Interstellar, Relativity, and a Mass Effect 4 Wish

I’m not a theoretical physicist, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.  I did however recently watch Interstellar (finally), and much like Doc Brown’s flux capacitor moment (sans the epic porcelain concussion), the gamer in me suddenly became overwhelmed with an idea: combining the theory of relativity with Mass Effect 4. BioWare, this product suggestion’s for you!

Let me get an important admin note out of the way here first: this is an Interstellar spoiler-free zone.  If you haven’t watched it yet, you need to – especially if you like sci-fi.  With that out of the way, let’s get down to business.

From a science perspective, Interstellar got a lot of things right in the film, like how there’s no actual sound in space.  Remember watching Star Wars as a kid when the Death Star blows up, and you blew out an ear drum from the cosmic explosion?  Yeah, that wouldn’t happen, but I can’t remember the last film to actually get that right.

What they also got right was relativity, hence the reason behind this entire blog post and Mass Effect 4 product suggestion.  Since I don’t want to bore everyone with the quantum mechanical equations my BA in Political Science endowed me with, let me just talk layman’s terms: when one travels near or at the speed of light, those travelling will not age as quickly as those they left behind.  Interstellar nailed this, but much like the death star kaboom above, not many films or shows ever get this right.  So, why can’t we start with Mass Effect 4?

How awesome would this be: as you traverse the galaxy as Commander Shepherd’s successor, what if BioWare implemented some basic relativity gameplay elements which forced players to make decisions on which planets to visit, how long they should stay, and what planets to return to/go to next since rapid aging would then be in effect?  How cool would it be to return to Planet X and see the great grandchildren of the key NPC you last met there?  Am I the only one who thinks that would be an awesome element?  And who else than BioWare could pull this off perfectly?  No one.

Casey, the other Mass Effect-fanatic and co-founder here at LFG, supplemented this ME4 product idea this morning with an even better idea: applying relativity to an entire MMORPG.  SWTOR anyone?

We’d love to hear your thoughts below on this Mass Effect 4 game play idea!  And of course, if you are friends with anyone on BioWare’s Mass Effect team, feel free to pass this product suggestion along!

Thanks for stopping by LFG!