such as using Hell as an intermediate stop.

In this article, I tried to compile an overview of the methods of transporting mortal human bodies from one star system to another, which are used by the most popular SF works, plus one of my personal favorites.

Star Wars

Hyperdrive

Star Wars wasn't the invention of the hyperdrive. However, they have become the classic and most famous example of this technology, so widespread that it is, in fact, the default way to get from star A to star B.

The principle of operation boils down to the fact that the spacecraft, using a certain generator or engine, falls out into a parallel reality that has other laws of physics and allows the ship to either move there much faster than the speed of light, or, flying a short distance, cover light years in ordinary space.

The hyperdrive and hyperspace of Star Wars, however, has its own nuance. Hyperspace and ordinary space are interconnected and influence each other. Material objects cast gravitational "shadows" into hyperspace, which should be avoided. A collision with a shadow leads to disastrous results, in the case of a ship and a populated world, this is a rather apocalyptic event that can split the planet's crust. For this reason, all Star Wars ships are equipped with built-in security systems that automatically and forcibly bring the ship into normal space if it gets too close to the gravitational shadow. Some disable these systems for the purpose of flying in extreme conditions, but predictably do not last long.

Star Trek

warp drive

Of all the modes of travel described in this article, Warp is perhaps the only FTL technology that currently has a real chance of being implemented. Warp can safely be called the most realistic way to travel above the speed of light from all known. Let it still remain only in the form of formulas on paper. This is the Alcubierre engine.

The principle of operation follows from a way to get around the Special Theory of Relativity, which postulates that nothing in space can move faster than the speed of light. The “path” lies in the fact that this postulate does not apply to the space itself, which can be compressed and stretched from various influences, for example, the gravitational field of bodies. The warp drive compresses the space in front of the ship and expands it behind the ship, pushing the normal space bubble forward with the ship.

In the Star Trek universe, such engines develop speeds that are rather modest by science fiction standards - the wanderings of the Enterprises were limited to one sector of the galaxy near the Solar System (~ 1500 light years), took years and left a bunch of blank spots and unexplored areas.

Babylon 5

jump gate

Babylon 5 uses a network of jump gates leading to hyperspace to communicate between stars. In principle, this is a variation of the standard idea with hyperdrive, but there are several differences that make this option more interesting.

First, most ships are incapable of entering hyperspace on their own, except for the largest ones. Therefore, the jump gate network is extremely highly valued in the galaxy, considered a neutral zone, and direct attacks on the gates themselves are considered a violation of the rules of war and, in general, an extreme manifestation of rudeness, since they are necessary for all interstellar civilizations.

Secondly, the hyperspace itself in Babylon 5 is extremely active and independent navigation in it is considered impossible. Normal signals do not reach the ships, and the constant change in gravity within hyperspace blows the ships themselves off course. For orientation, ships use a beam of tachyons, forwarded between beacons installed near the entry-exit points of jump gates in hyperspace, and if the signal of such a beam is lost, the ship can be considered irretrievably lost.

However, this situation seems to only apply to "young" civilizations, as all higher species, such as the Vorlons and Shadows, use hyperspace without the need for beacons. In hyperspace there is also some kind of life of its own, which, however, most often remains rather indifferent to the ships flying by.

Thirdly, Babylon 5 is one of the very few that touches the economic aspect of the interstellar route network at all. The passage through the jump gates is subject to a fee from the ships passing through them, as well as from the governments to which these ships belong, for the very possibility of using the gates in the territory of the charging side. Personally, I can’t remember such details in other works at all, if there is any kind of economy, then ending with “we bought a hyperdrive for our spaceship.”

Interestingly, none of the existing civilizations themselves invented the gate technology, but only found or bought from someone else, which makes them related to the next setting on the list.

Mass Effect

Element zero

All spaceships in the Mass Effect universe use Element Zero in one way or another, which generates the designated Mass Effect, either lowering the mass of objects around it or increasing it. Thus, it is possible to turn the Theory of Relativity and exceed the speed of light.

Ordinary travel between planets and nearby stars is carried out using FTL engines, which can only reduce the mass of the ship. For interstellar flights over long distances, Mass Relays are used - huge stations built around dense cores consisting of element zero. The relays are usually linked to one or more other relays and are capable of creating a corridor in which the mass virtually disappears, transporting the ship thousands of light years almost instantly.

