>this also seems to suggest that a ship in an Alcubierre bubble would be blind and unable to actually steer. I don't know if the bubble itself would decay (poss

>this also seems to suggest that a ship in an Alcubierre bubble would be blind and unable to actually steer. I don't know if the bubble itself would decay (possible due to collisions with interstellar matter or some inherent instability) or would have to be collapsed from the outside. If the latter, then you need an existing infrastructure of stargate-like things already in place (either moved by conventional means or constructed) and just have to hope they're working and where you're aiming when you set off. I'm not sure even having stargates/mass relays would be enough if the bit about collected stray particles turning into omni-directional death-rays upon exiting the bubble is true. You'd need to somehow actually carve a clear path in space-time between any two points. Alternatively, you might be able to create some sort of limiter and only do "short" hops that limit how much energy gets ejected upon exiting. If you're building up energy inside the bubble though, wouldn't it be putting some kind of strain or pressure on whatever has to maintain the bubble? Seems like that alone would create an upper limit on how much you can "charge" it up.