In Portal, using the portal gun to get to the moon is the obvious space travel usage, but I think people are overlooking how it’d let you trivially break the rocket equation.

Hell, you could build a >1g torchship using nothing but the ocean.

  • Adam Bursey@me.dm
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    8 months ago

    @cstross@wandering.shop @foone@digipres.club Peter F. Hamilton also uses the idea in a lot of various ways in his Salvation books. E.g. why deal with complicated propulsion systems when you can chuck the ingress end of a portal into a star and stick the egress end on the back of your ship.

    • Charlie Stross@wandering.shop
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      8 months ago

      @abursey@me.dm @foone@digipres.club A portal gun (with the other end of the portal inside the photosphere of a blue-white supergiant) makes a really neat blaster!

      • LisPi@udongein.xyz
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        8 months ago

        @cstross@wandering.shop @foone@digipres.club @abursey@me.dm Backblast might make it a weapon of last resort, though.

        • Foone🏳️‍⚧️@digipres.clubOP
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          8 months ago

          @lispi314@udongein.xyz @abursey@me.dm @cstross@wandering.shop true, but the fun part of a portal-ship is that there’s really no difference between a crewed lander and a remote-controlled doomsday missile.

          if you land somewhere uninhabited and/or friendly, you can drop a portal and then send people through. if it’s unfriendly, you open the supergiant portal, and have the portal gun throw itself through a return-home portal that instantly closes. you build another ship