Many of these relays were initially switched off for some reason, and the galactic community initially actively explored where such relays could lead. This eventually led them to come across an aggressive species of arachnids, which unleashed a ruthless war on them. Subsequently, the switched off relays were forbidden to turn on because of the fear of digging out something worse in the abyss of the universe. Because of this, humans, finding one of these relays near Pluto, subsequently earned themselves a disapproving streak in the galaxy, as they began to explore the network of relays and turn them left and right, which resulted in a war with one of the species, the turians, who tried to stop it. ugliness.

Star Gates

Star Gates

In the Stargate setting, interstellar travel is somewhat atypical. In order to be on another planet, a spaceship ... is not needed. Travel between stars is accomplished by means of Stargates, rings several meters in diameter made of exotic material built by an ancient, extinct civilization, and spaceships themselves are not used as often.

The Stargate, when activated, creates a stable one-way wormhole between the summoning ring and the summoned ring, allowing any object sized to fit into the wormhole to be moved instantly.

The one-sidedness of the gates stems from their mode of operation: matter does not survive the passage through the wormhole, so the sending gates take care of disassembling objects passing through them into subatomic particles, and the receiving gates reconstruct the received material back into matter.

Spoiler for SG-1

In addition to this, the gate can store information about the last transferred object for some time, and in one of the episodes of the series, this was used to bring a team member who died during the transfer to life ... Which, in turn, leads me to the conclusion that each movement through the Stargate is essentially the destruction of the original, and the creation of an identical copy of it at the exit. In general, I would not recommend this way of moving between planets.

Each Gate has its own seven-digit number, six characters identify the coordinates of the receiving Gate, and a seventh character identifies the transmit Gate. The eighth symbol is used to communicate with Gates outside of the normal network of action, usually in another galaxy.

In addition to Stargates, conventional classic ships are also used, for various reasons, such as massive attacks, or if there is simply no Stargate on the target planet. In this case, the ships use a completely classic method in the form of hyperspace, only sometimes with simply indecently high efficiency (in one of the cases, the space cruiser of the Asgard civilization was able to cover the distance between two galaxies in a few minutes). However, despite this, transportation via the Gateway remains the preferred option.

Warhammer 40k

warp

Yes, I agree, Warhammer 40k is not exactly science fiction, and definitely not science fiction, but there are spaceships there, and they use an unusual variant of FTL movement, so it could well be included in the list.

At the beginning of the article, I mentioned methods that use hell as an intermediate point. Actually, this is the case in Warhammer (I could have used the much more realistic Event Horizon film instead of Warhammer, but the “flight through hell” was already tightly entrenched in Warhammer, and there was no actual travel in Event Horizon, the title ship was experimental) - Warp acts as a medium for hyper flight, which is quite similar to hell. In addition to complex "currents" resembling a turbulent river, the creatures living there are extremely hostile to the ordinary world and, at any opportunity that has turned up under the tentacle, they seek to penetrate our universe, or at least take possession of the mind of a careless person. While traveling through the Warp, ships protect themselves and their crew with Geller Fields, preventing warp-dwelling creatures called demons and gods from getting on board or into the minds of passengers. The warp itself can both affect the ordinary universe, and itself be affected by the universe on it - many of the most powerful inhabitants of another reality arose and draw their powers from the projection of the collective unconscious of entire species inhabiting the galaxy, others draw energy from the projections of common fears - for example, disease and decay.

The warp is also responsible for the presence of psi-abilities in many species, which are used in particular for navigating the warp during flights. For this purpose, the Astronomican was installed as a landmark on Earth - a beacon that transmits a stable and strong signal in the warp that can be seen at a distance of up to 80 thousand light years from Earth. The specifics of the operation of the device is such that in order to maintain the functionality of the device, thousands of people with psi abilities must literally earn themselves to death by feeding the Astronomicon with their psi energy.

In addition to having hostile natives, the warp can create storms that sometimes erupt into reality. These phenomena are extremely unpredictable not only in the time and place of formation, but also in the consequences - some ships are simply destroyed, while others can be thrown into the future. One of the most powerful warp storms caused the initial collapse of human interstellar civilization, cutting off numerous colonies from the metropolis for many centuries.

Dune

Guild of Navigators

The relationship of the Dune universe to space travel is complex. As a result of the Butlerian Jihad, all computer equipment was destroyed and banned. Therefore, flight in space became completely dependent on the Guild of Navigators and their huge cargo ships - highliners.

