Here's an answer Andrew gave on his Tumblr about the time dilation. Skaia, I'm PRETTY sure there are no spoilers in this, but you may want to check it out and make sure, and give Nora the highlights if there's anything she shouldn't know yet. i,imgur,com/jUk3hj8,jpg (replace commas with dots)
(Skaia) Happy 4/13 everyone!
I know I could drag this on for another MONTH at least, but let’s just blow it all out of the way with one big post for all the “relativity” asks since Nora got around to answering the above Ask and that covers all the rest, even the ones she hasn’t seen yet. So in order:
fates0end said to nora-reads-homestuck:
Well, yes, to /other people/ you’re going faster, but your own perception of it is lengthened; that’s why going faster than light would mean time travel.
sanctferum said to nora-reads-homestuck:
IIRC Hussie explained the “science” behind the three years somewhere. tl;dr he was aware that it didn’t make scientific sense, or only made scientific sense in reverse, or something like that, but fuck it, he went with 3 years anyways for narrative purposes? something like that
acamaeda said to nora-reads-homestuck:
The 3 nanoseconds/3 years thing might just be because Hussie is allowed to fuck with them in that one yard.
megazaprat said to nora-reads-homestuck:
I am going to blame the light speed weirdness as it existing in Hussie’s dimension, and Hussie not doing the mat properly
get-thee-to-a-shrubbery said to nora-reads-homestuck:
there’s a really good metareason for the time dilation being reversed, but one good reason is “thats just how things work in Hussiespace (where the kids are now)”
borktastic said to nora-reads-homestuck:
Hussie was asked about (and answered) the speed of light question in a tumblr ask, archived at mspaintadventureswiki*tumblr*com/post/63809439957/mad-answerins-archive. It’s pretty long, but I recommend you give it a read. (It was posted December 14 2011, which is past where you are in the comic right now.) (Skaia: Nora never saw this question because I’m lumping it with the rest and there’s too much for her to go through already (and the other link was edited for Nora’s viewing that she already saw), but the Heart Powers answer made me sad and laugh again.)
currentgoddess said to nora-reads-homestuck:
Remember that speed (and possibly by relation time) are relative. Its one of Einstein’s theorems or something. Source: recent portal episode of game theory
elmach said to nora-reads-homestuck:
The idea behind “being tiny makes you see the world slower” is that since they see distances larger (because they are smaller), they should see time as longer as well, to the same proportion (to keep their measurement of c to be the same as an unshrunken observer); a few other stories rely on this idea. However, for this to apply, the ship would be about the size of an atomic nucleus, so this is a moot point. (Skaia: Nora…never saw this Ask, which is amusing considering her answer below.)
(Skaia) Okay, I think that’s all of them!
(Past!Skaia to Nora) It’s clean. And finally a solid Word of God answer to all these time-dilation questions! (And a really good one at that.) Thanks for finding this!
(Nora) Hmm, yeah, I really like Hussie’s last explanation about them being forced to make up the lost real-world time! That’s really elegant, and neatly sidesteps all the physics bullshit. (I still maintain that physically shrinking them should have nothing to do with how fast they can go; after all, infinitesimally small neutrinos are subject to, and travel at, the same value c as any other object or particle.) Still, I wish he’d done a bit more lampshade-hanging in-universe to preclude this whole argument.
