Most astrophysicists thought
wormholes should not exist except in black holes. They defy science known up to
the date of their discovery, and continue to create all sorts of logical
paradoxes. Scientists, however are not
the only ones to get headaches over thoughts of wormhole travel. The worst are
reserved for those who actually travel through wormholes. There are few certainties about what is
happening to the human mind as it instantly enters then instantly leaves
wormhole space.
Doctors
know that jump travel can cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, loss of
balance, mild to severe visual and sonic hallucinations, temporary memory
loss, and even short-term paralysis. They also
know that these effects are nearly 100% psychosomatic. The
mind is what is feeling disoriented and disturbed.
The debate rages as to
what happens to the mind. One of the most respected theories is that
the mind suffers the effects of "vertical time ."
What is
vertical time? Essentially, time continues! to operate in wormholes, but it is not the same
timeline that the rest of the universe operates
on. If a ship enters a wormhole 10:59 and 23
seconds, it will exit the wormhole at
10:59 and 23 seconds. No time has passed for the ship. However, on
another timeline, drawn as a vertical line on a graph, the
ship may "travel" for centuries
in the wormhole before arriving in the new star
system. Therefore, jump drives propel ships into a
different dimension of time.
The people
aboard ship do not age in this time. In fact, they are held in suspended animation. Only their minds sense
that centuries have passed at all. When they return to their
own time, in new star system, their minds remember the centuries passing
while trapped motionless in instant
of real time.
Some
come out of the experience mildly disoriented and a bit punch-drunk. Others
get very dizzy and sick, taking hours to recover. Most have
nightmares of being trapped in a motionless hell. The very unlucky ones end up
with a severe case of madness, on par with paranoid schizophrenia.
The really scary folks are the ones that actually like
it.
source: Terran & Avarian Fleet Book
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