Time is probably the limiting factor. Time is not a unit of measurement, it is a scope of perception. The human scope of time is basically nonexistent; humans are only able to perceive the present, so we use documentation to extend our comprehension of time. Furthermore Susan, the amount of time humans have documented is basically meaningless in the grand scale of the universe. Therefor, there is no reason that intelligent life doesn't already exist somewhere beyond humanity's limited scope of time. Other forms of intelligent life could even have a greater perception of time, being able to perceive the future or the past, in addition to the present. Maybe they're even able to perceive enough of our "human" future to see that intelligent life on earth won't exist long enough to reach where the others are located in time so they don't even contact us.
Functionality:
The main character/characters have a visible field of view. Inside the f.o.v., the game's time scale is constant. Outside of the f.o.v., the time scale is faster/slower. I guess I'm brainstorming lol, probably could've commented in the other thread. woops
I think this is a fascinating idea and I'm imagining the main character as a starship. And when/if you hop out, FOV/time change.
Love the idea of exploring different scales and perception of time, as well. Very fun idea and when we're talking about exploring something the size of our universe, time is definitely one of the biggest limiting factors so it's neat to play with that and imagine how other intelligent life might perceive the flow and "problem" of time as well.
the player starts in a spaceship traveling at the speed of light. he or she will reach their destination in 1 minute and the game will end lol. However landing on a planet and exiting the spaceship will change the speed to "normal", allowing them to interact with the environment of the planet and the characters there. However, the story occurs on multiple planets, so the player needs to return to light speed travel to go from planet to planet continuing to the next checkpoint. Because he or she is moving so quickly, and the checkpoints require discovery, it is possible the player will travel past the correct stops and quest events, reaching their destination and ending the game. It's a balancing act between traveling at light speed and normal speed, because sometimes life moves so quickly, its important we remember to stop and smell the roses every once in while.
I totally don't get it. By traveling at "the speed of light" you would either be moving at relativistic speeds or in stasis. That is the generally accepted theory, and maybe it's just an alien-perpetrated conspiracy, but the hypothetical result is that the universe around you ages a lot faster than you do, things move fast, your ship can only survive so many micrometeorite collisions, etc. So basically you wouldn't be going anywhere near 5000 lightyears and all the life you'd encounter would probably live on near-human timescales. The only real differences would be body plan and societal development, so it would just be bizarro worlds like in the documentary Alien Planet. And that's as far as my perception goes. It's space. It's Star Wars.
realistically, no vessel could travel at the speed of light because it'd change into energy, good news is you wouldn't have to worry about colliding with any meteorites because they'd disintegrate. The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second, so supposedly one could traverse great distances in space if one where able to construct some kind of vessel able to withstand the energy of a nuclear explosion. Sure, theoretically you'd be moving at relativistic speed unless you were in some kind of stasis, however that's really just a theory, no one knows what happens to a person moving at the speed of light. According to D.C., a person's molecules would move so fast, they'd travel through solid matter lol. The point is, if you stayed alive somehow, you'd be in the future. It might seem like science fiction, however there's plenty of real world examples on earth of creatures living in different time scales. For example, one human year is 7 dog years. It's actually kind of similar to how pixel art resolution works. At the correct resolution, all pixels are visible. However at a smaller resolution, some pixels will blend together and you wouldn't see all the pixels. A dogs perception of time is similar. Flash a light fast enough at a dogs face and it won't perceive the flashing(please don't), the dog will instead see a solid light, because of the difference in time scale. This real world application could be applied to universal travel. Traveling at different speeds may not change the time scale to the individual moving because of relativity, however it is because of relativity that it would allow a person to move through time at a different speed than everyone on earth. One could travel to somewhere in the galaxy, colonize a planet, start another human race and have experienced more time on the colony planet than a person who recently arrived on the colony planet from earth, because the time the next person spent traveling from the original earth to the colony planet was at light speed. Then one could conceivably convince the new arrival that the original earth was actually derivative of the colony planet. Woah. However, why even mess with building a spaceship, theoretically a black hole will transport someone anywhere in the space-time continuum instantly. That's how i stay young lol. Anyway, it's all theories, even the theory of relativity. I vote bring back the aether-wind.