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From: Purtill.SIPB@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Discrepancies (ftl travel and so on)
Message-ID: <2640@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 08:45:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.2640
Posted: Wed Jul 10 08:45:46 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 02:59:40 EDT
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Mark Purtill 


>thus causality is violated.  But how many SF stories that have
>faster-than-light travel, consider these extremely important
>ramifications?
Well, STAR TREK did.  There were at least two episodes wherein the Warp
Drives (plus extraneous things like black holes) where used for time
travel.

>It is pretty silly that SF stories use faster-than-light travel,
>because almost any story that does use it could be easily rewritten
>to use parallel universes instead, without these problems.

See Larry Niven's _All_The_Myriad_Ways_ for why he (and I) hate the
standard parallel universe concept (cross-time).  If it really bugs you,
just go thru all ftl books and replace "spaceship" with "parallel
universe machine."

       Mark
^.-.^  Purtill at MIT-MULTICS.ARPA    **Insert favorite disclaimer here**
(("))  2-032 MIT Cambrige MA 02139