The Pyjack's Den! The ME News Discussion Thread

Yes, this is my understanding as well. I am not a physicist so my understanding is admittedly limited. On a Reddit thread a while back u/kabbooooom and I were speculating about this. 

In Andromeda there is the supermassive black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy, and another one at the center of the Heleus cluster called Ketos. Ketos is specified by the game as "...believed to be a Kerr black hole approximately 12 stellar masses in size..." -- where the Kerr metric is specifically associated with theoretical discussions of wormholes. It was pointed out to me that, for a black hole of that size, the event horizon should be something like 30 kilometers wide: extremely tiny. And yet Ketos appears supermassive. We speculated that a dropped plot point of MEA for why it appears massive is that it may have been rooted in the accretion disk being made of eezo which is altering the mass -- the strange appearance of which might also have tied into the relationship we see with the Scourge (a rampant dark energy phenomenon full of mass-altering eezo) and Ketos: "Continued observation has shown interesting interactions between the black hole and the Scourge. There is evidence that some of the Scourge's mass is being drawn into the black hole, causing continued "currents" in the phenomenon. Our scientists have suggested that without the black hole, the Scourge phenomenon might have been even more hazardous."

("...believed to be a Kerr black hole..." struck me as a little odd since according to modern physics as I understand them, all real black holes are Kerr black holes, but that's beside the point.)

This is interesting to me in part because it accompanies codex entries on the Scourge:

"The Scourge is aggressively drawn to Remnant structures on planets, though the cause of the attraction is not yet fully understood. This manifests as further "tendrils" of dust and radioactive particulates that cling to the surface of Remnant technology and interfere with its operations. Either this matter was left behind after the planet in question passed through the Scourge itself, or even distant interactions with Remnant technology can cause the Scourge to coalesce spontaneously. In either case, even this minor manifestation of the Scourge demands additional caution when approaching Remnant sites."

"Her [Doctor Aridana ] models suggest the warp effect annihilated multiple planets, forming the debris in the Scourge's tendrils, while the resulting radiation converted much of that debris to element zero. As we have seen, the space-time warping effect continues on a micro scale within the Scourge to this day."

Space-time warping effect + Scourge coalescing spontaneously. To me this seems to be rooted in the idea of the Scourge as evidence of in-universe wormhole travel, a la how the Kett's use of Alcubierre drives also validates the use of wormholes in-universe even if it hasn't been proved IRL.

Re: the Alcubierre drive, a codex entry: "The few kett engine cores available for study show that while the kett use element zero cores, their design is radically different. While in comparatively short-range environments such as the Heleus Cluster they function similarly to Milky Way drives, kett drive cores are capable of gravitationally contracting space in front of the ship and shortening it behind, creating an Alcubierre waveform that allows the ship to traverse longer distances quickly. This design feature compensates somewhat for the lack of long-range mass relay transport in Andromeda, though these drives are highly inefficient by comparison."

This is significant IMO because the way FTL works for the Milky Way (per my understanding) is that they use Mass Effect drives to reduce the mass of a ship, which allows for higher rates of acceleration. Basically, gotta go fast. On the other hand, if the theoretical Alcubierre wavelength (which from what I can tell is synonymous with Alcubierre drive) is no longer theoretical in the Mass Effect universe, that means we have ships that are traveling at FTL speeds by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it. My understanding is that it means that travel in the contracted space ahead is superluminal, and travel in the space behind is subluminal -- in a way that is not done with the MW FTL tech. It contracts the distance between point A and point B. Which is, essentially, how a wormhole functions, if not a wormhole in practice. Which also means that, yes, it opens up the possibility of traversable wormholes existing in-universe, because effectively the theoretical mechanism to traverse them is no longer theoretical in-universe. The thing about the Alcubierre drives is that the metric of this form has significant difficulties because all known warp-drive spacetime theories violate various energy conditions. The Casimir effect is an offered solution to this, and it was specifically offered as a solution to arguments with other physicists regarding traversable wormholes, wherein the vacuum between parallel plates could fulfill the negative-energy requirement for the Alcubierre drive.

