The speed of light is just a compute constraint imposed on the physics simulation that is our universe. If we can just get the gods who are running that simulation to give us a little extra compute time in our neck of to woods then we can all be galactic explorers.

Just for the sake of argument, let's run with that.

If we're in a physics simulation, we don't experience at the rate that the simulation is processed. One "tick" of the simulation could be processed in one second of the host universe, or one hour: and we wouldn't feel the difference. We are processed at the same tickrate as the rest of the universe, so we experience the passage of time at the same rate that the simulation flows.

The speed of light isn't just the speed of light, it's the speed of causality. It just so happens that light moves pretty well at that "speed limit" (in a vacuum). We could ask our computational hosts to increase or decrease c, and we still wouldn't be able to travel any faster than it.

We could ask the host to update their algorithm to let c be a property of objects and then just do spaceship.c = 1000 * c.

Would probably be a heck of a refactor to get it working without bugs though.

Just leave the bugs in for the speedrunners to use.

speedrunners can restart the game if they crash it.

@mesid asked in a now dead comment:

> What does speed of causality mean? And how is light so close to that?

Take a look at this video by PBS Space Time on the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVuCEs8Ydo

You may need to go down the rabbit hole and watch the earlier videos on relativity and related topics.

The short story “Dust” (1992) by Greg Egan explores these ideas in a pretty entertaining way.

Here, I found a copy: https://emperybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Greg-Egan...

Why would time outside of the simulation have any bearing on time within the simulation?

Only via side-channel attacks.

Maybe there are glitches possible.

...crushing all my dreams of being a starship captain, thanks.

IMHO we will still get a space opera-esque future, just within the Solar system, not outside of it. There is plenty of space, energy and material around for potentially trillions of people on billions of space stations and space ships.

And we can still spread out from there. It is a well-thought out element of the Hyperion Cantos (occult SciFi): They do have some kind of Stargate to insta-travel, but building those Stargates requires people to travel for decades if not hundreds of years. These guys are put into stasis for the duration of the trip, and get to go home every couple of decades to talk to their grandchildren/distant descendants.

Leaving SciFi aside, our communication technology will be up to the task of relaying information comparatively quickly (light speed or faster), and parallel societies could be built in neighboring solar systems.

I am reading big space operas right now.

What we know of this reality is so limiting compared to what we can imagine.

Good dreams. Many of us have them.

I also like to dream the knowable remains much larger than the currently understood too.

Funny thing is that the imaginary worlds in books are way less weirder compared to what reality has to offer. Apparently because it's harder to develop the story.

Any book in particular you'd recommend?

"reality is so limiting compared to what we can imagine"

This is actually a central theme of the Zones of Thought novels by Vernon Vinge where a character in the far future describes our current time as the "Age of Failed Dreams" (GAI, nanotech etc.) - turns out that he is wrong but for rather neat reasons....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky

Anything in the Culture series by Iain M. Banks;

The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey;

The Commonwealth and Void trilogies by Peter F. Hamilton, and the Night’s Dawn trilogy also by Peter F. Hamilton;

The Dune saga by Frank Herbert.

I'll add the Ancillary (Imperial Radch) series by Ann Leckie to these good suggestions.

Hamilton’s The Reality Dysfunction was the stupidest book I’ve ever read and took hundreds of pages to expose itself. Are his others any more grounded (like your other suggestions)?

Yeah the Night’s dawn series was a bit out there compared to the genre average. The Commonwealth series is considerably closer to baseline, and his best books IMO. The void trilogy (and the newer trilogy whose name escapes me) follow on from the Commonwealth books, and while good, don’t hold up to the first three.

Thanks for the heads up! I liked his writing style so I’ll put them on the list.

did you read the same book as me.. it was pretty awesome

I'm a huge fan of Hamilton's books but I have to agree this one was.. different.

I think I liked it in the end, though not as much as his other books, but can absolutely understand people would dislike it.

The reincarnation of Al Capone?

Foundation Trilogy is not really an Opera, but definetely up there with the big guys. Also an incredibly quick read.

Neal Asher's Polity Series as well.

It's the culture with more detailed worlds and villains.

Is Pandoras Star worth the effort?

Definitely. I still have some series to read, especially the dark tower from Stephen King which I already started, but I think I'll re-read the whole commonwealth saga in the near future.

Yep, the Commonwealth series got solid 4s out of 5s from me, which is very good — I very rarely give a book a 5.

The Baen Free CD has always been a great source of free sci fi books for me