Something I find interesting about tlt (gtn specifically here) is that when traveling from the ninth to the first, it is specified that the ârapid travelâ takes about an hour. Now, as we know, the ninth is (both vibes-wise and based on the materially longer solar day - ergo harrow is confused about darkness happening so quickly) Pluto. The ABSOLUTE minimum distance Pluto can be from earth is 2.6 billion miles. 2,600,000,000 miles per hour is, like, 3.9c. And thatâs assuming they travel in a completely straight line, which seems pretty unlikely given that the velocity of earth is nearly six times that of Pluto. Most of the time, if you âwent straight thereâ eg by accelerating radially inward rather than using a hohmann transfer or âwarpingâ,whatever that means in practice, Earth would just fling itself away from you at (shockingly) planetary speeds. Approximately 50,000 miles per hour, to be specific. And then due to you still moving at the speeds ordained by keplers second law, you would probably just fall into the sun. Admittedly most orbital mechanics work differently at relativistic speeds but like. Damn they have space travel DOWN. Even without the steles! I guess with enough thrust anything is possible.
We know that FTL travel was discovered pre-jodpocalypse, and BOE has long-range FTL in the modern day, but it requires pretty big engines. Given that all the Houses are on/orbiting different planetary bodies, and the Ninth regularly receives shuttle deliveries, itâs probable that short range FTL (interplanetary rather than interstellar) is a well established, commonly used technology.
100%! Itâs not like itâs something that canât be handwaved - most sci-fi âwarpingâ or general ftl travel is EXTREMELY handwaved: itâs just interesting to me that it does take time! This is not wormhole travel (like, for example, steles sort of are), where you enter a wormhole at a speed relative to it and exit at a proportional velocity to its presumably also moving âother sideâ . The target of travel imparts its velocity through space onto you. I cognize this like being near-instantly transported to the - in this case - stele and then holding on real tight until it (which is heavier than you, and is probably bolted to the floor) accelerates or decelerates you to the speeds which your surroundings are moving at.
Instead, itâs not at all instantaneous: larger distances take longer to cover, meaning that FTL travel involves genuine movement through space at a speed greater than the speed of light. This, of course, is not possible for something with mass, but neither is necromancy, so whatever. I think itâs fair to assume that thereâs a technological reason that weâre not turning our astronauts into a paste on acceleration or deceleration, but I just find it really interesting how they dont seem to need transfer windows and also are able to rendezvous without aerobraking.
At relativistic speeds I would assume that for the 3rd/6th houses, theyâd need to wait for earth to be nearly directly aligned with their retrograde vector so that when you accelerate towards it youâd end up going roughly the same speed as the planet; and respectively for the other houses it should be directly prograde. Maybe thereâs a time where this is true, not sure how common that would be⌠but Iâm guessing not very.
Regular shuttle deliveries would be consistent with a transfer window explanation, I think, but the idea that the lyctoral summons allows delegates from each house to arrive at roughly the same time kind of turns that idea inside out. Unless it happens once every thousand years and Jod was waiting to recruit until it was possible. But that seems a little over his head. I kind of like it as a timing explanation, though.
Alternatively maybe Iâm crazy and am wrong about my understanding of the effects of relativistic speeds on orbital mechanics. That would not shock me. Who knows lmao.
