Our Wormholes Are Different: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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In reality, wormholes are purely a scientific conjecture, a consequence of the same equations that describe black holes. Being inconveniently located at (or near) the centers of said black holes, it is of course impossible to detect them, at least with current technology. The theoretical wormhole would, thanks to relativistic effects, close before anyone could get through it, no matter how fast they were traveling. One way to get around this could be to try to get through a wormhole inside a rotating black hole; but even then, you'd have to somehow survive being pummeled by literally all the radiation in the universe, and somehow not create any disturbance and collapse the wormhole altogether. Actually stabilizing the wormhole would theoretically require "exotic matter"... which would have, among other never-encountered qualities, negative mass... Needless to say, wormholes have remained a curiosity in the field of physics, and are certainly not being considered for practical travel anytime soon.
Fiction, of course, is different. Wormholes are often used as a potential way to get past that bothersome "[[FTL|can't accelerate past the speed of light]]" rule, using the wormholes as nodes in an interstellar [[Portal Network]]. In fiction, wormholes take on all sorts of forms, including confusing them with black holes, which are a naturally-occurring scientific phenomena in which all energy and matter are [[Gravity Sucks|attracted to it]] (also known as having a lot of gravity); nothing can escape the event horizon of a black hole (though if FTL ''were'' possible, the event
As the [[Timey-Wimey Ball]] means that every TV show, movie, book and game can have quantum physics do slightly different things, you can be assured that
Related to [[Negative Space Wedgie]]. Compare: [[Our Time Travel Is Different]], which this may sometimes overlap. See also [[Swirly Energy Thingy]]. Compare [[Unrealistic Black Hole]].
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** Later he turned wormholes into offensive weapons, learned how they could be used for travelling to different points in time as well as [[Alternate Timeline|"unrealised" realities"]], and eventually he learned how to make a "wormhole weapon" (essentially a black hole that doubles in size every few minutes).
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' has controlled wormholes created between the titular stargates, and as the means for spacecraft to enter hyperspace.
** In the Stargate 'Verse, wormholes operate in ''sub''space, rather than hyperspace. Atlantis (the city) used a wormhole drive (rather than a hyperspace drive) to get from the Pegasus Galaxy to Earth (in the Milky Way) in a split second, where Hyperspace was taking weeks.
*** Atlantis used a ''hyperdrive'' to get from Pegasus to the Milky Way, and used its wormhole drive only after its hyperdrive broke down near the edge of the Milky Way. Also, in the first episode of SG-1's sixth season, a "hyperspace window" is referred to as a "wormhole," so wormholes ''are'' used to enter hyperspace.
*** Hyperspace is used by Stargates. Subspace is used by FTL travel. Various other dimensions/planes of existence are used by the Ascended, the [[Stargate SG-1|Abydonians]], and the [[Stargate Atlantis|occasional lost half-Ascended Replicator.]]
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*** Indeed, the rules for how wormholes behave under these conditions seem to be different in each and every appearance. Sometimes the wormhole "loops back" and travelers emerge from the gate they just entered, sometimes they come out of the gate they were trying to travel to, sometimes there is a visual effect associated with the disruption, sometimes not... There have been passing [[Hand Wave|Handwaves]] about how different external conditions result in the different effects, but yeah... Those wormholes are different.
*** At first, it's not the 'solar flares', the flares are just bending the wormholes somewhere else. The implication is that someone who understood, and had full control of, a Stargate could basically connect a wormhole to any point in time or space, and the lack of time travel was a deliberate technological limitation of the gate you had to 'hack' by using solar flares to bend the wormhole. Although that raises other questions, like why did the Ancients have to build an entire separate time travel system? Later, they seemed to have forgotten this explanation, and time travel started requiring solar flares.
* ''[[Star Trek]]'' has wormholes. For example, in ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture,'' an imbalance in the matter-antimatter ratio in the ship's engines can create a temporary wormhole that traps the ship and other nearby
* ''[[Terra Nova]]'' has a wormhole that exists in their universe 2149 and alternate timeline cretaceous period. It is still not explained if people can go back to 2149 or it is one way, but there are hints at it being the former.
* The fugitives in ''[[Tracker]]'' came to Earth via a womrhole, and Cole used one in the final episode. The math apparently isn't easy to get, and he misjudged the timing, allowing him to come back to Earth in the very end. Zin apparently originated a lot of the wormhole stuff, then got laughed at by his fellow scientists for it.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Porte sorcerors in ''[[Seventh Sea]]'' have access to a rather bizarre version of portals. They can mark an object with their own blood, and then pull the object to them across a hand-sized portal, regardless of where it is. Later, they gain the ability to pull ''themselves'' to the object, regardless of where ''it'' is (rather handy if, for example, the object is in the pocket of a friend who's been imprisoned), and still later they can bring others with them. There are even rules for creating permanent Porte holes, though they cost an extreme version of [[Cast From Hit Points]] (as ''[[Seventh Sea]]'' doesn't have [[Hit Points]] per se, creating a permanent Porte hole will permanently cost a number of Sorcerors a point of the primary stat that determines when damage kills them). Porte has other restrictions, though; the dimension that the Sorceror (and any passengers) must cross is implied to one of a few cans holding [[Sealed Evil in a Can]], either hell itself or the abode of the now-vanished [[Abusive Precursors]] (or possibly both). It is explicitly stated that anyone, sorceror or passenger, who opens his eyes during the trip will go
** The consequences of Porte are dire enough that at least one canon NPC has been executed by L'Empereur (an [[Expy]] of Louis XIV) by ''having his eyelids torn off and being cast into a Porte hole.''
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* The ''[[Invader Zim]]'' episode "A Room With a Moose" had Zim attempt to send the rest of his class (but especially Dib) through a wormhole to the eponymous [[Cosmic Horror|room with a moose]]. It was not stated whether this was in their dimension or another.
* ''[[Interstella 5555]]'' features a wormhole located behind the moon that connects our solar system to another. It's particularly dangerous to use, and Shep's ship is badly damaged trying to navigate it.
* In ''[[Re Boot]]'', perfectly spherical "portals" connect different systems together. The "other side" is visible from all angles of viewing, distorted by the curvature of space around the
==== Black Holes As Wormholes ====
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