The Highliner requires a Guild Navigator and a Holtzman Generator to work. The latter uses the Holtzmann effect, which "folds" space, bringing two distant points closer to each other and allowing interstellar travel. Navigators use the drug spice, which is found on Dune, to expand their consciousness and gain the ability to foresee the future. This allows them to safely guide the ship through the folded space, avoiding collisions with various space bodies.

The constant spice overdose at the same time exposes their bodies to violent mutations, so that eventually the Navigator becomes unable to live anywhere except in an atomosphere supersaturated with spice vapor, which would be fatal to any other creature. Their psychology is also subjected to deformation, which in fact makes it possible to classify the Navigators rather even as a separate species.

Navigators, although they are sort of an independent apolitical company, nevertheless, perhaps the most important part of the space civilization of the Dune universe, since they alone allow the existence of interplanetary and interstellar communications, without which society would fall apart into separate isolated planets. Therefore, even the Padishah-Emperor communicates with representatives of the Guild with extreme caution.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Engine of Infinite Improbability

Um, how do I start... The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the most buggy things I've ever read. This book hits you with its eccentricity and grotesqueness right in the brain, like a golden brick wrapped in a lemon slice - which probably explains its popularity ... which returns everything as it was, but in a new place ... Something like that. In any case, I don't think anyone can describe how the infinite improbability engine works better than Douglas Adams himself.

Hidden text

Infinite Incredible Flight - a new great way
overcoming huge interstellar distances in just one no second
without tedious poking blindly in hyperspace.
It was opened by a lucky chance, and after completion
research group of the Galactic Government on Damogran became
common form of transportation.
Here, in a nutshell, is the history of its discovery.
The principle of producing finite improbability in small quantities
simply by connecting the logic circuits of the sub-meson Brain-Shmelyutka 57 to
atomic vector plotter in an environment that provides strong
Brownian motion (for example, in a large cup of hot strong tea), was,
is of course well known, and such generators have often been used to
cheer up at parties - when such a generator turned on, everything
the molecules of the hostess's underwear suddenly shifted half a meter at the same time
to the left, in accordance with the Theory of Uncertainty.
Many respected physicists have said they can't stand it.
quackery - partly because it undermined scientific foundations, but in
mainly because they were not invited to such parties.
It was not only this that annoyed them, but also the constant failures when trying to
create a device capable of generating an Infinite Improbability field,
needed to jump the spacecraft through
mind-boggling interstellar distances. In the end they grumblingly announced
about the precisely established impossibility of creating such a device.
Then one student who once tried to clean up the laboratory after
especially bad experience, began to reason as follows:
If, he thought, the impossibility of creating such a device
established, then it (creation) must have a finite improbability. So that
all that is needed to create it is to calculate exactly how much it
incredible, put this indicator into the generator of the Ultimate Improbability,
make some stronger tea... and turn on the generator.
So he did, and was quite amazed that he managed to create that
the very generator of Infinite Improbability, which for so long failed to
create, from the most improvised means.
He was even more amazed when, immediately after he was awarded
Galactic Institute Award for Most Outstanding Intelligence, his
lynched by an angry mob of respected physicists who eventually
realized that the only thing they really couldn't stand was
smart person.

... Ford turned his head to the prospectus and then showed it to Arthur. - See?
"A sensational breakthrough in the physics of improbability: as soon as the flight of a ship
reaches infinite improbability, it passes through any point of the universe
simultaneously. Other galactic superpowers will envy you!” Wow,
great!

Avatar

Cryofreeze and antimatter engine.

The Venture Star, the interstellar ship from James Cameron's Avatar movie, is perhaps the most nondescript in its technical characteristics, compared to the rest of the ships in this article. It takes him several years to reach a relatively nearby star system, and he gains only 0.7 of the speed of light. But nevertheless, he does not use any fantastic assumptions, except for antimatter.

As a principle of movement, the ship uses radiation derived from the annihilation of matter with antimatter (hydrogen atoms are used), which is formed into a plasma with the addition of a certain amount of ordinary hydrogen atoms. This forms the brightest exhaust with a length of more than thirty kilometers. These engines are used by the ship when it sets off and slows down near Pandora. Closer to the Earth, the ship is also slowed down or accelerated by an additional photon sail, on which a beam of a powerful laser is directed from the Earth's orbit.

