Understood Cogito. I'm sorry. I didn't really understand what you were trying to say in your previous post.
It might simply look like the person entering the wormhole was receding from the observer. Like he was travelling down some kind of tunnel (from the point of view of someone standing to the left or right of the entrance, it would seem like the traveller disappeared as he entered the wormhole).
If light is accelerated as well as matter, the entrance would look completely black. Depending on whether there is a flat boundary or a transition layer, the persons would either vanish into blackness (like walking into te surface of crude oil), or would appear to stretch across the transition layer and into blackness. Alternately, there simply may be a distorted view of the world on the other side of the opening. People going through would simply appear distorted as they pass through the entrance. Also, decide if the gateway is bidirectional. The black version would almost certainly be unidirectional, the distorted view version is most likely bidirectional. I don't want to go into depth about why here, but you should be able to think it through. (The Stargate wormhole is a bit of a cheat. It should not be possible for radio communication to pass in the opposite direction of the unidirectional wormhole, but it was a compromise for the sake of the stories)
You could make them unidirectional, that could be a good idea. Then you'd have to open them specifically depending on which way you were going. That would also create an interesting obstacle--a person (or alien) would have to plan on staying for a while wherever he was going, unless there was an immediate way to create an opposite-direction wormhole. In this case, light would go through the wormhole as well. The entrance would be black, the exit white. There is a theory that every black hole has a white hole somewhere, like the other end of the tunnel: everything that goes into the black end comes up the white hole, albeit in a different form than when it came in. Most scientists today doubt this theory, but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting for science fiction. And even if your wormholes don't suck things in like black holes, they would still receive light.
My first thought was to try and describe this "wormhole" as a rubber band. Something that stretches in time and space then snaps back. What I would suggest is take a single page and just work out the mechanics for the "wormhole". The first question for me is how these wormholes are constructed. Is it pure energy, is there a mechanical component that allows them to form or are they somehow naturally occurring or honed and controlled? Work out the science behind it in greater detail, you don't have to put any of it in your actual story but it will give you greater incite into describing its functions and how it will be perceived but people. Also, would the aliens experience it in a much different manner? Are there sensory inputs the same as humans? For example, since they live in a different galaxy do they see a different visual spectrum? Can they actually see the wormholes all the time and do humans only see them when they are actively depositing something to its destination? These are all things that must be answered before you can put them into your story.
I don't entirely agree. The writer needs to define the observable behavior of the wormhole to the degree it impinges on the story, but should avoid the temptation to resort to technobabble.
Whenever I'm reading science fiction I don't particularity like reading the 'techno-babble', so I definitely understand that point. But I do think that any science fiction writing needs to be highly detailed in its concepts regardless if any of it is actually used in the writing of the story. This "Line" that pzi2 is trying to describe. How would it look to humans and how can the experience to a human be described? Before that question can be answered, the writer has to know the origin of the line? If the aliens created it, how did they create it? Was it something natural they harnessed or is it a completely mechanical device? Also what allowed the aliens to use these lines? How did they come to require the need to use them? If the aliens are on another world how does their world differ from Earth and what kind of sensory input differences would they have? Maybe these "lines" have a completely different effect on humans because of the biological make up. All those questions can be answered but none of them have to be used in the story. I think pzi2 is having trouble finding a way to describe the 'lines' because he hasn't thought about the science or influences such a mechanism would have on other aspects of the alien/human societies.
Actually I thought his description wasn't too far off. I've played Forged Alliance (the game that picture came from) and that was one of the first images that came to my mind, though that may simply be from our own common background. The readers in this case may be lost without having that same background. I would recommend something like "A line cut across the sky, opening up like bedsheets slashed with a blade. The rift warped and expanded, nauseating colors squirming at its edges. From within this hole in the sky, forms could be seen, becoming clearer as they emerged. What first looked like creatures, clarified into vessels, each opening upon contact with the ground, and ranked legions in strange armor marched forward onto Russian soil." I embellished a bit, but that's how I would have imagined it. Just make sure your idea is clear and explains the points that the reader needs to know.
If you're writing a hard science work, you need to research heavily to make it as believable as possible. Then, all the geeks who are really into that sort of thing will ooh and ah over it and inspire the not-so geeky ones who may simply enjoy the great story to do the same in an attempt to feign appreciation. Seriously though, you could also go the Star Wars/Trek route which is somewhat sound scientifically (especially in the case of Trek) but doesn't attempt to be spot on with the geeks. What would you describe a transporter's effect to look like? There's a few different versions in each of the show's transformations over the years, but I doubt any of them are 100% accurate, if such a thing is even possible. Use your imagination. This is obviously a work of fiction, so depending on how realistic you're trying to make your story, bend the truth a bit to make it tasty. And as far as naming goes, it's aesthetics, but you must remember that you have to describe things from the point of view of the person who is doing the presenting. So if it's a Russian, then it will be with the views, expectations and beliefs of a Russian of that time period. An alien, on the other hand, might have vision that is sensitive to different light spectrum or types of radiations that aren't visible to humans and their views (both literal and cultural) would be different. Whatever you choose, however, consistency will be key. As for the tanks, I would personally describe it as the entire army suddenly sprouting metal wings honed razor-shop and slicing through the enemy. But that's just me.
