this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2024
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Does this mean everything would be dark?
The scenario doesn't really make sense as the electro-chemical activity in your brain would be stopped as well, so you couldn't be conscious.
But if we suspend disbelief, you could say that you're stuck with the image that got to your retina when time stopped. Which means that you couldn't see the protagonist moving!
Also, realistically, he couldn't even move as he'd be against a barrier of unmovable air.
I think a more reasonable interpretation is for time o have been slowed to an extreme extent: a factor of 10^6 would mean the 6 months of protagonist time would've been experienced as 15 seconds of bystander time, and light would be slowed down to about 1000 km/h, still substantially faster than a human can move unaided to avoid Cherenkov radiation.
To avoid friction fires, we have an Alcubierre (warp) bubble of fast space out around the protag. Let's say about 6 inches for reasons, and with a smooth gradient between protag time and slowed time. This is also necessary to prevent shear forces from tearing up everything the protag touches.
This should handle most situations well: the protagonist can manipulate and interact with typical objects with their hands and other body parts without instantly exploding them or shearing them in half. However, humans that the protag directly interacts with will end up experiencing much more clock-time during the interaction, potentially even within the human reaction time of 250ms given a dedicated amount of attention.
but where do we keep the multiple stars worth of energy necessary for the Alcubierre drive? Something like −10^64^ kg converted to energy, I mean, I got pockets in my pants but I don't think they'll hold that
Since FTL breaks casualuty, it can just be along any spacelike curve!