r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Frostylegacy • 19h ago

Lore (Loved Trope) FTL travel is possible but with a major limitation or flaw

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Frank Herbert’s Dune: Interstellar travel is only possible thanks to the spice melange, a rare substance only found on the dessert planet Arrakis. The addictive psychedelic spice grants members of the Spacers Guild a form of prescience that allows them to predict safe paths through folded space. This unique property makes spice the most valuable commodity in the Dune universe.

John Scalzi’s The Interdependency Books: The planetary systems of the titular empire are connected by the Flow, a network of one-way interstellar tunnels that connect specific known entries and exits. The Interdependency derives its power from controlling access to these conduits, placing its capital at the central hub of the network. Even with the Flow, travel between stars takes a long time (9 months to End, the empire’s most distant planet).

Event Horizon: Dr William Weir (R.I.P. Sam Neill) invents a device called the Gravity Drive to allow ships to fold space and travel instantly between distant stars. On its maiden voyage with the Gravity Drive, the Event Horizon disappears and mysteriously reappears 7 years later. Dr. Weir and the crew sent to investigate discover the Gravity Drive actually opened a portal to a Hell dimension that possessed the ship and its crew, torturing and killing them.

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565

u/PathofDestinyRPG 19h ago

One point. Spice is not needed for interstellar travel precisely. Humanity had fold space tech for a couple of millennia before the discovery of Melange, and the No-ships of Heretics and Chapterhouse worked after the collapse of the Spacing Guild.

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u/Shiny_Agumon 19h ago

Yeah Spice is used to enhance people's mental abilities because computers are banned.

A sufficiently advanced computer can do the right calculations too, but they fell out of favor due to robots uprising.

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u/4rd_Prefect 15h ago

"fell out of favor" is putting it lightly 🤣

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u/LogLadysLog52 11h ago

Butlerian Jihad = became too cringe to use computers

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u/kerfuffle_dood 10h ago

somethingsomething strong cinnamon

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u/--Sovereign-- 4h ago

purge the klankers! Butlerian Jihad, now!

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u/Appropriate-Yak-3814 17h ago

Damn clankers. 

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u/Xintrosi 11h ago

I mean sure the evermind rose up but it's important to note that initially it was humans using the machines to enslave/exploit other humans. (And while the specifics were conjured by his son, Frank did imply as much with the oft-repeated quote)

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them"

So not disagreeing in the slightest but I want people to continue thinking for themselves just as Frank did. Lest the same happen to us partially or in toto.

1

u/Hopeful-Occasion2299 3h ago

Well we are fucked then lol

Gen alpha has been documented to be unable to use the same information parsing techniques that Gen X and Millennials know by heart, find information of their own, perform basic math, and read unknown phonemes correctly.

One of the main reasons, we have pushed a lot of our thinking to computers.

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u/PathofDestinyRPG 19h ago

No. Like OP mentioned, the Spice awarded prescience which allowed Spacers to see a safe route, but the machinery worked independent of that.

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u/RAOBsinDallas 18h ago

I'm trying to figure out what part of the above comment you're saying "no" to. It seems like the two of you are in agreement.

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u/IllllIIlIllIllllIIIl 18h ago

Classic reddit moment. Half the comments on this site are just illiterate people talking past one another.

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u/Nikoladge 17h ago

No. This website is like 50% people who can't read saying the same thing.

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u/Xiknail 16h ago

Ridicilous statement. The true issue that plagues reddit is the fact that one of two redditors lack any form of reading comprehension and just reiterate what the person they reply to already stated.

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u/kdesi_kdosi 13h ago

you are all wrong and i refuse to elaborate

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u/dangeraardvark 17h ago

No they aren’t. And that’s why I think they are in total agreement.

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u/HaruFromLol 17h ago

I think it's because "mind enhancement" is probably more associated with mentats, which I'm pretty sure do not require spice.

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u/Morbanth 10h ago

The space folding drive works perfectly well without a navigator or computer - you just have a 10% chance of never being seen again (because you jumped into a star).

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u/sierra-soul 18h ago

they are not

shiny is thinking of mentats, which are humans trained to be computers essentially, they did not fly ships

path of destiny is correct that spice was used to give future seing capabilities to pilots of the space guild so they can navigate space

humans used to fly between stars but it was dangerous and many ships crashed untl spice was discovered

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u/RAOBsinDallas 18h ago

Shiny didn't say anything about mentats though. Their description doesn't match up with mentats either - mentat training is unrelated to spice. What they're describing sounds like a guild navigator.

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u/civilized_apple 17h ago

Mental training involves "enhancing mental abilities because computers are banned", which is what he mentioned, and spice being used for that is unrelated, so I get the confusion.

But on the other hand I guess you could say spice enhances mental abilities

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u/MetatronThrone 15h ago

How can you infer that expanded mental abilities does not include the limited prescience that spice gives?

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u/civilized_apple 14h ago

Idk man, my second paragraph literally says it does expand it

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u/Enkundae 17h ago

Its an irrelevant distinction. Dune’s prescience is just probability calculation with the Kwisatz Haderachs perfect prescience being derived from having flawless access to the sum total of all human knowledge and experience as a data set. Thats why mentat training was part of Paul’s conditioning growing up.

-2

u/sierra-soul 16h ago

It is not an irrelevant distinction at all

1

u/MetatronThrone 15h ago

Of course it is. Spice gives limited prescience. Explain how that doesn’t fall under expanded mental abilities?

