Wormholes in fiction

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Wormholes are a postulated method, within the general theory of relativity, of moving from one point in space to another without crossing the space between. They are a popular feature of science fiction as they allow interstellar travel within human timescales. While it is common for the creators of a fictional universe to decide that faster-than-light travel is either impossible or that the technology does not yet exist, they also use wormholes as a means of allowing humans to travel long distances in short time periods.

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[edit] Wormholes in written fiction

  • In Madeleine L'Engle's Young-adult novel A Wrinkle in Time, the process by which the characters travel through space and time is explained in a manner similar to the wormhole theory. Say an ant wants to get from one part on a tablecloth to another some distance away; it's a lot quicker to just "wrinkle up" the space between them so that the two points touch, and travel directly from one to the other.
  • In Joe Haldeman's classic war novel The Forever War, interstellar travel is achieved through gateways located at collapsars. This is an early word for a black hole, and the novel refers to the (now obsolete) theory that black holes may contain Einstein-Rosen Bridges.
  • Wormholes are a centerpiece of Carl Sagan's novel Contact, in which a crew of five humans make a trip to planets of the star Vega via a wormhole transportation system. The novel is notable in that Kip Thorne advised Sagan on the possibilities of wormholes. Likewise, wormholes are also central to the film version (discussed below).
  • In Stephen Baxter's Xeelee universe, wormholes are used by humans to traverse the solar system before the discovery of the hyperdrive. First a large GUT ship traveling at relativistic velocities would carry one wormhole mouth to the desired location while the other mouth was kept close to the earth. A wormhole is also used in this universe to put a probe into the sun (the wormhole is utilized to cool the probe, throwing out solar material fast enough to keep the probe at operating temperatures). In his book Ring the Xeelee construct a gigantic wormhole into a different universe which they use to escape the onslaught of the Photino birds.
  • In 2000, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter co-wrote a science fiction novel, The Light of Other Days, which discusses the problems which arise when a wormhole is used for faster-than-light communication. In the novel the authors suggest that wormholes can join points distant either in time or in space and postulate a world completely devoid of privacy as wormholes are increasingly used to spy on anyone at any time in the world's history.
  • The novel Diaspora by Greg Egan features scientifically well-founded depictions of wormholes.
  • John G. Cramer's novel Einstein's Bridge featured travel via wormholes between alternate universes.
  • The short story "Approaching Perimelasma" by Geoffrey A. Landis shows use of wormholes in a depiction of a probe to dive into a black hole.
  • In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, naturally occurring wormholes form the basis for interstellar travel. The world of Barrayar was isolated from the rest of human civilization for centuries after the connecting wormhole collapsed, until a new route was discovered, and control over wormhole routes and jumps is the frequent subject of political plots and military campaigns.
  • In the novel Halo: First Strike, the AI Cortana (as a narrator of a situation) mentions that a wormhole is the way to reach the higher dimension called "Slipspace."
  • The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton describes how wormhole technology could be used to explore, colonize and connect to other worlds without having to resort to traditional travel via starships. This technology is the basis of the formation of the titular Intersolar Commonwealth, and is used so extensively that it is possible to ride trains between the planets of the Commonwealth.
  • The "Ramsbotham Gates" in Robert A. Heinlein's novel Tunnel in the Sky apparently operate by forming stable wormholes between two points, though Heinlein does not use the term "wormhole."

In addition, military science fiction often uses a "jump drive" to propel a spacecraft between two fixed "jump points" connecting solar systems; such jump drives are often described in ways that make them seem similar to wormholes. For example, the hyper-spatial tubes in E. E. Smith's Lensman series seem very like wormholes. Connecting solar systems in a network like this results in a fixed "terrain" with choke points that can be useful for constructing plots related to military campaigns. The Alderson points postulated by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in Mote in God's Eye and related novels is an example. The development process is described by Niven in N-Space, a volume of collected works. David Weber has also used the device in the Honorverse and other books such as those based upon the Starfire universe, and has described a 'history' of development and exploitation in several essays in collections of related short stories. Walter Jon Williams's "Dread Empire's Fall" series also uses wormholes in a military context.

[edit] Wormholes in television fiction

[edit] Babylon 5 and Crusade

In the Babylon 5 universe, Jumpgates are artificial wormholes that serve as entrances and exits to Hyperspace, allowing for faster-than-light travel. Jump Gates can either be created by larger ships (battleships, destroyers, etc.) or by four cylinders. The more energy used to create the wormhole, the larger the opening will be, so the stand-alone gates are used for heavily used, predetermined, interstellar traffic routes, while engines on ships serve as a means of travel just for the ship that creates it.

