Wormholes in fiction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wormholes are a popular feature of science fiction as they allow interstellar travel within human timescales. While it is common for the creators of a fictional universe to decide that faster-than-light travel is either impossible or that the technology does not yet exist, they also use wormholes as a means of allowing humans to travel long distances in short time periods. Military science fiction often use a "jump drive" to propel a spacecraft between two fixed "jump points" connecting solar systems. Connecting solar systems in a network like this results in a fixed "terrain" with choke points that can be useful for constructing plots related to military campaigns. The Alderson points postulated by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in Mote in God's Eye and related novels is an especially well thought out example. The development process is described by Niven in N-Space, a volume of collected works. David Weber has also used the device in the Honorverse and other books such as those based upon the Starfire universe, and has described a 'history' of development and exploitation in several essays in collections of related short stories.
Contents |
[edit] Babylon 5 and Crusade
In the Babylon 5 universe, Jump Gates are artificial wormholes that serve as entrances and exits to Hyperspace (science fiction), allowing for faster-than-light travel. Jump Gates can either be created by larger ships (battleships, destroyers, etc.) or by four cylinders. The more energy used to create the wormhole, the larger the opening will be, so the stand-alone gates are used for heavily used, predetermined, interstellar traffic routes, while engines on ships serve as a means of travel just for the ship that creates it.
[edit] Commonwealth Saga
The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton describes how wormhole technology could be used to explore, colonize and connect to other worlds without having to resort to traditional travel via starships. This technology is the basis of the formation of the titular Intersolar Commonwealth, and is used so extensively that it is possible to ride trains between the planets of the Commonwealth.
[edit] Contact
They are a centerpiece of Carl Sagan's novel Contact, for which Kip Thorne advised Sagan on the possibilities of wormholes. Likewise, they are also central to the movie adaptation.
[edit] Donnie Darko
Richard Kelly's science-fiction movie, Donnie Darko, also explores the possibility of the existence of wormholes in the universe. While in the original theatrical release, the relevance of wormholes to the plot is unclear, in the Director's Cut, the 'book' "The Philosophy of Time Travel" is presented in more depth. In this version, the wormhole is the path connecting the real universe, and the parallel universe, which in the movie lasts from the jet engine crashing into the Darko family home until Halloween when the actual jet loses its engine to the wormhole, at which point the parallel universe collapses.
[edit] Event Horizon
In the sci-fi horror film Event Horizon, an advanced spaceship designed for faster-than-light travel uses a projected beam of gravitons to artificially create a wormhole, allowing the ship to traverse large distances instantaneously. The maiden flight does not go as planned, and the ship travels to a place outside the known universe (seemingly a version of Hell), consequently bringing back the horrors of the visited place.
[edit] Farscape
The television series Farscape features an American astronaut who accidentally gets shot through a wormhole and ends up in a distant part of the universe, and also features the use of wormholes to reach other universes (or "unrealized realities") and as weapons of mass destruction.
[edit] Orion's Arm
In the on-line fictional collaborative worldbuilding project "Orion's Arm" wormholes are used for communication between the millions of colonies in the local part of the Milky way Galaxy. In an attempt to make the physics of the wormhole travel at least semi-plausible, large amounts of ANEC violating exotic energy are required to maintain the holes, which are never-the-less large objects which must be maintained on the outermost reaches of the planetary systems concerned.
[edit] Power Rangers
In Power Rangers Time Force, artificial Temporal Wormholes were used extensively for the delivery of the Time Fliers to travel to the past to aid the Rangers and was also used by Wes, Eric and Commandocon to travel to prehistoric times to recover the Quantasaurus Rex.
In Power Rangers SPD, in the episode Wormhole, Gruumm and later the SPD Rangers used a "Temporal Wormole" to travel from 2020 to 2004 to battle with the Dino Thunder Rangers in early 21st century Reefside.
[edit] Sliders
In the FOX/Sci-Fi series Sliders, a method is found to create a wormhole that allows travel not between distant points but between different universes; objects or people that travel through the wormhole begin and end in the same location geographically (e.g. if one leaves San Francisco, one will arrive in an alternate San Francisco) and chronologically (if it is 1999 at the origin point, so it is at the destination, at least by the currently-accepted calendar on our Earth.) Early in the series the wormhole is referred to by the name "Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge". This series presumes that we exist as part of a multiverse and asks what might have resulted had major or minor events in history occurred differently; it is these choices that give rise to the alternate universes in which the series is set. The same premise is used in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Parallels and the Star Trek: The Original Series episode The Alternative Factor which premiered in 1967.
