Alternatives to jump or stutterwarp in your TU

[TKalbfus]

Instead, I'm building on a comment made in an earlier post about different methods of FTL travel. I see no reason why there can't be co-existing FTL technologies, each derivative of the peculiarities of the species that developed them.

The reason is for believability. I doubt that we'll ever have a convieniant FTL technology that can whiz us to the stars in a matter or weeks. Having one FTL technology is unlikely enough, having more than one is even more unlikely. Traveller tries to be a fairly realistic setting while remaining a space opera. Compare Traveller to Star Wars for example.
In fact, I don’t see any reason why FTL types are progressed through as technology increases. I’ve always had a problem with the tech tables as being 100 years per advanced TL, while the 20th Century occupies 3 or 4 TL alone. I think history shows that technological advancement progresses at a rate by which the time between each benchmark advance decreases. Heck, already the tech of the 70s and the future predictions that existed then have been blown away in a lot of ways.

The Tech Tables have been revised for T20. In the old CT they were thus.
Tech Level
0: Stone age
1: Bronze age to middle ages
2: 14th to 17th centuries
3: 1700 to 1860
4: 1860 to 1900
5: 1900 to 1940
6: 1940 to 1970
7: 1970 to 1980
8: 1980 to 1990
9: 1990 to 2000
A: Interstellar community
According to this table we should be at Tech Level A. The T20 Tech table keeps tech levels up through 6 the same, but continues this way:
Tech Level
7: 1970 to 1990
8: 1990 to 2100
9: 2100+
A: Early Interstellar

 

[TKalbfus]

One alternative to the Jump Drive is to have stargates carried onboard spaceships. One end of the stargate is onboard a space ship while the other is left at the home base. Artificial gravity is not need onboard the space ship, because the ship doesn't need to have a crew until it reaches its destination, it can be piloted from the home base since the starship allows instantaneous communication between the homebase at the spaceship. Likewise the spaceship doesn't need a reactionless maneuver drive, a simple Hydrogen/Oxygen rocket will do. Hydrogen gas and oxygen gas is piped through the stargate and fed directly into the rocket combustion chamber and expelled out the back of the rocket nozzle. Accelerations in the 1 to 6 G range can be achieve easily with conventional rocket technology and the ship doesn't even need a fuel tank as it gets its fuel through the stargate. The ship itself travels slower than the speed of light, but it comes very close to light speed itself during the course of the journey, and of course there are plenty of fuel tanks at the home base so it never runs out of fuel, and this is fuel that the rocket ship doesn't have to carry.
Stargates are artificial wormholes and as such, the faster the spaceship goes the faster it travels into the future. The spaceship can travel 4.4 light years in 2 years due to the effects of relativity. So the crew waits 2 years and then can step through the stargate and arrive 2 years in the future to explore the planet and then step back through the stargate and return to the present. So long as the ship with stargate does not return to base there is no possibility of a time paradox.

 

[Uncle Bob]

That's a classic, Tom, but I think what you call a "stargate" is properly a "stable wormhole."

There is no time paradox as long as it is one way only, but once you try building up a network for commerce you get time paradoxes all over. It is a nightmare for theoretical physicists, and most attempts to explain it or resolve the paradoxes sound like theology.

This is the other type of real FTL. I prefer Alcubierre's warp because it doesn't have time paradoxes.

 

[TKalbfus]

That's a classic, Tom, but I think what you call a "stargate" is properly a "stable wormhole."

There is no time paradox as long as it is one way only, but once you try building up a network for commerce you get time paradoxes all over. It is a nightmare for theoretical physicists, and most attempts to explain it or resolve the paradoxes sound like theology.

This is the other type of real FTL. I prefer Alcubierre's warp because it doesn't have time paradoxes.


