Higher TL jump

[77topaz]

What happens to jump rating as the TL gets higher? Do you get Jump-7 with TL 16 or TL 17? And then Jump-8, etc., etc.? How quickly do they go up?

Or would they use a different system altogether? For a society spread through an entire galaxy to use Jump-6 or anything near would be extremely impractical... it'd take a few centuries to get from one end to another, if not millenia. Entire Charted Space-sized chunks of territory could get conquered and the core worlds wouldn't know until three hundred years later... and then the support troops would take another three hundred years to arrive.

One idea I've had is "HyperJump". A HyperJump drive is something that can be fitted on a normal jump drive. The drive's rating remains the same, but it only spends one day in jumpspace, travelling the same distance. This could make a Jump-1 ship faster than a normal Jump-6 (though still less practical). A HyperJump-6 ship would have the equivalent of Jump-42.
But even this can only get you so far with Jump-6 drives...

Any ideas on higher TL interstellar transport?

 

[mike wightman]

T5 has rules for what you seek.

However, I'm not sure I agree with them

MegaTraveller extended ship design all the way up to TL22 ish - have to check on that.

Jump rives remained rated as 1-6 though, no new drive. The amount of fuel required to make a jump did go down ad TL increased above TL 16ish

IMHO Traveller jump drives should remain limited to jumps of 1-6 parsecs.

The possibility of some sort of controlled misjump drive at much higher TLs is the way I did it for MTU

1: 1-6 TL 9-25
2: 1-12 TL 26
3: 1-18 TL 27
4: 1-24 TL 28
5: 1-30 TL 29
6: 1-36 TL 30

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Only spending one day in jumpspace breaks the OTU paradigm. In YTU? Go for it.
As an FYI, there is no galaxy-spanning civilization in the OTU. It doesn't even cover our entire spiral. But, yes, getting from one end of the empire to the other takes a ridiculously long time.

 

[77topaz]

As an FYI, there is no galaxy-spanning civilization in the OTU. It doesn't even cover our entire spiral.

Well, is there any source that specifically states that? As far as I know, there have been no long-distance explorations apart from the Zhodani Core Route, and two Rim Expeditions (if those even count) an unmapped directly rimward Solomani one, and Turokan's apparently mapped but now lost route.

 

[rancke]

Something that might work is locating a network of stargates constructed by the Ancients. These gate are few (average one or two per sector) and located in empty hexes at least two parsecs from any star, which is why they haven't been discovered earlier. Once the first is discovered, the rest are located in short order by exploring the network. This opens up the galaxy (or the part of the galaxy that the Ancients explored, anyway) for exploration and colonization by the peoples of Charted Space.

Or perhaps these gates were made by the Precursor Forerunner Originals rather than the Ancients and thus cover the entire galaxy and the neighboring galaxies as well.


Hans

 

[77topaz]

Something that might work is locating a network of stargates constructed by the Ancients. These gate are few (average one or two per sector) and located in empty hexes at least two parsecs from any star, which is why they haven't been discovered earlier. Once the first is discovered, the rest are located in short order by exploring the network. This opens up the galaxy (or the part of the galaxy that the Ancients explored, anyway) for exploration and colonization by the peoples of Charted Space.

Or perhaps these gates were made by the Precursor Forerunner Originals rather than the Ancients and thus cover the entire galaxy and the neighboring galaxies as well.


Hans

There's a concept very much like that on the Rim Route site (I can't post the link right now because the original page is dead and it's only available on WayBackMachine).

I thought of using portals as one way to facilitate intergalactic travel for high TL societies - the distances between even nearby galaxies still be hundreds (or more, I'm not sure) the diameter of our own galaxy. It's an interesting concept indeed.

 

[BytePro]

... the distances between even nearby galaxies still be hundreds (or more, I'm not sure) the diameter of our own galaxy. ...

Whoa there .. not so!