[edit] Star Trek
[edit] The Original Series
In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Willard Decker recalls that "Voyager 6" (aka V'ger) disappeared into what they used to call a "black hole". At one time, black holes in science fiction were often incorrectly endowed with the traits of wormholes. This has for the most part disappeared as a black hole isn't really a hole in space but a dense mass and the visible vortex effect often associated with black holes is merely the accretion disk of visible matter being drawn toward it. Decker's line is most likely to inform that it was probably a wormhole that Voyager 6 entered.
[edit] Deep Space 9
The setting of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a space station, Deep Space Nine, located near the Bajoran wormhole. This wormhole is unique in the Star Trek universe because of its stability. In an earlier episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation it was established that wormholes are generally unstable on one or both ends - either the end(s) move erratically or they do not open reliably.[1] The Bajoran Wormhole is stationary on both ends and opens consistently. It provides passage to the distant Gamma Quadrant, opening a gate to starships that extends far beyond the reach normally attainable. It is also the source of a severe threat to the Alpha Quadrant from an empire called the Dominion.
[edit] Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis
Wormholes are also the principal means of space travel in the Stargate movie and the spin-off television series, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. The central plot device of the programs is a transportation network consisting of the ring-shaped devices known as Stargates, which generate wormholes that allow one-way matter transmission and two-way EM radiation transmission (allowing two way communication) between gates when the correct spatial coordinates are "dialed". However, for some reason not fully explained the water-like event horizon breaks down the matter into energy for transport through the wormhole, organising it into its original state at the destination. This is presumably because in the Stargate movie and shows, only other forms of energy can travel through the wormholes, which would also be why EM energy can travel both ways: it doesn't have to be converted. The one-way nature of wormholes is fairly unique to the Stargate universe, and it is never fully explained why wormholes act this way. It does serve as a very useful plot device - when you want to return to the other end you have to close the original wormhole and "redial", which means you need access to the dialing device. For Additional Information see: Stargate (device), and Wormhole physics (Stargate)
[edit] Strange Days at Blake Holsey High
Strange Days at Blake Holsey High, a television series running from 2002-2006, focuses on the havoc caused by a wormhole present in the school itself. This wormhole was a by-product of experiments taking place in Pearadyne Laboratories, a company owned by Victor Pearson and actually located under the school. Strange things happen all the time at Blake Holsey High, and it is up to the science club to solve the mystery surrounding Pearadyne.
[edit] Other uses of wormholes in fiction
- In 2005 wormholes were used to support the plot of the television miniseries The Triangle.
- In 2000, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter co-wrote a science fiction novel, The Light of Other Days, which discusses the problems which arise when a wormhole is used for faster-than-light communication.
- The book Diaspora and the short story The Planck Dive by Greg Egan feature scientifically well-founded depictions of wormholes.
- Lois McMaster Bujold uses wormholes as a major transportation system in the Miles Vorkosigan novels. Control over wormhole routes and jumps even become the basis for war.
- In the novel Halo: First Strike, the AI Cortana (as a narrator of a situation) mentions that a wormhole is the way to reach the higher dimension called "Slipspace."
- In The One, written by Glen Morgan and James Wong. A film that depicts interdimensional travel to a parallel universe by going through wormholes. It was implied that the wormhole is the transversable kind, as the characters can go back and forth between parallel universes at random times that last anywhere from 1-3 minutes (wormhole opening).
- In Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, the process by which the characters travel through space and time is explained in a manner similar to the wormhole theory. Say an ant wants to get from one part on a tablecloth to another some distance away; it's a lot quicker to just "wrinkle up" the space between them so that the two points touch, and travel directly from one to the other.
- In Invader Zim, it is revealed that wormholes lead to other universes, such as a universe of pure itchiness or A Room with a Moose.
- The Rift which appears in the long-running British science-fiction series Doctor Who and it's spin-off Torchwood is a wormhole. One of it's mouths is located in Cardiff Bay, Wales and the other floating freely throughout space-time, it is the central plot device in the latter show.