Stephen Hawking had a solution for this, although its not perfect it might work for a Traveller game setting. Its simply this. If its possible for a single photon traveling at the speed of light to pass through the wormhole and return to the other end of the wormhole through normal space and reenter the wormhole again at the same time that it originally started it journey, it will build on itself infinitely or until enough photons pass though the wormhole to destroy it. The result is an explosion that destroys the worm hole if the two ends are brought close enough together for a time paradox to occur. Space is filled with photons, even the lowest energy photon will build on itself to destroy the wormhole in no time at all. So long as the original photon can't make it back to the original wormhole opening at the same time it entered this cannot happen, so it makes a perfectly suitable FTL system so long as your careful about keeping the wormholes at least the proper minimum distance from each other. This works with multiple networks of wormholes too. Careful planning is required in building wormhole networks so no single photon can retrace its path in a closed time loop. Generally this wormhole network has a point of origin such as Earth where are the wormhole spacships are launched. This point is furthest in the past or in the present. Due to the effects of relativity the colonists can begin colonizing other planets even before the wormhole starships have reached their destination, Since they would only have to wait as long as the starship crew would have from the crew's perspective. Its possible for these spaceships to reach a distance of hundreds or thousands of light years in the span of only 10 years back on Earth. Of course the far ends of each wormhole would also be hundreds or thousands of years in the future, but since the light from the Earth of this future cannot reach the colonies in time to still contain information about Earth's future, this does not matter. There are some terraforming possibilities here. Suppose you wanted to colonize a planet in the distant Andromeda Galaxy, this galaxy is about 3 million light years away. Which is the minimu amount of time it would take such a starship to get their. If you send an fast precursor starship there with genetic material to seed the target planet and then destroyed the first worm hole, you could follow this up with another wormhole starship which accelerates more slowly, it would arrive at its destination three thousand years later in the future or take 0.1% longer to get there. For the waiting colonists on Earth this would only be a matter of months. They would then step through the wormhole to a pre-terraformed planet with a breathable atmosphere. It doesn't really matter how far away the colonies are or how distant in the future they may be so long as there is a wormhole connection between the two places.

 

[TKalbfus]

Actually I had the Terraforming idea backward. the Earthlings would have to wait 3000 years for the slower wormhole starship to get there first. (This is the same timeframe as the O.T.U.) Once the starship gets there, they can begin terraforming the planet through the first worm hole and launch the follow up spaceship at a much higher rate of acceleration or better yet launch a 30 follow up space ships at 100 year intervals each one reaching a higher maximum velocity than the previous for the 3000 years leading up to the beginning of the Terraforming project. Once the first spaceship arrives, then each follow up spacecraft will arrive at the destination 1 year after the previous one. this compresses 3000 years into 30 years for the stay at home humans, but they first must wait about 3000 years before they can begin. That way the humans can begin terraforming and next year check on their progress 100 years later and make corrections whereever necessary. That way its possible to conduct a 3000 year terraforming process in a 30 year planning horizon. In 3000 years it would be possible to launch many such mission to different planets throughout many nearby galaxies. There would be plenty of work for explorer PCs to do in the midst of this process and many things can happen on each planet between spaceship arrivals. For instance what if some of the terraforming humans get stranded on the target planet due to the arrival of a follow up spaceship Earthtime? Their own wormhole leading back to Earth is destroyed and they must wait 100 years for the next one. The human's decendents might forget about the mission and wander off missiong the next wormhole and developing a society that the eventual colonists may eventually encounter with changes in culture and technology that would imply for the stranded humans.

 

[manley_t]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
[QB....The reason is for believability. I doubt that we'll ever have a convieniant FTL technology that can whiz us to the stars in a matter or weeks......[/QB]

See, that's my point. It's all pure fantasy at this point. Believability is based on which fiction the players are willing to accept.

To run a true hard-science Sci-Fi game one would have to do away with FTL and aliens and anti-gravity, anti-aging and reactionless 'magic' engines. That would require a re-working of ship design and take place all in our Solar System.

The 'problem' comes in the future of the science fiction specifics. What will occur? Speculative Futures Trending boils down to pure fiction after a certain distance....then it's anybody's guess.