Our galaxy is actually quite large - on the order of 100-120 thousand ly in diameter. The larger and smaller Magellanic Clouds are around 2x our galaxy's diameter away!

Circa mid '90's, our nearest galaxy neighbor actually skirts the fringes of our own! It is around 50,000 ly from the Milky Way's center (but only like 1/10 the diameter).

If one counts Dwarf Galaxies - at least one is already within the Milky Way's own disk - Canis Major (obviously the true source of the Vargr ). Its being torn apart as it orbits our galaxy! IIRC, it has a 'tail' that rings the Milky Way several times!

Enjoy!

 

[Spinward Scout]

Any ideas on higher TL interstellar transport?

I had an idea about something I called a Jump Multiplexer. Basically, it makes a Jump within a Jump and can get the equivalent of a Jump-36 at it's upper end. A jump 3*2 would be equivalent to a Jump-6, a Jump-5*4 would be Jump-20, and of course Jump-6*6 would be Jump-36, and so on... I treated the secondary Jump as drawing power from normal ship operations (Why not, right? You're already in JumpSpace.) - otherwise you couldn't carry enough fuel. Travel time is still 1 week. This kind of drive could get you from the edge of the Spinward Marches to Capitol and the Core Systems in about 1 to 2 months instead of a year or so.

It would definitely change the playing field.

Of course, every other interstellar government would try to steal it.

 

[77topaz]

Whoa there .. not so!

Our galaxy is actually quite large - on the order of 100-120 thousand ly in diameter. The larger and smaller Magellanic Clouds are around 2x our galaxy's diameter away!

Circa mid '90's, our nearest galaxy neighbor actually skirts the fringes of our own! It is around 50,000 ly from the Milky Way's center (but only like 1/10 the diameter).

If one counts Dwarf Galaxies - at least one is already within the Milky Way's own disk - Canis Major (obviously the true source of the Vargr ). Its being torn apart as it orbits our galaxy! IIRC, it has a 'tail' that rings the Milky Way several times!

Enjoy!

Oh, I wasn't counting the dwarf galaxies (the Magellanic Clouds are a lot smaller than our galaxy too) orbiting this galaxy. I was talking about galaxies of similar size to the Milky Way, like Andromeda. Between the Milky Way "system" and the Andromeda "system" there's still a huge area of void with say, 1 system per 100 sectors or even less.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Well, is there any source that specifically states that? As far as I know, there have been no long-distance explorations apart from the Zhodani Core Route, and two Rim Expeditions (if those even count) an unmapped directly rimward Solomani one, and Turokan's apparently mapped but now lost route.

As far as the OTU is concerned, there is no evidence of any galaxy-wide civilization in the Milky Way -- nor even one spanning any relevant percentage of our galaxy. Even the Ancients civilization didn't seem to have extended itself much past the current boundaries of Charted Space.

Results in your TU may vary -- MTU has at least one group/civilization/entity/what-have-you capable of affecting any part or region of the galaxy -- but as far as the mutually accepted OTU is concerned, nothing like that exists.

 

[77topaz]

As far as the OTU is concerned, there is no evidence of any galaxy-wide civilization in the Milky Way -- nor even one spanning any relevant percentage of our galaxy. Even the Ancients civilization didn't seem to have extended itself much past the current boundaries of Charted Space.

Results in your TU may vary -- MTU has at least one group/civilization/entity/what-have-you capable of affecting any part or region of the galaxy -- but as far as the mutually accepted OTU is concerned, nothing like that exists.

Hmm... that's one of the less believable parts of the OTU. There are seven Major Races in Charted Space, and that's only a tiny fraction of the galaxy. There should be hundreds in the whole galaxy, and chances are of a larger-scale Imperium-like multi-race state being created.
And since there have been no expeditions to the far half of the galaxy, or directly spinward or trailing as far as I know, how would the Imperium know there are none, even in the OTU?
IMTU, they do exist, but the Imperium doesn't know about them (yet), owing to the lack of long-distance exploration.

