FTL without Time Travel

Tag Area: Time-Related Situation
Short Story

The Tachypomp: A Mathematical Demonstration

This was Mitchell’s first of many anonymous stories for the New York Sun, and although it contained a clever method of achieving unlimited speed, it had no time travel. But not to worry! Two of [Error: Missing ':]' tag for wikilink] —Michael Main
Just whisper to him that when he has an infinite number of cars with an infinitesimal difference in their lengths, he will have obtained that infinite speed for which he seems to yearn.
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  • Science Fiction
  • No Time Phenomena
Novelette

Conquest over Time

A fun story of first contact with a planet where astrology reigns supreme, but despite the story’s title, there is no actual time travel™ or other time phenomena. —Michael Main
Every event that happens on this cockeyed world, from a picnic to a wedding to a company merger or a war, it’s all based on astrology.
A gold rocket with prominent fins pokes through an unfamiliar astrological chart on a pink background.
  • Science Fiction
  • Undetermined Time Travel
Novella

Diving Universe 1A

Diving into the Wreck

The first story in the Diving Universe series finds the captain (a.k.a. “Boss”) of Nobody’s Business and her motley crew of five wreck divers grappling with a five-thousand-year-old derelict spaceship that’s farther from Earth than it has any right to be. Their own spaceship has an FTL Drive, which always implies time travel, and there are suggestions that the old ship has areas of differing time rates based on interdimensional, parallel universe hand-waving, but the confirmation of actual time travel doesn’t occur until later in the Diving Universe series. —Michael Main
A few documents, smuggled to the colonies on Earth’s Moon, suggested that stealth tech was based on interdimensional science—that the ships didn’t vanish off radar because of a “cloak” but because they traveled, briefly, into another world—a parallel universe that’s similar to our own.

I recognized the theory—it’s the one on which time travel is based, even though we’ve never discovered time travel, at least not in any useful way, and researchers all over the universe discourage experimentation in it. They prefer the other theory of time travel, the one that says time is not linear, that we only perceive it as linear, and to actually time travel would be to alter the human brain.

But what Squishy is telling me is that it’s possible to time travel, it’s possible to open small windows in other dimensions, and bend them to our will.
A shuttle-like spacecraft accelerates in front of a looming larger craft, both in orbit above a blue planet.
  • Science Fiction
  • Time Phenomena
Novella

Diving Universe 1B

The Room of Lost Souls

This time around, “Boss” puts together a crew to dive into the central part of an age-old abandoned space station where many have entered but, apparently, only Boss (long ago, as a young girl) has ever returned. The universe is largely unchanged from the first Diving Universe story, replete with mysterious interdimensional ambiguities and timey-wimey goings-on, but still no actual time travel. —Michael Main
The exterior parts of the station move in a slower time frame. The interior part, nearest the stealth tech itself, is moving at an accelerated pace.
A woman in a off-the-shoulder, flowing white gown with billowing sleeves and a long train stares into the distance in front of a futuristic city.
  • Science Fiction
  • Time Phenomena
Feature Film

A Wrinkle in Time

An unabashedly pretentious adaptation of L’Engle’s fine children’s, well deserving of the Rotten Tomatoes consensus that it’s “less than the sum of its parts.” Meg views her past, but with no actual time travel[font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif]™[/font]. —Michael Main
Seriously, Charles Wallace, I’m underwhelmed.
Wedge-shaped head shots of six characters surround a central image of Chris Pine (as Mr. Murry).
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Families
  • Time Phenomena