I feel that Traveller is 'Hard-Science' in name only....a perfect example of 'double-speak'

And, to that end, *any* science fiction is fantasy no matter how much research it's really based on simply because you're dealing with things that have not yet come to pass -- and since expert futurists (yes, there is such a thing...go figure) disagree really it's a fiction created by the game designers or the game players -- if they believe it then it's okay.

eh....just my $.04 worth folks should play the game as they want and have fun their own way.....

 

[Zaphod]

I am thinking on using multiple thoeries for travel depending on race and tech level. Posibly jump gates at high tech class A starports to other high tech class A starports. They woudl save you fuel but cost you for use. This is more of a game mechanic. I have thought of using a system that opens a door to other dimensions for a ship to pass thru. the problems the size of the door is dempendant on the size of the door opener. This gives rise to things like hichhikers people in non light speed capable ships scooting thru the door before it closes to get a ride to an unknown destination. soem mechanics I have been thinking of. I have been workig on some ideas for a sc fi flick with a freind and this is the system I came up with.

 

[TKalbfus]

To run a true hard-science Sci-Fi game one would have to do away with FTL and aliens and anti-gravity, anti-aging and reactionless 'magic' engines. That would require a re-working of ship design and take place all in our Solar System.


Actually FTL might be possible, but realistically it would require harnessing enourmous energies to bend space. This would not be something a scout ship or a free trader could do with a fusion drive. The one requirement for creating an FTL system would be a new king of matter and energy. The energy would be negative, and the matter made out of this energy would have a negative mass. The negative mass would required to produce an antigravity field, but you would need a lot of negative mass to produce the antigravity field you need. About a stars worth of negative mass concentrated in a small spot would fit the bill, it would create an intense antigravity field that pushes all matter and energy away. Light would have to climb up the antigravity hill to get closer to the source and it would be red shifted on the way up. The Universe would seem universally red shifted from the surface of this antigravity star and slow, for as you climb up the antigravity hill time speeds up for you and appears to slow down for the rest of the universe. The local speed of light also increases due to this time acceleration allowing faster movement with respect to the universe than the speed of light would otherwise allow. The main trick is to produce all this negative matter/energy because no one knows how.
Aliens are entirely possible, they're not everywhere because they must deal with the same speed of light constraints that we do. Also most aliens are likely to be lower animals, not the kind that build spaceships.
Anti-aging is not so difficult when compared with anti-gravity and FTL. Anti-aging is simply a rearranging of ones molecules so that one is youthful. Nanotechnology could do this. Traveller tends to hold nanotechnology at arms length because it tends to have almost magical properties when it is in full blossom, it also tends to reduce the struggles of mankind to insignificance.
A reactionless engine is a violation of the laws of physics as we under stand them. Very efficient reaction engines can be produced that are almost as good though. This would be the photon drive. The photons are produced when matter and antimatter combine to convert their total combined mass into energetic photons. A starship using this sort of engine can reach near light speeds, to really utilize the effects of special relativity, the antimatter rocket would need multiple stages that burn-out and are discarded when their fuel is used up. The matter/antimatter fuel would comprise 90% of the total ship's mass and would typically take the resources of an entire civilization to produce. The characters that crew this ship would need to have "the Right Stuff" They would come from an elite cadre of Interstellar Astronaut trainees and due to the rigorous selection process would definitely be above average, because the Government would be paying for the trip, and the government couldn't afford to send anyone less than the best of the best to justify the taxpayer dollars spent on it. This is not exactly Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon, its more like the Apollo Moon missions for an advanced spacefaring society.

 

[Jame]

But, darnit, I want a convenient FTL drive! Anyway, if there is such, it's based on physics we don't understand.

 

[manley_t]

The one requirement for creating an FTL system would be a new king of matter and energy.

My point though is that even your ideas are pure fiction. You place great requirements on such a thing..how do we know that the true method of FTL travel simply won't be so incredibly simple that our children will look at their ancestors as short-sited and ignorant?

to really utilize the effects of special relativity, the antimatter rocket would need multiple stages that burn-out and are discarded when their fuel is used up. The matter/antimatter fuel would comprise 90% of the total ship's mass...

