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The Settings: In a collaborative project with my friend, we develops mix of science fiction and fantasy setting together. We develops a world on which the whole planet was one sentient being. Mainly the planet itself is intelligent, harnessing energy from radiaton decays on its core. It later realizes that life emerged on its surface, and altering its atmosphere and geological condition to evolve life in the way it could utilize the life as additional computing power and awareness. In that world, life on the surface develops swarm intelligence, as the whole plants and animals interact in the way that each individuals unaware of higher intelligence they were a part of (sort like an ant wouldn't aware of the whole colony's intelligent behaviour).

Here is the problem, as I practically doing all in science part of the world, while my friend doing all of them in magical part. We went to some disagreement, and as he's the one that proposes this joint work, I tried to respect his desire.

At first we worked on system that allows the planetary intelligence to 'grant' a sufficiently intelligent species to control some aspect of the world (like, creating winds, cast lightning, etc, in a similar manner that's covered on this question. Basically I put some rational explanation over his magical view). Well, that's all acceptable. But one day, he makes his "avatar" (well, his character in the story) bend space-time using privileges the planet granted on his character. And I have to find workaround, a solution to make it possible (duh)

The Question: Is it possible for planetary intelligence to bend space-time? I mean, by developing some sort of warp organs or whatever. Is it possible? How would the planet evolve that kind of organ if possible? What would be evolutionary advantage (for the planetary intelligence) of having such space-time bending ability?

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Hendrik Lie
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  • Well, are we bending it a little or a lot? – Serban Tanasa Mar 28 '15 at 16:04
  • @Hendrik: simply by existing you are bending space time so forget about giving your planet a brain or a kidney, I recommend thicker skin the largest organ at least for human. However be warned if an object become massive enough it will bend space time so much the escape velocity will exceed speed of light resulting in a black hole. – user6760 Mar 28 '15 at 16:24
  • well, let us make it on small scale, @SerbanTanasa . I just tried to be as realistic as possible, but two heads never come in the same term forever (we had made it canon though x_x) – Hendrik Lie Mar 28 '15 at 16:32
  • And @user6760, the mass of the planet will not magically increased, for sure. It will remain on earth-like size and mass, I would not allow such that drastic deviation, heheh :p – Hendrik Lie Mar 28 '15 at 16:32
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    What exactly do you mean by "bend space time"? Time travel? Teleportation? Changed gravity? Moving the whole planet through space? – Tim B Mar 28 '15 at 16:34
  • @TimB I was assuming light gravity play. :) – Serban Tanasa Mar 28 '15 at 16:36
  • he creates a spatial hole to demonstrate the mother nature's power, he helped my (sci-fi) character to simulate a small spatial anomaly, to fix a (surprise!) multi-dimensional craft (we named it versecraft) @TimB. So, I guess it doesn't need to be in large area of effect. – Hendrik Lie Mar 28 '15 at 16:37
  • He actually tried to demonstrate time-travel possibility, but I tried to hinder his attempt from doing so (phew), because if he did, I'll have much larger burden on explaining it. He's quite new on sci-fi setting actually, spending most of his time on fantasy-genred world. It's not entirely his fault though, heheh. – Hendrik Lie Mar 28 '15 at 16:39
  • Stanislaw Lem's Solaris uses the same setup. He goes to great lengths to explain what the planet does, but not how. The morale of the story is that, although we know Solaris is intelligent due to the advanced physics tricks it performs, we cannot communicate with it (and it cannot communicate with us) because our intelligences and base concepts are too different. – SJuan76 Mar 28 '15 at 19:26
  • Yes, and because it bothers me so much, that's why I asked this question, to understand the how part of it @SJuan76 – Hendrik Lie Mar 28 '15 at 19:49
  • Can you clarify what you mean by the science-based tag? There is only one currently known way to bend spacetime, and that is gravity caused by mass (or at least a rapid emission of gravitons or something kooky like that) – Cort Ammon Mar 29 '15 at 00:50
  • And as an aside to your question, in my study, the harmony required to create a system well-described as a "living planet" with swarm mentality is at odds with the idea of "granting abilities." Granting abilities is a blank check approach which provably falls apart in the presence of selfishness. As an alternative, consider that it lends power to the individuals to help them call lightening or create wind, but not an absolute guarantee. If the planet needs all of its energy to stem some space-bending containment leak, it will not yield the power to an individual wanting to do lightening. – Cort Ammon Mar 29 '15 at 00:53
  • It may guarantee that it will strive to allow an individual to do lightening. You may go through an entire story without it ever failing to do so on command. However, when you add the guarantee that "you shall always be able to emit lightening, no matter what else is going on," it breaks down the structure that makes living planets function, and turns them more into a planet like ours with fractured individuals mulling around on its surface, rather than integrated with it. – Cort Ammon Mar 29 '15 at 00:54
  • It also rapidly leads to "can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it" scenarios that you really don't need. – Cort Ammon Mar 29 '15 at 00:55
  • @CortAmmon well, his character is some kind of planetary intelligence's extension, created as an avatar to help the planet to perceive surface life, like, you know, you can't see your own cell. Then imagine you send a probe to your own body. – Hendrik Lie Mar 29 '15 at 05:37
  • I use science-based because I have no idea what else to use for pseudo-science – Hendrik Lie Mar 29 '15 at 05:42
  • Come on, everything is possible when You have undefined magic system in Your world : ) – Maciej Jul 28 '17 at 08:33