[edit] Farscape

The television series Farscape features an American astronaut who accidentally gets shot through a wormhole and ends up in a distant part of the universe, and also features the use of wormholes to reach other universes (or "unrealized realities") and as weapons of mass destruction.

[edit] Power Rangers

In Power Rangers Time Force, artificial Temporal Wormholes were used extensively for the delivery of the Time Fliers to travel to the past to aid the Rangers and was also used by Wes, Eric and Commandocon to travel to prehistoric times to recover the Quantasaurus Rex. In Power Rangers SPD, in the episode Wormhole, Gruumm and later the SPD Rangers used a "Temporal Wormole" to travel from 2025 to 2004 to battle with the Dino Thunder Rangers in early 21st century Reefside.

[edit] Sliders

In the FOX/Sci-Fi series Sliders, a method is found to create a wormhole that allows travel not between distant points but between different parallel universes; objects or people that travel through the wormhole begin and end in the same location geographically (e.g. if one leaves San Francisco, one will arrive in an alternate San Francisco) and chronologically (if it is 1999 at the origin point, so it is at the destination, at least by the currently-accepted calendar on our Earth.) Early in the series the wormhole is referred to by the name "Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge," apparently a merging of the concepts of an Einstein-Rosen bridge and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, a thought-experiment in quantum mechanics. This series presumes that we exist as part of a multiverse and asks what might have resulted had major or minor events in history occurred differently; the wormholes in the series allow access to the alternate universes in which the series is set. The same premise is used in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Parallels and the Star Trek: The Original Series episode The Alternative Factor which premiered in 1967.

[edit] Star Trek

  • Objects with the features similar to wormholes were featured in episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series, although the word wormhole was not used. The gateway featured in the episode The City on the Edge of Forever, for example, was a gateway through time that operates somewhat similar to a wormhole.
  • In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Willard Decker recalls that "Voyager 6" (aka V'ger) disappeared into what they used to call a "black hole". At one time, black holes in science fiction were often incorrectly endowed with the traits of wormholes. This has for the most part disappeared as a black hole isn't really a hole in space but a dense mass and the visible vortex effect often associated with black holes is merely the accretion disk of visible matter being drawn toward it. Decker's line is most likely to inform that it was probably a wormhole that Voyager 6 entered.
  • The setting of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a space station, Deep Space Nine, located near the Bajoran wormhole. This wormhole is unique in the Star Trek universe because of its stability. In an earlier episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation it was established that wormholes are generally unstable on one or both ends - either the end(s) move erratically or they do not open reliably.[1] The Bajoran Wormhole is stationary on both ends and opens consistently. It provides passage to the distant Gamma Quadrant, opening a gate to starships that extends far beyond the reach normally attainable. It is also the source of a severe threat to the Alpha Quadrant from an empire called the Dominion.

[edit] Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis

Wormholes are also the principal means of space travel in the Stargate movie and the spin-off television series, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. The central plot device of the programs is an ancient transportation network consisting of the ring-shaped devices known as Stargates, which generate wormholes that allow one-way matter transmission and two-way radio communication between gates when the correct spatial coordinates are "dialed". However, for some reason not fully explained, the water-like event horizon breaks down the matter into energy for transport through the wormhole, restoring it into its original state at the destination. This is presumably because in the Stargate films, only other forms of energy can travel through the wormholes, which would also be why electromagnetic energy can travel both ways — it doesn't have to be converted. The one-way nature of wormholes is unique to the Stargate universe, and it is never fully explained why wormholes act this way. It does serve as a very useful plot device: When one wants to return to the other end one must close the original wormhole and "redial", which means one needs access to the dialing device. For Additional Information see: Stargate (device), and Wormhole physics (Stargate)

[edit] Other Television

  • Strange Days at Blake Holsey High, a television series running from 2002-2006, focuses on the havoc caused by a wormhole present in the school itself. This wormhole was a by-product of experiments taking place in Pearadyne Laboratories, a company owned by Victor Pearson and actually located under the school. Strange things happen all the time at Blake Holsey High, and it is up to the science club to solve the mystery surrounding Pearadyne.
  • In 2005 wormholes were used to support the plot of the television miniseries The Triangle.

[edit] Wormholes in film

[edit] Contact

In the 1997 film Contact starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, (based on the Carl Sagan novel, see above) Jodie's character Ellie travels 26 lightyears through a series of wormholes. The entire trip, which lasted 18 hours to Ellie, passed by in a fraction of a second on Earth, making it seem as though she didn't go anywhere. In her defense, Foster references an Einstein-Rosen bridge and how she was able to travel faster than light and time.