Naw, I argue with this one simply because it's not esthetic. It's too backwards to be viable as a far-future method. Maybe as an FTL pre-cursor, but not for a society that is a pure space-faring society.

My point here is that even your ideas are pure fiction. To quote a great little green guy "always in motion is the future"

Aliens are entirely possible, they're not everywhere because they must deal with the same speed of light constraints that we do. Also most aliens are likely to be lower animals, not the kind that build spaceships.

To this I answer that life exists "the type and number of which are unimaginable by mankind."

I feel that alien life, but sentinet and not, exist in numbers that were we to know the truth would stun us with is massiveness. It's hard to imagine that we are like a single insect on our own world, on 1 in a single race on a world made up of billions of species and in no ways more special than any other.

But, that's my personal belief.

In a game system your ideas I don't think would make for interesting game-play unless the focus were changed. I have ran a Traveller game that occurred all in one system and it was as fun and exciting (maybe more so) as any other game I've run or played.

It can be done. But the problem with introducing gear-headedness complexity into our games is that too much detail detracts from the game.

When I talked to my players about using rockets in the T20 game instead of the 'magic' maneuver drives they almost all at once wined that they didn't want to do any math. I had to re-assure them that I've written spreadsheets to handle all the math and they'd just get to play, the detail was for me and I'd translate the boring numbers into interesting narrative.

And, there, is the point. The art of telling the story -- all Role-Playing games are at their heart a grop of people getting together to create and/or tell a story. Details and scientfic fact or speculation don't really matter as long as those involved are enjoying the story.

So, I say, make your universe how you see fit.

And, I want to add a correction -- on second thought I think your reality would make for a good game. I can see a group of players being the crew of that gigantic ship, humans sent to antoher planet for the first time to explore and discover -- and *that* would be an interesting story

 

[TKalbfus]

You could call this Hard Traveller. Basically there are no grav vehicles or FTL. Fusion reactors are present as are Fusion rockets. The most useful fusion rockets for making planetary landings are the enertial confinement fusion rockets. Basically they are glass pellets containing Deuterium and Helium-3 which are isotopes of hydrogen and helium respectively and they can be found in gas giants. In the Solar System there are 4 Gas giants to choose from. Their gravity isn't so bad. Jupiter has the worst at 2 1/2 G, the other three are about the same as Earth's. some mechanism for automatically pelletizing they hydrogen on board ship is needed. Perhaps they can be contained in carbon spheres. Enertial confinement works by firing a laser from all directions at the pellet so that it implodes fusion the Helium-3 and the Deuterium so that they fuse to make Helium-4 + a proton in the form of a small nuclear explosion. The plasma is mixed with a reaction mass such as ordinary hydrogen and expelled out the back. Such a vehicle can stay aloft indefinitely in the atmosphere of any of the gas giants so long as the fusion rocket remains in good working order, it would need to store an on board supply of liquid hydrogen to get out of the planets atmosphere. Accelerations from 1 to 6 G should be easily obtainable, but you have to keep track of the fuel supply. It also is helpful to have some handy rocket equations to determine how much thrust you have left. A fusion rocket is good for several days of acceleration/deceleration which is enough for getting around most parts of the Solar system. Even the interstellar starship I mentioned would result in a One Solar System campaign, however it would be a different one than ours. The Alpha Centauri System has Two stars capable of supporting life bearing planets. You could have 1 T-Prime planet orbiting each which would give you 2 interesting planets to explore once the Star ship arrives

 

[Fritz_Brown]

So, is this an alternate tech for drives (FTL or M-drive)?
Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state
(Any comments on the title I would have to make in the Political Pulpit... )

Edit: Oh, yeah, and I cast Thread Ressurect!! end edit

 

[parmasson]

He proposes to generate an electromagnetic field to distort space and make the ship move?
Without a lanthanum grid it is never going to work.

