Mass Effect
The epic single-player space opera that positions the player as Commander Shepard the savior of the galaxy one hopes over the course of a three-part
Series, it's also a pretty great. Alien dating sim if that's your thing. Are you doing tally?
But one thing a lot of people may not realize is that the science that this sci-fi tale is rooted in is pretty solid
This episode is sponsored by in search of tomorrow an upcoming epic documentary about the entire breadth of 80 sci-fi movies
Excuse me learn more after the episode Oh real quick up top, please welcome
Today's guest writer astrophysicist Star Trek science consultant and writer of the audible original series the science of sci-fi
Erin MacDonald, thanks so much, Erin
Science fiction stories by the nature of their namesake, of course fall somewhere on the spectrum between science and fiction. Which means
Scientists that are also sci-fi fans have to learn to let a lot of stuff slide
scientifically speaking and
Sometimes stories can get themselves into trouble
When they try to explain too much and this gets especially difficult when you're building an expansive story and world such as the one in
The Mass Effect trilogy where players crave a detailed environment to explore and make their own the Mass Effect universe
We play in works as well as it does because a lot of the underlying principles of the in-game technology trying to make sense
Let's take for example element 0 or ease o for short which is a fictional element unique to the Mass Effect universe
So let's dig into this fictional element and the science behind something core to the game
elements zero contains a special property
if you run a positive current through ease o it will channel dark energy to simulate an increase in mass and if you run a
Negative current through it. It channels dark energy to simulate a decrease in mass and two this process results in the Mass Effect
Get it
Mind blown if you're a fan of the series you probably already knew that but let's explore this concept a little more
scientifically in the four-dimensional fabric of our universe also known as space-time the presence of mass curves space-time and that curvature
Tells Mass how to move a great way to envision
This is the bowling ball on the trampoline analogy
The trampoline on its own represents flat space-time and if you introduce a mass such as a bowling ball
The trampoline will dip down from the weight then if you were to flick a marble on the trampoline
Depending on the speed and trajectory it will either curve start to orbit or fall straight down
now if you imagine the marble as a planet and the bowling ball as our Sun you can start to see how this is a
Great analogy for mass and space-time
So the presence of mass the bowling ball curves space-time great
Now if you want to travel through space-time both the mass of your ship and how much it's warping space-time
Will dictate how fast you can go and the less mass you have the easier it is to travel
Hey if you have no mass like photons
you'll coast on the surface in a straight line at a fixed speed which we call the speed of light which in turn limits how
Fast anything can go because there's always going to be some mass
Now pausing the physics lesson for just a second and jumping back in to Mass Effect
How does element zero channel dark energy to simulate an increase or decrease of mass?
Well, if you don't have a mass you could in theory use an equivalent amount of energy now
You may also have heard of Einstein's equation e equals mc-squared
That means all mass contains a huge amount of energy for instance
The hydrogen bomb is the release of all the energy stored in only a teaspoon of matter
so if you had a lot of energy you could use that to simulate mass and warp space-time as if mass was there and we
Can imagine that's exactly what ESO does when a currents run through it?
It uses dark energy and further dips down space-time or lessons it and using dark energy for this explanation in Mass
Effect is pretty brilliant. Not only because it has the word energy in it
But also because it's probably the thing we know the least about in our universe
We know our universe is expanding
Everything is getting further apart from each other kind of like raisins in raisin bread when the breads expanding
But it's also accelerating. The expansion is getting faster and the energy causing
This has to come from somewhere like blowing air in a balloon. So we call this energy pushing our universe apart dark energy
Oh and a quick side note here dark energy and dark matter totally different things
In fact, their only similarity is a lack of ass physicist imagination when it comes to naming conventions
But you know what they are unraveling the problems of our universe
So we'll let it slide now that we're primed on the science of mass and dark energy
And we do have a few more minutes before our dream date with Gareth
Let's revisit the defining properties of ESO one more time
you run an electrical current through ESO and it channels dark energy to
simulate an increase or decrease in mass for science fiction
This actually makes pretty good sense
because doing this is also a great source of
Artificial gravity in the bowels of the Normandie our beloved spaceship in the series
They have layers of ESO that make it seem like there's a lot of mass at the bottom of the ship
So you can walk around
normally
they even go so far to say that when you're on Mars you're able to walk around like you're on earth because your boots have
Small amounts of ESO in them that turn Mars is 0.3 G's into feeling like Earth's 1g brilliant
Another great example of how Mass Effect uses actual science as a basis for its sci-fi is how the series deals with faster than light
travel in the real world
Nothing can go faster than light because any mass an object has is going to slow it down
But mass effect uses two primary methods to get around this pesky reality
The first is the FTL Drive in your spaceship Love Shack
The drive core in the ship is said to house a large amount of ease. Oh, so to go faster than light
You just run a negative current through it to reduce the mass of the ship and not just so it seems like there is no
Mass, but even further so it seems to have negative mass to picture this
let's go back to our bowling ball and trampoline but this time imagine the bowling ball is glued to the trampoline as it seems to
Reduce its mass the bowling ball will lift up and if it continues to lift up the trampoline will start to look like a mountain
This would be how negative mass interacts with space-time
Instead of being limited by the speed of light you now would surf space-time
Faster than its limit and that's exactly how the FTL drive on the Normandy works the second way for our romantic
Interests to travel faster than light in Mass Effect is the mass relays in the lore of the game
Humans discover that bluto's companion. Karen is an artificial device
Connecting two points in the galaxy the ancient race known as the Protheans
basically took two points in space-time and stapled them together to allow you a quick jump between and this is essentially what we
Today as a wormhole just you know way more stabilized through the magic of fun writing
Using science imaginatively in science fiction allows us to conscripted fiction to teach complex scientific ideas
And also think about where our world could go and even though in the really real world
We don't have ESO and when new horizon flew past Karen in the summer of 2015
We didn't see any signs of a mass relay
We can still use the extended concepts of the Mass Effect universe and all of their
fantastical applications to help inspire the scientific research of tomorrow plus
You know the dwarf planet in our asteroid belt series does have some weird reflections happening on the surface
So come on
I mean Mass Effect got so much science right one can only hope they were right about the Protheans - I'm just kidding
Unless some unless you can date them in which case? Yeah, I'm on board
Now in case it hasn't yet been made entirely clear
I am a huge fan of science fiction my particular poison being the sci-fi films of the 1980s
So in a few weeks back
We were approached by the producers of the documentary in search of tomorrow to see if we'd like to be a part of their upcoming
Retrospective on all things eighties sci-fi film much in the way
You should respond if anyone ever asks you if you're a god we said yes in search of tomorrow is slated to be the definitive
Retrospective of one of my absolute favorite times and genres of film with behind the scenes stories from legendary creators like John Carpenter paul
Verhoeven, jeanette goldstein and shane black two interviews from james rolfe. Chris stuckman and even yours truly
Yeah
That's right
where we break down how these films help to change culture and shape a generation of content creators and
right
Now you can join the amazing community helping to bring this expansive cinematic love letter to life by visiting their kickstarter at the link below
There you'll not only be able to vote with your dollars
But also take part and watch parties special guests QAS community discussions and more
so if that sounds up your alley and you're keen on hearing me talk your ear off about 80 sci-fi films check out the
documentaries journey via the link below
Legendary thanks to Ahmed Ziad Turk, Alicia bramble AC mooska Dominic Valenciana gunner Clovis. Kyle Murgatroyd L
momochi cows and Orioles one
You