China's War on Time Travel (and Space Travel, and Transporters) or How 'What if?' becomes 'Uh-oh."

China's latest shtick seems to be putting sci fi writers and scientists out of business, or at least making them look like fools for continuing down a futile (and dangerous?) path.

Hong Kong University scientists claim that photons can not travel faster than light, so therefore time travel as well as FTL (faster than light) or super-luminous travel is impossible.

"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website...

"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."

The Battlestar Galactica engages their FTL drive at the last moment

Their findings seem pretty closed-minded and absolute, especially considering the human will to overcome the seemingly insurmountable.  If their theory were to be a fact, it would mean the end of humans traveling through space, exploring the galaxy before it has even begun...not to mention it stands to reason no one will get to say, "Beam me up, Scotty."

A paranoid person might think that they've released these "findings" in order to dissuade others from pursuing this technology that they either already have in some capacity or are endeavouring to acquire.
Instead, I feel they just hate the ramifications of what time travel could pose to the dreamers in China.

In April, it was revealed that China wants to "discourage" (ban) all time travel stories.



I guess River Song has more than "spoilers" to worry about.

 Those "freedom-loving" People's Republic enforcers decided that:


"The time-travel drama is becoming a hot theme for TV and films," it says. "But its content and the exaggerated performance style are questionable......and they, "lack positive thoughts and meaning."

When someone mentions positive thoughts, the first people I think of are always the Chinese government.

The article also describes how TV there has recently shown an increase in time-travel stories that illustrate better times in China for her people.  This is the heart of the issue.  If you see characters from ancient China, or even from not that long ago living in freedom without government regulations and re-education camps strangling your individuality and potential out of you-- a completely unqualified, red-tape-free existence--you will not look at your daily drudgery or servitude to the state in the same way.  You'll think about not only the past--but the future--and what could be for you, your family, and the future of your nation.  In short, the government loses your hearts (and with that, the minds are soon to follow).

With this theory, science fiction, the genre that asks "what if?" becomes an enemy of the Chinese government with all its dreaming and postulating, musings on humanity and historical references to give perspective.  You can't legislate, persecute, re-educate, or scare away the dreamers from any society.  As long as human hearts beat, there will be dreamers and thinkers who remind us there's more to life than the mere moment we are in.

We better find out the Chinese translation for 'uh-oh', or that simple WWII repsponse, 'Nuts'.