People almost do not participate in this process - during all the long years of flight, the crew consists of only four people, and all other passengers, including "reserve" crew members, are in a frozen state of suspended animation cryo-sleep, and wake them up only upon arrival at their destination . This is one of two options for a real journey from one solar system to another.

Interestingly, if you believe the additional materials, then in the event of a breakdown in the suspended animation system, the team is instructed to kill all passengers by performing euthanasia.

Knights of Sidonia

Ship of Generations

Cydonia represents another realistic way to get to another solar system - in the form of a ship, which is a closed ecosystem, able to exist independently of external supplies and for many centuries, during which it slowly crosses the interstellar void. Only the distant descendants of those who originally built and launched the ship reach their destination. Cydonia is built through an asteroid, which gives it both a source of fossil elements and additional protection, in addition to a thick layer of ice on the outer shell, in places reaching up to five hundred meters in thickness. The internal layout of the ship is "correct" in relation to cosmic laws - the floor is in the direction of the engines, and the internal living space of Cydonia is built in the form of a large cylinder with a central pillar and various terraces on its walls, on which most of the buildings are built. Most of the time, Sidonia flies by inertia to save fuel, and here the creators' mistake is closed - gravity in the living area is still present, despite the fact that the ship is not under acceleration. however, trajectory-altering maneuvers are regarded as natural disasters of varying severity, as provoke a change in the gravitational vector and the destruction of some buildings due to the resulting overloads. In such a configuration, it would be more logical to use the version of the ship in the form of an O "Neill cylinder - a rotating cylinder that imitates gravity by means of centrifugal force, so that its walls become a floor in this way. This is how the Frame from the novels of Arthur Clark is arranged, which is also some kind of ship of generations.

Emblem of the Universe

Flat Space

I would like to highlight the anime series and a series of short stories authored by Hiroyuki Morioka.
This, again, is a variation on the theme of hyperspace... But the most interesting thing is that this variation provides a plausible justification for such a space opera cliché as "flat space".

The main difference between the hyperspace of the Emblem of the Universe is that it is two-dimensional. Ships are only able to enter it through certain static entry points called "sord". Ships move across flat space, generating a spherical field around them that prevents the third dimension from collapsing. When two ships are close to each other, their bubbles will merge with each other, allowing a direct attack. Matter that enters the sord without a protective bubble generator collapses into the only possible form of existence in a two-dimensional universe - a "spatio-temporal particle". Sords located near stars receive a constant fraction of the stellar wind, which collapses into particles within the sords, flowing out of it in two-dimensional space in the manner of a stream. These flows give the space some semblance of the properties of a liquid that flows from groups receiving matter from ordinary space to groups located far from the stars. It is harder for ships to move against this "current", but the cous along the "current" helps to gain speed. Sord, located in the center of the Galaxy, receive even more matter from a large number of nearby stars, so navigation in the center of the Galaxy is almost impossible, since the currents there are extremely strong. 3D space bubbles generated by ships have "spin". When the axis of their rotation is perpendicular to the Plane of the two-dimensional universe, the ship stands still, but as soon as the axis shifts, the bubble begins to move in the direction of rotation, as if rolling on the plane. Ordinary flat space thrusters are only good for maneuvering inside a bubble.

Sord can exist in our universe in two states - open and closed (yuanon). Sord, when open, maintains a stable passage into flat space, appearing as a photon-emitting spherical singularity about a thousand kilometers in diameter. Without energy replenishment, the sord can remain in this state for about twelve years, after which it goes into its low-energy state - a small particle with a mass less than a proton, which, nevertheless, constantly emits five hundred megawatts of energy. When people first found these particles, they were initially considered extremely rare and valuable elementary particles of hypothetical "white holes" and were used as a power source for ships that went into deep space for research and colonization. It wasn't until centuries later that people discovered their true nature and were able to open them back into the sord state.

The two-dimensionality of flat space allows you to arrange full-fledged blockades of solar systems, cut them off from the main enemy forces and use other tactics unusual for the "classical" space, which before that looked awkward even in the softest science fiction. All wars and battles under these conditions take place, therefore, inside the flattest space itself, since as soon as the enemy fleet enters ordinary three-dimensional space, the battle can be considered lost - the specifics of the change in space metrics are such that a ship passing through the word ends up at a random point not far from it on the other side.

It's also one of the few universes where combat is primarily conducted by autonomous mine drones (also equipped with bubbles) launched from ships in the manner of rockets, but that's another story.

N.B. If I missed some famous or interesting way to fly fast, tell me in the comments?