the speed of a heighliner

[Emperor Harkonnen]

In the DE I read that the fastest heighliner would use 19 days to travel about 8000 light years.

I thought they traveled much faster than that. I thought that they could go from one spot to another within the blink of an eye. I am really dissapointed.

but now I do know why the known universe is limited.

and also this may imply that the known universe is only in this galaxy.

[TMA_1]

in the dune universe that is hehe.

disappointed???? 8000 light years is pretty damn distant.lol With that distance, they must have gone to a very close galaxy. I didnt think it was intergalactic. oh well

dont know about the prequels though.

[Vanguard3000]

Well, according to the prequels, they don't travel instantly. some majr events took place in a heighliner in the prequels. However, when reading the originals, I always assumed they travelled instantaneously. That was one of the things that amazed me, since I also believe that the "Known Universe" spans multiple galaxies. Of course, the better established political "core" would be in our own galaxy, most likely.

[Muad dib]

OT: How big is the Dune Universe?

[Inoculator9]

They do, I believe, travel instantaneously. They just have a weird way of going about it ;)

[Scrinlord]

ya, I think that they have to travel instantaniously. The name "Foldspace" is a term that was coined talking about teleportation and time travel in the real world, and it makes sense that they would do it that way.

[TMA_1]

quite literally, it says that it is the empire of a million worlds. Now it isnt a million worlds exactly, but it ranks in the hundreds of thousands. thats a freaking lot.

yeah I know what you mean, I always thought that folding space into some sort of quantom event horizon would mean that it would be instantanious. good observation.

[Inoculator9]

That is what it means. I think the time exists only while the space is actually being folded. I know that sounds weird, and I can't begin to explain the physics of it, but it seems possible by that their might be some sort of "delay."

[Scrinlord]

that actually makes sense....

[Caid Ivik]

in the dune universe that is hehe.

disappointed???? 8000 light years is pretty damn distant.lol With that distance, they must have gone to a very close galaxy. I didnt think it was intergalactic. oh well

dont know about the prequels though.

Our galaxy, Milky Way, is thought to be about 150 000 wide and about 20 000 ly high. 8000 ly is not very much, especially if heighliners ride by warping (or "curving the space", to use phraseology of Dune).

[Emperor Harkonnen]

if you go by the laws of physics then folding space would take no time at all. I saw they did that once in star trek :) they traveled 40.000 light years instantly!

Personally I think that the DE is wrong about this subject. I also thought when reading both prequels and original novels that it was instantly they traveled. in House Corrino when the heighliner get off course and far far away, it didn't take more than a second.

[Caid Ivik]

Well, it is relative. Voyager flewn over half of galaxy in few seconds, but its return is long enough for many series... Wonder why is it called "science fiction".

[Emperor Harkonnen]

star trek rules. It is the second best science fiction idea I think. after Dune of course.

but they do travel faster in dune than they do in Voyager. in voyager it took 1 year to travel 1000 lightyears.

[Scrinlord]

In Dune, it is not so much like actually moving or flying as it is like teleportation. They are at point A, and suddenly at point B. They never touch anything in between.

[Timenn]

It is 'travelling without moving'

[Inoculator9]

Exactly. Heighliners are just big shells with some basic drives.

[TMA_1]

like I said. it isnt a matter of movement because space is being folded infinitely through a sort of subspace. the holtzmen waves warp timespace more than the standard radiation wave. That is what I think anyways.

[Timenn]

I think that about the speed is one the very few flaws the Dune Encyclopedia has.

Travelling without moving is really without moving. So no speed should be involved.

I imagined it like having a piece of paper, and then a small object at one end, and then you folded the paper and picked up the object with the other end, and restored the paper to its flat form.

The object didn't move itself, but it was the paper which moved

[Scrinlord]

exactly. That is one of the better methods of describing it.

[ilexatrei]

So the engines are meant to fold space, I do believe that the heighliner moves one entire heighliner so that it can get over the folded space.

As I saw it, the only reason that it took a while to get to place to place in the Prequels is that you had to stop for a while at each destination to pick up and drop off certain ships. That is how I perceived it.

[Scrinlord]

yea, me too.

[TMA_1]

actually, you might have meant this but I see it as this.

the wave itself folds up like a fan. countless ripples contract and it disappears into a sort of subspace. it reappears where the other ripple formed. Almost like you rip space and time in two locations, and you are there without any time taken away.

[Scrinlord]

a rip in spacetime would do it too, like a wormhole.

The problem with creating wormholes(In modern day, not duninverse) is that it is impossible to tell where the other end will be created.

I dont think that it is the waves themselves that fold the space, I think that it is some other effect that the waves have indirectly, because if the waves folded spacetime, then as soon as the ship moved into the wormhole, the waves would cease to be affecting normal time, so the wormhole would close up on the vessel, trapping it in spacetime.

[TMA_1]

hmm you have a good point, I just kinda took some of my ideas from the DE.lol

[Emperor Harkonnen]

okey so then we have agreed. the traveling itself take no time at all, right?

but then why can they not travel outside the borders of the known universe, which I believe is not stretching outside our galaxy.