James Wynn wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote"><pre>That's an interesting take. But the hops could be gravitationally <br>
influenced. As one leaves the solar system and then the galaxy, the hops <br>lengthen exponentially or as a ratio of the affecting gravity.<br></pre></blockquote><br>The hop distances may not be so impossible. In Wolfe's "To the Seventh", FTL technology is transferred to Earth by a passing alien hopper ship. The ship in that story could do 500,000 light years on a single charge of fuel. That's about five times the distance across the Milky Way galaxy. Say Woldercan is in the nearest spiral galaxy, Andromeda (note the Cassiopeia connection), which is 2.7 million light-years from the Milky Way. At the "Seventh" rate that would be less than six full-out hops. Add ten on each end from manuevering to and from solar systems, and you get 26 -- right on target for Cassie's fuel.<br>
<br>The "To the Seventh" story is probably not in the past of "An Evil Guest." New York was destroyed in the former, and they are still putting on Broadway plays in the latter. But we could use this as a plausible measure for how fast FTL should be in a Wolfe world, and how much fuel it should take. It is likely that FTL tech was delivered by extraterrestrial explorers in "An Evil Guest" -- and that the secret of the location of Woldercan was delivered along with it.<br>
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