Creative Use of Black Holes

[dmm]

Some ideas to spice up those boring black holes!

1) Some people have requested controllable warp points. Perhaps black holes could serve this purpose. (There is even serious speculation from cosmologists to back this up.) Add a "singularity drive" tech tree that allows specially-equipped ships to get sucked into a black hole, and then spit out again somewhere else in the galaxy. Initially, they'd be damaged badly and the reentry point would be random. As research progressed, the damage would lessen and control of reentry would increase. Thus, a black hole system would actually be very valuable later in the game, and you'd have to think twice about using it as a border defense.

2) Or, instead of warping space, maybe they warp time. How about traveling into the future and bringing back technology? This should be expensive, unpredictable, and have a high death rate, but it sounds like fun! Maybe the result of a successful time travel could be an "artifact" with a use that is unknown until a specific tech is researched. Then, part way through the research, the scientists/engineers say, "Oh, that's what that artifact is." And the research turns out to be a lot cheaper than it would normally have been. This would encourage multiple time travel attempts, each with its attendant waste and human suffering -- but all for the greater good, so it's OK. ;-)

3) And to insure that some poor geeky dictator doesn't get left out, maybe there could be a way to purposely make large stars go nova and turn into black holes (destroying everything in the system of course). You'd have to control the system _totally_ throughout the process -- the slightest disruption would result in a worthless neutron star, or a nebula, or just some asteroid fields, or something like that.