IXION - Vohle Engine Test Jump (chronological order)

The first jump of Tiqqun with cutscenes in chronological order.

[eagflc]

"Jump was a success Captain, but the Moon was destroyed in the process."

"That sounds like a Their problem rather than Our problem."

[mrsupremegascon]

PRANK - I AM TESTING A VOHLE ENGINE NEXT TO THE MOON (gone wrong)

[theonefrancis]

The Lunaclysm was honestly the last thing I would have expected. Truly an amazing twist.

[cmdrblade]

KEY TIP: Never test an FTL jump adjacent to a planetary body

[viridian_nights]

That opening speech actually brought me to tears. A really incredible performance and it hits something in me that I find very moving.

Congratulations to the writers and the actor

[gownerjones]

As a mathematically inclined person and a huge science fiction nerd, the VOHLE engine really scratches my future technology itch perfectly. It's never really explained what the engine does but since they use the terms self-similar space and self-similar traversal, I'm imagining Dolos found a way to somehow manipulate the geometry of spacetime mathematically.

Self-similarity is a property of fractal objects. It means that the shape of the entire object is repeated infinitely at different scales within the shape itself. When you have a fractal object, you can choose any subset of points of the object and find a similar arrangement of points elsewhere in it, scaled down and rotated in some way. Similar, in this case, is a mathematical term that describes two objects that have the same shape but may differ in rotation and scale. You may have heard of similar triangles in school, where all the angles are the same but the second triangle may be rotated by an angle or bigger or smaller than the original.

Self-similar space suggests that the VOHLE engine does some sort of mathematical operation on spacetime to fractalize it. The pathway to a distant star is extremely long in our universe but a fractal universe is self-similar, so there is an infinite number of copies of the universe within the universe. Reaching the destination star is then just a matter of plotting a course to the nearest self-similar copy of the star you want to go to which may reduce the effective distance you need to travel. Depending on the type of fractalization used, it could imply that the distance is reduced or it could imply that you don't even need to move. Your destination could effectively come to you.

I imagine there is some sort of mapping function at work that can map your self-similar location in the fractal universe to the unique point in space in the real world that it corresponds to. This is a process called "unfolding" a fractal.

As far as my limited mathematical knowledge takes me, I am guessing the VOHLE engine first folds the universe into a fractal, then the ship moves to a different location, then it unfolds the fractal back into the universe's real shape.

[calencor]

this scene encapsulates 'that escalated quickly' in such an in your face way. playing the game blindly and was so optimistic at the start, I thought the trouble with the colony ship was that it was because it jumped into unknown space then this thing happened and I just feel so sad that we destroyed the moon(and earth as a result) in the process of trying to find a solution to our survival.

[nicz]

Can we agree that his speech is just incredible. I had gosebumps the entire time watching this

[olegoleg]

When the AI talks after the jump, the musical shift, the way it's voice slowly becomes like static as it lists the hopeless situation, the creative team really did well on that part, or rather the entire game honestly in terms of presentation

[TheBiohazard]

This is one of the more interesting and unique interstellar jump ideas I've seen.

[senstiv]

I haven't seen the trailer before I played the game. This scene hit me so hard I had to collect my jaw from the floor. Not going to lie I think this is the second greatest cinematographic masterpiece after 'Tears in Rain' from the original Blade Runner. Everything just fits and dances like in a musical. So great.

[HonkusPonkus]

Just started and got to this scene. Was really confused about jumping right over the moon. My concerns were justified...

[maximpikalev]

that is beautiful.
there's so many different visual effects for all kinds of warp/FTL drives in all kinds of different media, and almost every one is unique in some way. this one's definitely one of the best

[dreacul]

The speech really got me hyped, I resonated with it, then I saw Earth DEAD. I never felt so quiet after a scene in my whole life. Made me so sad seeing Earth dead, my eyes got wet.

[uffle]

the vohle jumps cause the tiqqun to appear in a different universe after each jump, which is why we can find other ships (protagoras, etemenanki, and the piranesi) when the tiqque was supposedly a prototype test jump

[vlasov]

I just loved that this game got me the same vibes I got when playing Homeworld for the first time, after the Kushan race unite after centuries of civil war to build a mothership to get to their true Homeworld, and they make all this huge effort to get everyone into stasis, and that girl makes the ultimate sacrifice to fuse her brain with the mothership, just to get most people's capsules destroyed in the blink of an eye by some interstellar empire they didn't have a clue It existed. That was so amazingly heartbraking but weirdly inspiring at the same time because the kushan are wit, brave and resourceful, just as humanity in Ixion. Amazing, a true epic journey of survival

[omslaw]

It's so funny because they introduce this epic thing and proceed to epic failing the test jump.

[mingiasi]

Btw if you pay attention the first and subsequent jump animations are not the same. you can see the moon impact on first as hue on the jump movement.

[jedrzejkoszewski]

That catastrophe at the begining makes a lot of sense. Scientists probably focused on VOHLE engine working and not killing the crew and forgot about vincinity of the ship. For safety they didn't launch it from Earth but from the Moon. Lastly the Moon was probably a great background for such launch so pr team and maybe even CEO were probably vocal about using it as one.

[mapelianbutton]

Ah, humanity. Must we destroy everything we touch lol