<story><title>Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say</title><url>http://news.yahoo.com/warp-drive-may-more-feasible-thought-scientists-161301109.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Ygg2</author><text>Seeing how if we use our warp drives to &apos;colonize&apos; space, other creatures would have far more to fear from us than we from them (think Independence day with roles reversed). If a space faring species encounters non-space faring species, the one with warp is probably (not necessary) in the better position. Even without the weapons, FTL drive implies a magnitudes greater technology than anything a non-FTL race would have. In fact atm we might be the most dangerous creature out there, so in future (if we get that far) I probably see human species branching out into several subspecies and then waging endless war against each other.&lt;p&gt;Halo is a work of fiction, not a real life based drama. We&apos;ll probably be lucky if we find anything more interesting than a microbe. First encounter will probably be more like Solaris than Halo. We&apos;ll most likely find an organism that we can&apos;t even perceive as one.&lt;p&gt;So no, we don&apos;t need guns in space. Best weapon in space is Newton&apos;s second law (i.e. Kinetic bombardment). Cheap and easy to set up, hard to defend if your target is in a gravitation well.</text></item><item><author>CWIZO</author><text>As much as it pains me to say this, but I think we have to invent some more advanced weapons before we start poking our heads out of our galaxy. Don&apos;t get me wrong, this is fantastic and I&apos;m all tingly from excitement (this is the first time I&apos;ve read about warp drives in the context of real science) ... but like I said, taking a stroll trough the galaxy with our bombs and finding a hostile alien world. Well we&apos;d be screwed.&lt;p&gt;Just food for though here; this is from the Halo universe, where the timeline goes something like this: humans invent &quot;warp drives&quot;, they colonize other worlds, soon this colonies start to rebel which leads to a massive space civil war. Later the aliens arrive and set to destroy all of humanity. Now, if it waren&apos;t for the civil war, humans would have no experience in space combat, and they wouldn&apos;t have developed more advance weapons which would later allowed them to defeat the alien threat.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nullc</author><text>&amp;#62; If a space faring species encounters non-space faring species, the one with warp is probably (not necessary) in the better position.&lt;p&gt;I read a fun science fiction novella once about a interstellar space faring species that invented their warpdrive whatchamacallit before their industrial revolution, no electricity, machines, etc.  Flying medieval space galleons. And they were going about successfully conquering a bunch of similar or more primitive species. Then they encountered 20th century earth...&lt;p&gt;Wish I could remember the darn name.</text></comment>
<story><title>Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say</title><url>http://news.yahoo.com/warp-drive-may-more-feasible-thought-scientists-161301109.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Ygg2</author><text>Seeing how if we use our warp drives to &apos;colonize&apos; space, other creatures would have far more to fear from us than we from them (think Independence day with roles reversed). If a space faring species encounters non-space faring species, the one with warp is probably (not necessary) in the better position. Even without the weapons, FTL drive implies a magnitudes greater technology than anything a non-FTL race would have. In fact atm we might be the most dangerous creature out there, so in future (if we get that far) I probably see human species branching out into several subspecies and then waging endless war against each other.&lt;p&gt;Halo is a work of fiction, not a real life based drama. We&apos;ll probably be lucky if we find anything more interesting than a microbe. First encounter will probably be more like Solaris than Halo. We&apos;ll most likely find an organism that we can&apos;t even perceive as one.&lt;p&gt;So no, we don&apos;t need guns in space. Best weapon in space is Newton&apos;s second law (i.e. Kinetic bombardment). Cheap and easy to set up, hard to defend if your target is in a gravitation well.</text></item><item><author>CWIZO</author><text>As much as it pains me to say this, but I think we have to invent some more advanced weapons before we start poking our heads out of our galaxy. Don&apos;t get me wrong, this is fantastic and I&apos;m all tingly from excitement (this is the first time I&apos;ve read about warp drives in the context of real science) ... but like I said, taking a stroll trough the galaxy with our bombs and finding a hostile alien world. Well we&apos;d be screwed.&lt;p&gt;Just food for though here; this is from the Halo universe, where the timeline goes something like this: humans invent &quot;warp drives&quot;, they colonize other worlds, soon this colonies start to rebel which leads to a massive space civil war. Later the aliens arrive and set to destroy all of humanity. Now, if it waren&apos;t for the civil war, humans would have no experience in space combat, and they wouldn&apos;t have developed more advance weapons which would later allowed them to defeat the alien threat.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andrewflnr</author><text>You&apos;re assuming the other species is non-spacegoing. It seems more likely to me, and at least hypothetically possible, that they&apos;ve been in space as long or longer than us. And probably if you can bend space enough to make a warp drive, deflecting an incoming piece of matter isn&apos;t that hard.&lt;p&gt;But I agree we&apos;re more likely to end up at war with each other.</text></comment>