 

[steventirey1985]

Of the 8 commonly accepted Major Races in Known Space, 5 of them are either the Ancients themselves, or experiments of the Ancients.

Aslan*, Hivers, and K'kree have no known Ancient connection. Droyne are the Ancients. Solomani, Vilani, and Zhodani are all humans from Earth (genetically modified by the Ancients in the case of the Vilani and Zhodani), and Vargr are also creations of the Ancients.

With the majority of the races in Known Space (both major and minor) having a connection with the Ancients (or other genetic modification) it could be possible that the only place in the galaxy with life was where the Ancients created it.

*Ancient sites have been found in Aslan space. Seeing as how the other races with Ancient origins also have Ancient sites within their territories, it stands to reason that the Ancients may have had something to do with the Aslan as well.

 

[Gray Pennell]

This a complex IYTU question, for me the region of "know space" is limited in Major/intelligent races because of the Ancients dominating it. This does not mean that other races exist elsewhere in the Galaxy but in my known space there is a limited number. If you look at the galactic scale on Travellermap.com you will see how little this matters. The Imperuim is a pebble on the shore of the Milky Way river

 

[77topaz]

This a complex IYTU question, for me the region of "know space" is limited in Major/intelligent races because of the Ancients dominating it. This does not mean that other races exist elsewhere in the Galaxy but in my known space there is a limited number. If you look at the galactic scale on Travellermap.com you will see how little this matters. The Imperuim is a pebble on the shore of the Milky Way river

That's what I mean. There's eight Major Races in Charted Space, but who knows how many there are in the rest of the galaxy? And the galaxy itself is only one pebble in a possible infinite universe...

 

[aramis]

If one presumes that J-Space is an Ancients Artifact itself, and is only slowly expanding to covern the universe at some some speed, then "known space" is merely that range in which FTL exists. Anyone outside J-Space then remains pretty much limited by C...

 

[Omnivore]

Assuming Grandfather is the only being in the history of the entire universe to ever invent a workable FTL drive mechanism (including J-space itself). Which brings up the possible question: what happens when two expanding J-space bubbles collide?

Even largely sticking with OTU and humanity as a core race:
what if another ancient, one of Grandfather's children, in a long term (very long term) strategic move (which ultimately turned out useless), launched a intergalactic seedship with seed stock of various races from known space along with robotic parental units, to a relatively nearby galaxy in the local group such as NGC 2419 (also known as Caldwell 25)? The seedship would arrive about year 0 of the OTU.

You could postulate that the seedship contained instructions and examples for another form of FTL or even a way to recreate Grandfather's jump space elsewhere. Contact could be imminent! o:

 

[77topaz]

Assuming Grandfather is the only being in the history of the entire universe to ever invent a workable FTL drive mechanism (including J-space itself). Which brings up the possible question: what happens when two expanding J-space bubbles collide?

Grandfather "invented" jumpspace, at least locally? Where did you read that?

 

[steventirey1985]

Grandfather "invented" jumpspace, at least locally? Where did you read that?

I don't know if Grandfather invented jumpspace, but he was able to create his own pocket universe. Creating jumpspace shouldn't really be any harder then that, so its at least possible.

 

[77topaz]

I don't know if Grandfather invented jumpspace, but he was able to create his own pocket universe. Creating jumpspace shouldn't really be any harder then that, so its at least possible.

Didn't jumpspace, well, already exist? (Even if it was created, I doubt its creator would have been in exactly our galaxy... but maybe there's only jumpspace in regions where it's been activated...)

 

[Whipsnade]

Grandfather "invented" jumpspace, at least locally? Where did you read that?

Don't worry, you haven't missed something somewhere. They aren't discussing anything that is official, that's why they used words like "assuming" and phrases like "If one presumes..."

The idea that Grandfather somehow created jump space is one that has been kicked around on Traveller fora for decades now. It's "fanon" rather than canon, but it's a great idea to mull over.