 

[Todg]

Let's face it, Traveller is Space Opera, not hard science. If you can generate artificial gravity, of nullify it's effects (per Traveller) that's going to have a profound influence over all science.

That being said, what kind of drive you have is going to determine what sort of universe is possible. M Miller and co. wanted something equivalent to the trading empires of the 18th century. They needed a system where the speed of communication was the speed of travel. The week in jump rule has never been particularly palatable to me but there it is, and the reasons why have to do with the kind of empire they wanted to exist.

In my games, I don't tend to focus on how jump works, nor even spend much time running people while in jump. AFAIC its dead time.

 

[Ptah]

Fritz88 wrote:

So, is this an alternate tech for drives (FTL or M-drive)?
Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state
(Any comments on the title I would have to make in the Political Pulpit... )

Classic

(no pun intended)

Where to begin...on the legal, scientific or game front.

Well this is a game forum. I think this guy is serious and nothing patently ludicrous in what he says; thus, it provides some good language for a game drive description.

Scientifically, I'll just leave it alone except to say he's making several unsubstantiated assumptions, but who knows he could be right. Legally, the Examiner must have really needed his counts and figured this guy would never be able to enforce this thing before its term ran out. "Your application is allowed, and thank you Boris for your issue fee and supporting the U.S. Social Security system."

 

[Ptah]

On a more serious front. As to non-jump based technolgies, IMTU they are based on "worm hole" physics as either drives or stargates, all TL17+. These are more of campaign background than anything that will ever come into play or have to be worked out in detail.

I've also inserted a few natural stable "worm-holes" between regions of the galaxy (only three are actually known). Travel time is not instantaneous by any means but somewhat faster than jump drives and capable of spanning immense distances. A jump-drive is needed to generate a field to survive wormhole transit, but it only needs to be J-1 and consumes the appropriate amount of fuel. Needless to say, the entrances and exits to these worm-holes are of supreme strategic importance.

Another, FTL approach, which has support in real world physics. Are transits past rotating black holes, or between two rotating black holes. The only problems are the gravitational waves and fields would rip the ships to shreads. With respect to infomation (e.g., particle transmission) I postulate that the effect of these gravitational forces is to randomize (i.e., destroy) any information content imparted, thus they cannot be used for communication, at least with the exceedingly rare TL15 technology, which is the best available to the Imperium IMTU.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Good ones. The rotating black hole, IIRC, also gives time travel. For that matter, so do wormholes.

A plausable approach to FTL is the Alcubierre Warp Drive (do a Google), especially with the Van Den Broek metric that gets around most of the energy problems. But the Alcubierre drive may be the basis of Jump technology.

Whenever people deny that Traveller (at least CT, less psionics) is hard SF, it bothers me. Hard SF is defined as doing nothing impossible and very little implausable. People who say Traveller is not hard SF usually have no idea what is possible or plausable.

Anyone seriously interested in this sort of topic needs to read Dr Robert Forward's book Indistinquishable from Magic, a $4 paperback. Dr Forward is one of the Names in gravity physics, as well as a science fiction author himself.

He discusses various ways of getting a reactionless drive, gravity manipulation, and FTL that are not forbidden by theoretical physics.

Another Name in theoretical physics is John Cramer, who did a series of short essays on cutting-edge science for Analog science fiction magazine. His Alternate View columns are available on his website.

 

[Valarian]

The Traveller standard jump drive could be combined with jump gate technology (a la B5). A starship with a jump grid could use a jump gate to open the way in to jumpspace, then use it's own jump grid (and fuel) to maintain the field within jumpspace. Potentially this could increase the range of a starship's jumpdrive as most fuel is used to open the jump point to start with.

Jump gates could be located at Lagrange points within the star system, close to a main world.

The ability to construct a jump gate could start around TL12, and get more efficient for fuel use(10% to 20%) with each tech level after this, possibly tie in with advancements in fusion.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Only difficulty there is that LaGrange points are well within 100d.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Lunar LaGrange points, yes. But the most stable La Grange points for Earth are 150,000,000 kilometers ahead and behind on our orbit.