So my thought there is: they had a reason for bringing up and specifically naming the technology the Kett use as an Alcubierre. I'll concede that it doesn't ipso facto mean that wormholes exist, but I do think it's very strange that they would use something related specifically to the technology of traversable wormholes without there being, well, traversable wormholes.

My question, on thinking about this all, was how this might affect a black hole which is gathering "information" and apparently not letting it go.

The devs chose to make Ketos an uncharged black hole as far as I understand it, which is a little weird given what we know about the lore of element zero and how that effects mass -- but this isn't inherently lore-breaking, as Andromeda readily and widespreadedly establishes that Physics Ain't Working The Way It's Supposed To in MEA. The both of us felt that it definitely didn't seem like a simple artistic choice to make the black hole enormous. We figured that it was meant to serve an important plot point later on, as it would have been odd that that BioWare would have gone out of their way to give us the specific physical properties of the black hole and then give it a physically impossible appearance --BUT-- while we would of course certainly like to believe that it had some hitherto unknown plot relevance, it does bear keeping in mind that this sort of physics discrepancy is not an unheard-of occurrence in the OT. There are more than a few planets you can come across while exploring the MW that have physically impossible properties, according to another friend of mine who knows far more about planets and stars than I do. (Interestingly, we could theoretically lay that at the feet of whatever was happening with Haestrom in ME2, so not that's not exactly a theory-breaking observation in and of itself.)

There's some REALLY interesting stuff if you look at the Project Bowie concept art from Marco Iozzi (where Bowie is likely the codename for the next Mass Effect, which we can extrapolate from the file metadata from the 2022 N7 Day Teaser Trailer) which was reproduced very faithfully in the 2020 trailer, and which again shows that supermassive black hole in the Andromeda galaxy. There was also concept art titled "star explosion" of a star going supernova and then the appearance of what seems to be a black hole. u/kabbooooom also felt that there might have been tendrils that looked like the Scourge, and that within the black hole you could see stars -- which is what you'd expect of a worm hole.

The concept art in question:




You are absolutely free to take these observation and the concept arts as you will, and of course this does come with the inherent caveat that concept art is concept art.

But, with that said, it also interesting when you think about the Casimir Effect -- which showed that quantum field theory allows the energy density in certain regions of space to be negative relative to the ordinary matter vacuum energy, and it has been shown theoretically that quantum field theory allows states where energy can be arbitrarily negative at a given point. Quite a few theoreticians, including Stephen Hawking, argued that this effect could stabilize a wormhole, wherein negative energy would deflect radiation and repulse space-time apart from itself.

Ping Gao and Daniel Jafferis, in 2016, published a paper that, in effect, stated that "...the repulsive negative energy in the wormhole’s throat can be generated from the outside by a special quantum connection between the pair of black holes that form the wormhole’s two mouths. When the black holes are connected in the right way, something tossed into one will shimmy along the wormhole and, following certain events in the outside universe, exit the second." Emphasis: outside the wormhole.

I was also recently reading a paper on “Diving Into Traversable Wormholes" by Maldacena, Stanford and Yang which talks about black holes, the firewall of the event horizon, and the idea of both black hole interiors and where the information that passes into the black hole goes. The specifically talk about a 'parent black hole' and a 'daughter black hole,' the latter formed from half of the Hawking radiation given off by the parent as it evaporates, where the fate of the older black hole’s information is thought to worm its way out of the daughter black hole.

With these things in mind, if we revisit codex information on the Scourge: "Given the problems in observation and the Scourge's unaccounted effects on gravity, some have even suggested it is a dark energy phenomenon in the literal sense, meaning a form of energy that has no electromagnetic interaction and thus cannot be detected (hence "dark"), yet has strong negative pressure, causing expansive effects on a cosmic scale." -- aka, the game quite literally plays with the existence of negative energy re: the Scourge. Negative energy, outside the supermassive black hole, that is being drawn into the supermassive black hole, and which ultimately has to go somewhere. I know it is a matter of debate in theoretical physics on whether or not this information disappears with a black hole or if it goes somewhere after the black hole has ceased to be.

