Black Holes, Wormholes, Supernovas, etc

[kafka47]

There was once was a Dragon article that dealt with Black Holes. Not wishing to support T$R, I don't want to purchase it.

Could someone tell me how these stellar phenomena are dealt with in Traveller in their TU?

Will we see rules covering this in T20? Or am I reverting Munchkinism...

 

[tjoneslo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kafka47:
Could someone tell me how these stellar phenomena are dealt with in Traveller in their TU?
[/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

None of these are in T20 (currently), and I don't use them IMTU.

Black Holes are exceedly rare (there's one in the center of the galaxy and Cygnus X-1 is several thousand parsecs beyond charted space. And Deadly, as the radiation would fry any ship in the system propably.

Supernova are even more rare and dangerous than black holes. The Neutrino pulse from a Supernova will kill everyone within 5AU, and the resulting explosion, while pretty from a distance are really hard on the landscape.

Flare Stars (and Novas) are less hard on the landscape, ship, crew, etc, and are correspondingly less rare. I think there are at least two nova stars in charted space and numerous flare stars.

Wormholes are from the imagination of SF writers. None of the official Traveller material has wormholes, so feel free to make up what ever you want for your Traveller universe.

 

[TheRaptor]

At last some one who hates T$R as much as I.
(Although I do hate WOTC/Hasbro more).

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That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
IMTU tc++ ru+ ge++ 3i+ c+ jt au+ ls pi ta he

 

[TJP]

What about brown dwarfs? Does anyone know how common these are thought to be? I've been wondering how to model brown dwarfs IMTU. Can a brown dwarf be a companion to a star; if they are considered as "failed stars" can they have planetary systems of their own; if considered as "giant gas giants" can they be used for refuelling, etc. etc.

As to wormholes, I've toyed with an idea of running a wildly heretic Traveller universe with jump points (kind of like wormholes) as the only means of FTL travel. Never gotten beyond the point of first sketches, though.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Wormholes may be from the imagination of SF writers, but truth can be stranger than fiction:
http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~f93jojo/sidan2.htm
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space-Time/wormholes.html

Ok, now that we're on the subject, the common stellar phenomena are:

Comets
Asteroids
Planets
Gas Giants
Brown Dwarfs
Stars

Did I miss anything?

Scout

 

[J.P. Gill]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TJP:
What about brown dwarfs? Does anyone know how common these are thought to be?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are those astronomers who claim that if we discovered this solar system today that we would classify Jupiter as a brown dwarf. Part of the reason is because Jupiter radiates more energy than it receives.



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J.P. Gill
http://www.RPGgazette.com

 

[tjoneslo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ScoutCadet469:
Wormholes may be from the imagination of SF writers, but truth can be stranger than fiction:
http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~f93jojo/sidan2.htm
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space-Time/wormholes.html

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The second article forms the basis for a really interesting alterative Traveller universe. Since the Wormholes are not large enough to send people through (the negative energy densities are prohibitive) and the Author assumes the existance of nanotech and AIs, "People" travel by beaming brain dumps of their AI to the other side, into a nanobot reconstructed body.

If you assume it's fairly difficult to create a new wormhole (or takes a lot of expensive support equipment to maintin one) the Wormhole stations in each system become the important focus of trade and commerce. There is some wisdom in moving them off world. So the Wormhole stations are located in large, constructed asteroids.

 

[Ben W Bell]

While Black Holes, Supernovas etc exist, (We have witnessed at least 10 supernovas in recorded history), the area of space that Traveller is set in has few to none of these phenonemen.
The only main one is a nebula in the Dark Nebula sector.
So these things do exist but just not in the charted areas of Traveller space.

 

[kafka47]

Originally posted by BenBell:
While Black Holes, Supernovas etc exist, (We have witnessed at least 10 supernovas in recorded history), the area of space that Traveller is set in has few to none of these phenonemen.

My interest is not so much these a real world or real time, phenomena. But I would want avoid cliches that are common enough in Space Opera. That is I don't imagine a scenario where players must evacuate before a star goes nova or collapses into a black body. But, rather how to deal with these stellar phenomena as leftovers of earlier age of the galaxy's history.

Dark Nebula seems interesting but there is not too much elabouration about it. And, I am fully aware that Black Holes can be harmful to a Traveller's health. But, isn't the Imperium conducting black hole research somewhere? If so are these naturally occuring black holes or artificial (I know this sounds Space Opera, but, some of Traveller is Space Opera).

Plus, Traveller cannon merely sets out systems of note which can be the same thing as saying explored. What lies in the Rifts? Just empty space? The illumination of a black body would possibly not even be noticeable even at TL F in the visible spectrum. But, how often does the 3I engage in further exploration within borders or more importantly along the borders with a potentially hostile neighbour like the Aslan or K'kree?

 

[tregga]

Just a note that a much closer blackhole was discovered called V4641. It's toward the galactic core in the Sagittarius Constellation. I don't know where that would be in the Traveller universe, but at 1600 light years, that would place it about 6 sectors coreward of Terra if I'm not mistaken. That's the same distance to Gzaekfueg sector.
http://www.starstuff.org/default.asp?cover=/articles/662.asp

 

[Spinward Scout]

<<<I don't imagine a scenario where players must evacuate before a star goes nova>>>

Actually, I'm doing something like this to the characters in my campaign. It's going to be the Star Trigger from the Darrians - only I'm making it an Ancient device and the major villain is going to get ahold of it, but they'll only find out as their ship is going outsystem. That's when one of Regina's stars goes nova. I just have to figure out a way of letting them escape. Probably a misjump at that point.

