Physics and aerospace
Causality: Causes Must Come Before Effects
Observers can disagree about distance, duration, and simultaneity. They must still agree about cause and effect.
Established ScienceWhat we actually know
In relativity, two observers moving differently will measure different lengths, different elapsed times, and may disagree about whether two separated events happened at the same moment. What they cannot disagree about is the order of events connected by a cause. That ordering is protected precisely because no signal outruns light.
Where the extrapolation begins
Remove that protection and the protection of logic goes with it. Faster-than-light communication would allow some observers to receive an answer before the question was sent — which is not a paradox of language but a real ordering problem in the equations.
What the novel invents
CROWN's physicists treat causality as the hard constraint and everything else as negotiable. That is why the Servator's arrival is more disturbing than a radio signal would have been: something crossed the distance, and nobody can say what it cost.
Questions to think about
- — Why is disagreement about simultaneity acceptable but disagreement about causal order not?
- — Construct a case where a faster-than-light message produces a contradiction.
Where to read next
- — Relativity of simultaneity; light cones and causal structure
- — Tachyonic antitelephone thought experiment
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