[edit] Donnie Darko

Richard Kelly's science-fiction movie, Donnie Darko, also explores the possibility of the existence of wormholes in the universe. While in the original theatrical release, the relevance of wormholes to the plot is unclear, in the Director's Cut, the 'book' "The Philosophy of Time Travel" is presented in more depth. In this version, the wormhole is the path connecting the real universe, and the parallel universe, which in the movie lasts from the jet engine crashing into the Darko family home until Halloween when the actual jet loses its engine to the wormhole, at which point the parallel universe collapses.

[edit] Event Horizon

In the sci-fi horror film Event Horizon, an advanced spaceship designed for faster-than-light travel uses a projected beam of gravitons to artificially create a wormhole, allowing the ship to traverse large distances instantaneously. The maiden flight does not go as planned, and the ship travels to a place outside the known universe (seemingly a version of Hell), consequently bringing back the horrors of the visited place. (A similar concept was used in the earlier Disney film The Black Hole.)

[edit] The One

The One, written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, depicts interdimensional travel to a parallel universe by going through wormholes. It was implied that the wormhole is the transversable kind, as the characters can go back and forth between parallel universes at random times that last anywhere from 1-3 minutes (wormhole opening).

[edit] Deja Vu

The 2006 film Deja Vu, starring Denzel Washington, uses a wormhole to look back four-and-a-half days into the past to find out who blew up the ferry in New Orleans, Louisiana. While trying to create a more powerful telescope, the government found out that when using large amounts of energy they could create a window into the past. They called their invention "The Time Window". It is also capable of sending objects backwards in time.

[edit] Wormholes in games

  • Wormholes are a common feature in the computer game Elite in which they are short-lived constructs created on-demand by the hyper-drive as a means of interstellar transport.
  • In Freespace and Freespace 2 space-faring races use subspace nodes to travel between star system. They resemble wormholes in almost every aspect.
  • Artificially created wormholes are the main method of interstellar travel in the Playstation video game series Colony Wars.
  • Wormholes are also seen in the computer game Freelancer, commonly referred as "jump holes". They are supposed to be black hole-like formations with ultra-high gravity amounts, that work like 'portals' for players to travel instantly between different star systems.
  • In Kalvos & Damian's Chronicle of the NonPop Revolution (Show #159), in an essay reminiscent of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Algonquin Hole is represented as a farcical worm-hole/black-hole transition piece, spinning and grinding on paradimensional axis. The show was broadcast on WGDR, FM 91.1 between May, 1995 and September, 2005, with re-airings starting in June 2008.
  • In the PC Computer game EVE Online, a science fiction MMORPG set in outer space, humans arrive at the game's setting through a natural wormhole. The humans expand and colonize in all directions, until the wormhole collapses destructively for unknown reasons, stranding all colonists.
  • In the Massively Multiplayer Online Game Darkspace, a player-versus-player starship combat game, players can create short-term stable wormholes to traverse the game's universe instantly, rather than use the game's concept of FTL travel to move from point A to point B. Wormhole Generation Devices are only available on ships with higher rank requirements, usually Vice Admiral or above, and are most common on Space Stations.
  • In the DC Universe, the second Flash (Barry Allen) traversed a wormhole created during his death. In so doing he surpassed lightspeed, causing the disintegration of his body and transforming him into energy. In this form he travelled backwards in time, becoming the lightning bolt that struck the chemicals that originally gave him his powers.
  • In the cartoon Invader Zim, wormholes are used to comic effect, as it is revealed that wormholes lead to other universes such as a universe of pure itchiness or A Room with a Moose.
  • In the on-line fictional collaborative world-building project "Orion's Arm" wormholes are used for communication between the millions of colonies in the local part of the Milky way Galaxy. In an attempt to make the physics of the wormhole travel at least semi-plausible, large amounts of ANEC-violating exotic energy are required to maintain the holes, which are never-the-less large objects which must be maintained on the outermost reaches of the planetary systems concerned.
  • In the X series of games by Egosoft, wormholes (called Jump Gates) were created by the Old Ones (also called the Ancients) to connect different systems. Humanity wasn't connected but managed to create their own wormholes which locked on to the Ancients Gates. Later they managed to make a jumpdrive, allowing for travel between systems not connected directly via a gate. A more advanced gateless jumpdrive allowed travel between systems unconnected to the gate network.
  • In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Phazon-based organic meteors called Leviathans create wormholes to travel from Phaaze (the living planet they are "born" in) to other planets. They do this to "corrupt" the planet and any beings able to survive the Phazon into Phazon-based creatures. The planet would then progress into changing its environment until it becomes another planet like Phaaze. The Galactic Federation took control of one with Samus Aran's assistance, and used it to travel to and destroy Phaaze.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "The Price". Star Trek: The Next Generation.