Scout

 

[tjoneslo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tregga:
Just a note that a much closer blackhole was discovered called V4641. It's toward the galactic core in the Sagittarius Constellation. I don't know where that would be in the Traveller universe, but at 1600 light years, that would place it about 6 sectors coreward of Terra if I'm not mistaken. That's the same distance to Gzaekfueg sector.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

By my math its about 12 sectors. 1600 ly divide by 3.26 pc/ly divide by 40 pc/secctor.

But it's still cool, its beyond the far edge of the Vargr extents, and about 1.5 years travel at J3 from Terra, but well within the range of an explore.

So now we've got a complete set: A rosette world(s) in the Vargr extents, an incomplete ringworld in the Wispering Sky, An incomplete Dyson Sphere on the far side of the Hiver Federation.

Now we've got an explorable black hole. Oh, and one of the stars in the Spica sector is about to go Supernova real soon now.

 

[tregga]

Good catch. For some reason I was counting a sector as 80 parsecs. Silly me. That still makes it a long journey which I think just goes to show how big space really is.

 

[tjoneslo]

Well, if the Zhodani can make it 5000 parsecs toward the core, going 500 should be a breeze.

Ok, it is a long journey, but for someone dedicated toward studying astronomical phenomena, up close and personal is the best way. Would make for an interesting campaign. Patron hires crew, using a cluky ship sets off space to visit a unique place. Across the Vargr extents, and into more unknown space. Meet strange new aliens, who may or may not be welcoming to having a strange (and powerful) ship skipping across their space.

 

[aramis]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tjoneslo:
Well, if the Zhodani can make it 5000 parsecs toward the core, going 500 should be a breeze.

Ok, it is a long journey, but for someone dedicated toward studying astronomical phenomena, up close and personal is the best way. Would make for an interesting campaign. Patron hires crew, using a cluky ship sets off space to visit a unique place. Across the Vargr extents, and into more unknown space. Meet strange new aliens, who may or may not be welcoming to having a strange (and powerful) ship skipping across their space. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Based upon the rules in Best of JTAS 1 (asteroid mining article), one can easily make a J5 ship with room for 20+ jumps worth of non-fuel consumeables. A J3 can get a hundred jumps worth. And fuel is cheap. And can be detected from a ways away (There is a wonderful advenutre inone of the alien modules with exploration rules.)

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-aramis
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Smith & Wesson: The Original Point and Click interface!

 

[tjoneslo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aramis:
Based upon the rules in Best of JTAS 1 (asteroid mining article), one can easily make a J5 ship with room for 20+ jumps worth of non-fuel consumeables. A J3 can get a hundred jumps worth. And fuel is cheap. And can be detected from a ways away (There is a wonderful advenutre inone of the alien modules with exploration rules.)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Zhodani module has the rules for exploration, in theory you are running part of the Zho core expedition.

But since someone was kind enough to return the maps from the last Core Route expidition: http://www.geocities.com/traveller_core_route/
I guess we need new frontiers to explore.

 

[kafka47]

Well...I just got the diagnosis of my computer and the hard drive is fried. Does anyone know how relable those companies are which repair hard drives?

This is related to this thread because that hard drive contained my only copy of erratia free version of MegaTraveller and also Grand Explorations. Does anyone know where I can contact the individuals who have copies those files?

 

[alexhawman]

Lary niven touches on some vast technology that can be used as leftovers from the anchients (and are in an old dragon article back around issue 44 or so called canard) the one I'm talking about that relates to this post is the quantum black hole (from his book protector) as a source of power and gravitational control

 

[Uncle Bob]

Hard drive repair? I don't know, never heard of them. There are data recovery houses that will disassemble your hard drive and salvage the data from the platters onto a new hard drive. How much data you get back depends on how hard it crashed. It is labor intensive, and not cheap.

I have never used a recovery service (mission critical stuff gets burned to CD) so I can't make any recommendations.

Brown Dwarfs
These are hard to detect visually, but six of the eighty-eight (or 7 of 93) extrasolar planets are bigger than 10 Jupiter masses. The line between super planet and brown dwarf is kinda vague. At 13 Jm you can start burning deuterium.

A real wild card is the posibility of brown dwarfs between stellar system. There could be none or lots and lots.

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
Supernova are even more rare and dangerous than black holes. The Neutrino pulse from a Supernova will kill everyone within 5AU, and the resulting explosion, while pretty from a distance are really hard on the landscape.

Neutrinos do not interact with ordinary matter. In fact, it takes very large chambers filled with dense liquids to detect them. Which is saying something, because from the time you started reading this post until NOW, you have had several billion (yes, BILLION) of them pass through your body.

Now, if you're talking about the rapidly expanding shockwave/shell of particles, the MASSIVE electromagnetic pulse, the planet sized bits of stellar matter flying around, or even the fact that the local starbucks just went out business; I would have to agree with your assessment.

All the more reason for the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service to have a team posted to observe the event from a *safe* distance! After all, it wouldn't do for the intrepid Zhodani to outdo the IISS at their own job! (Core Expeditions Indeed!)