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As we currently understand it, the "bending of space time" is directly related to mass (and, in Newtonian mechanics, was known as Gravity *).

So, the only possibility of voluntarily "bending space-time" would be creating massive (in other words, super dense) chunks of matter. However, as user6760 pointed out, it has some hard limits (getting to matter so dense that it becomes a black-hole) and other "softer" limits (that kind of density is obtained with the gravitatory attraction of big stars, so it is hard to imagine a being capable of a similar force).

That said, my advice would be not to overthink the "science" part. You are not submitting a paper to an academic journal, you are writting an story for fun. So, you are setting an artifical environment for the actual story to happen (v.g., a planet where, every hour, you see a "flash" of the situation in the next ten minutes, or whatever you like).

You can:

  • Explain it with "future science" ("as explained by SJuan76 in 2094 in his Nobel winning theory") or "obscure science" ("as Einstein had predicted in a sheldom mentioned article...").

  • Just state that it is not known how it works, and the best minds are studying the phenomena.

  • Just don't mention the cause.

What it is more important to the world is for the effects to be coherent. If in your world, every Sunday it rains cows from the sky, make it so and explain how people are dealing with that. And, if the heroes are in a complicated situtation, do not make the main character explain that by doing X or Y, it will not rain cows but pigs (which, for a happy coincidence, is precisely what the party needs at that same instance).

*) Of course, Newtonian gravity did not explain bending of the light, which is why "space time bending" is more precise.

SJuan76
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As the accepted answer by SJuan76 and comments state

As we currently understand it, the "bending of space time" is directly related to mass (and, in Newtonian mechanics, was known as Gravity

Whilst this is true, it is not quite true. As everyone has seen a million times. Mass is related to energy by E = mc^2 and so a large enough energy at a single point could "bend"* space. Ways to achieve this amount of energy are numerable and hypothetical. As an exmaple; zero-point energy. Absolute zero at -273.15c is the lowest internal energy an atom can have. So theoretically if you are at room temperature of 25c, then there is almost 300c of potential energy around you at any time (celcius is not an actual direct measurement of energy).

Also, I see that you and others are throwing around the term space-time, but perhaps you want to stay clear of it in your story as it isn't a real thing per se. It is a concept to unite the 3 dimensions of space and time, just to solve a few (important) equations. - And if Albert Einstein doesn't exist in this imaginary world, then neither would the concept of space-time. Bending space is enough to describe the process.

*Only bent from our perspective of it.

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