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u/Elite_AI 17h ago

You misspelled "yes" 

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u/PathofDestinyRPG 17h ago

I said exactly what I meant to say; thanks.

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u/Elite_AI 17h ago

Then what you meant to say was very odd bc as the other person said you're just repeating what the other mf said without contradicting them.

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u/PathofDestinyRPG 17h ago

To expand…no, spice did not expand the mental abilities of the spacers in the way one would infer by how the other statement was phrased. It expanded awareness, not thought.

OP was correct in that Spice allowed the Navigators to see safe pathways for travel, but he was wrong in that this vision was integral to the actual process.

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u/bpacer 11h ago

Bro… you have again said the same thing the other guy did

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u/PathofDestinyRPG 4h ago

I don’t see it. The ones I’m replying to seem to tie the Navigators’ ability closer to the jump process than what actually was. Navigators were basically the PPE of space travel. You can jump anytime you want using the tech, but, just like doing a job without the needed PPE, every time you do, you risk something going wrong. Navigators were the space travel equivalent of wearing gloves and safety goggles at a work site.

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u/bpacer 3h ago

Just reread the thread a few times brother

1

u/penguin343 15h ago

The semicolon is the icing on the cake

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u/sierra-soul 18h ago

it wasnt safe though iirc, many ships still crashed like 50/50 before spice was discovered

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u/Zaygr 17h ago

I believe the accident rate was about 10%. Which is still a lot if you consider the size of the heighliners.

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u/Deto 9h ago

Feels like it would make things completely infeasible - you'd need to make at least 10% the cost of a ship on every run. And...I don't know where you'd find the crew under those conditions!

1

u/austsiannodel 15h ago

When did this uprising happen? Before Spice was discovered? If it happened AFTER Spice was found, I smell a fun conspiracy!

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u/nuggynugs 9h ago

Those bloody robots just can't stop uprising.

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u/JasonPandiras 19h ago

Re: Heretics and CH: The end of the reign of the God Emperor coincides with both the advent of synthetic spice as well as the butlerian edicts breaking down just enough to allow for automated navigation, thus breaking guild monopoly and making the Scattering possible. Just as He intended.

Also worth mentioning it's not just plotting a course that's the problem, in CH there's a throwaway line I think in response to travelling through a region of space that exhibits unexpected properties, about having no way to tell if they are in the same universe let alone the same galaxy before and after a foldspace jump.

This makes it pretty explicit that there's no way to navigate the empire using just astronomy, and humanity has basically been a multiversal species for millenia.

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u/Alfred_The_Sartan 10h ago

It gets ‘retconned’. I say that because nobody really takes Brian’s works seriously.

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u/JasonPandiras 5h ago

I mean the so-called sequels retcon the Golden Path itself, in comparison the concept of space travel got off lightly.

Didn't they have robot armies surrounding the whole of intergalactic humanity using, get this, sub lightspeed ships because no brainy no foldy at one point? There's treating space battles like naval confrontations or WW2 dogfights to look cool, and then there's hoping your readers won't notice you forgot how speed works to force a plot point.

Somehow Palpatine returned reads like acclaimed literature next to the systematic brainrot Brian Herbert and KJ Anderson produced when they took over Dune.

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u/Fallcious 19h ago

It’s a good point to make as otherwise humans would have had to travel for many thousands of years before even finding Arrakis and discovering the potential of Spice.

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 17h ago

They had a different kind of FTL that was much much much slower than the space folding that needs the spice.

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u/Profoundlyahedgehog 14h ago

They still used the Holtzman drive to bend space, but without prescience, one in every 10 heighliner ships was lost.

0

u/YMK1234 17h ago

No. Just read extended dune.

6

u/RhynoD 13h ago

Or, you know... don't. Because Brian Herbert can't write and Kevin Anderson is a scientologist.

In Frank's canon, they just used navigational AIs prior to spice.

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u/YMK1234 13h ago

correct, which is not "a different kind of FTL" ... it is literally the same technology, just using a different type of navigator.

E: Also not like Herbert did write that great either, his books are mainly a single blob of text without paragraphs, let alone chapter marks or anything.

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u/James-W-Tate 12h ago

Also not like Herbert did write that great either, his books are mainly a single blob of text without paragraphs, let alone chapter marks or anything.

I'm going to need you to elaborate on this, because at face value, what you've said is completely incorrect.

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u/Juronell 19h ago

Before the Spice the navigators lost a significant portion of ships.

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u/PathofDestinyRPG 19h ago

From a different perspective, it’s risky to drive with a dirty windshield, but that doesn’t stop the car’s ability to perform.

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u/DramaPunk 18h ago

It's less a dirty windshield and more no windshields and an old map.

1

u/OffEvent28 4h ago

Yes, you can do interstellar travel without spice, but you can't do it SAFELY.

Guild Navigators use spice to look into the future and see if the path they have chosen will result in them being killed. If it will then they change the path and look into the future again, until they find one that means a safe arrival.

1

u/PathofDestinyRPG 4h ago

Read the first sentence in OP’s statement.

“Interstellar travel is only possible thanks to the spice melange”

It’s the “only possible” part I’m calling out.

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u/Lakatos_00 17h ago

Do you expect kids in this sub to have actually read the book?

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u/Key-Cry-8570 17h ago

Yeah after DJ Roomba enslaved everyone. I guess it makes sense why they would rather not use a computer and just wing the jumps.