There's something else re: the supermassive black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy, which (as I have been informed) is about 140 million stellar masses, that is interesting. And that's the fact that we have evidence of remtech (and therefore the Jardaan) (and therefore [this is speculation] possibly the Opposition, and possibly the weapon that created the Scourge) existing outside the Heleus cluster, and which imo gives us possible hints of Scourge-like disasters elsewhere:

+ We can find a kett datapad that marks a Codex entry entitled "Secret Intelligence" that Dr. Aden translates where it speaks of a possible kett homeworld called Sarhesen, and a mysterious  [event, disaster] that happened there: "Kett home space is vast. Charts I downloaded showed so many worlds in the "heartlands" alone - centered on their home planet, Sarhesen. Some [term unclear: possibly event/disaster] happened there? No details, definitely a touchy secret."

+ In that same datapad, there is a reference to an exalted race, the Thusuli, who worshiped the remnant tech. Why they would worship the remnant tech, in the context of the mysterious Jardaan and the Archon's obsession with finding out more about the remnant, is curious to me. It may not have been the intention of the writers to convey this, as they may have mostly been focusing on the kett's cultural imperative to improve at the biological level, and the potential of Meridian and its tech to accelerate kett technologies in this respect, but I wonder... It potentially reinforces the idea that Heleus isn't the first system that the Jardaan have been active in.

What I've speculated is that there may be widespread Scourge events throughout Andromeda, which could certainly impact the black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy. This also calls to mind theories of quantum theories of entanglement [canon in the games, actually observed irl] and also quantum theories of teleportation, and how that fits into the ideas of traversable wormholes and connection the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies.

Again, this stems from an admittedly limited understanding of the concepts. But it's interesting nevertheless.

EDIT: if anyone knows who u/kabbooooomn is here on BSN (I think they are on the BSN) I'd love to tag them.

Exactly.

Well said sirs, well said.

Michael Gamble @gamblemike
EP, Art Director, Creative Director, Game Director are all trilogy vets.

Well, Gamble absolutely cannot be worse that the shitshow of Hudson/Walters.

Here to hoping for the best!

A kindly ME fan just gave me a heads-up that the Mass Effect Cocktail Book has a few new preview pages...
www.amazon.ca/Mass-Effect-Official-Cocktail-Book/dp/1647229995

A quick bit of an interview with Jennifer Hale, mostly what I think is a snippet about Shepard's return in the next Mass Effect game.

www.dexerto.com/gaming/will-commander-shepard-return-in-mass-effect-2661293/

MrHulthen @mrhulthen
🧐



Kala Elizabeth @kalaelizabeth
Gamble liked this tweet. SUS 🤔

BioWare @bioware
Thank you to our incredible #MassEffect community for embracing Commander Shepard’s saga and making the last three years truly #Legendary. Here’s to many more years and an exciting future among the stars! 💫🚀



3 years already?

If they had said 1 year, I probably wouldn't have even batted an eye.

Played for nigh on a year straight so only two years really. 

Can't just be Shepard, every NPC even cloned dead ones 6 months post ending fired through a Geth Built Faster than Light Mass Relay into the Andromeda system to square off with The Kett and then their overlords Leviathan. 

So a low base to go from (I don't actually believe that) and it can only be a success for Shep and crew and Rupert bringing his food to a new galaxy.  The Vortex needs some food so Shep can endorse it as his favourite food and beverage in the Andromeda Galaxy. 

shinobi602 comment on reset era forum

Poster: Do you think Mass Effect will be made regardless of how Dreadwolf does, or will Dreadwolf impact whether ME goes forward?
Shinobi: I think there will undoubtedly be an effect if Dreadwolf doesn't meet sales expectations. Just the nature of the business sadly. Whether it completely stops ME, I'm not sure.