Looking for info from dead traveller website

[rancke]

They somehow mothball the tugs they needed to place stepping stones in 3 parsec gaps too? You know, the ones they crossed with jump2 drive?

So, once again, they're stupid, right?

Or they decided that going around was usually more economic. You do realize that with jump-2 a lot of jump-3 gaps can be circumvented, right?

Jump2 doesn't make all the gaps magically go away and part of the GT:ISW idiocy holds that the techniques for mass-less jumps won't be developed until the Aslan Border Wars as modeled in the Dark Nebula wargame. That means everyone everywhere is either avoiding gaps greater than their current jump drive ratings or placing planetoids in them with STL tugs until the technique is invented. That means Zho, Vargr, K'Kree, Hiver, Vilani, Sollie, and even Aslan. Everyone.

Or there are workarounds that work, after a fashion, for individual ships but not for massed fleets.

We've had this discussion for years now. You propose, I dispose, and you then come up with what are essentially the same proposals again.

Could that have something to do with the fact that your 'disposals' aren't as conclusive for me as they apparently are for you?

You can't excuse this away, there is no plausible reason for GT:ISW's mass requirement because it is both internally inconsistent and canonical train wreck.

See, Bill, that's the thing. I'm not trying to excuse it and I'm not trying as hard as I possibly can to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it doesn't work. I'm trying to make it work. An outrageous goal, no doubt, but that's how it is.

GT:ISW problems actually began with GT:RoF. Before RoF, we knew about the Interstellar Wars but we knew little about their actual conduct. Pulver decided to write a more detailed history of the wars and made the huge mistake of using the map from Imperium rather than the actual sector map.

Ir was Jon, not Pulver.

So, Pulver wrote up a history of the war using premises that were fundamentally flawed. Before [RoF we could have said that both Terran and Vilani moved or attacked across the Sirius Gap because there was nothing that said otherwise. in RoF, we are specifically told no attacks took place but that statement rests solely on Pulver's mistaken use of a wargame that predates Traveller and doesn't use jump drive.

Which is better than 95% of all canonical statements, which are based on nothing at all other than ideas that pop into the authors' heads. But it's a moot point. It doesn't matter in the least why Jon wrote what he wrote. What's important is, does it or does it not work? And if it doesn't work, can it be fixed?

It's special pleading, nothing more. Thousand to one chance or million to one chance, no matter it nothing but special pleading.

I don't think so. Please explain how it is special pleading.

The dwarfs are everywhere everyone from Zhos to Hivers needed them to be except between Sirius and Sol. GT:ISW flatly states that no one could do deep space jumps until the Aslan Border War period. No one. Everyone was either avoiding gaps or towing planetoids into them, despite no previous mentions in canon of either thing occurring.

Books could be written about things that have no previous mention in canon. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence, to be sure, but it is very far from being proof of absence.

The K'Kree expanded and even crossed the Lesser Rift without being able to do it. The Hivers expanded and even fought a war with the K'Kree without being able to do it. The Loeskalth flew their generation ship out to the Far Frontiers without being able to do it. The Vargr expanded around Windhorn without being able to do it. The Zhodani somehow launched their core expeditions without being able to do it. The Aslan even somehow crossed the Great Rift and surveyed the Jump-5 Route without being able to do it.

The Loeskalth specifically used SLT to cross the Great Rift, but the rest of your examples are cogent. So we're back to workarounds that work for individual ships but are a problem for massed fleets.

And why do we need a brown dwarf missing between Sirius and Sol anyway?

Is this a trick question?


Hans

 

[aramis]

Hans:

GTIW is an abberation. It adds a restriction which was not present in the baord games (and most of the links in Imperium are J2, even for terrans). THe only reasons that make sense to me are that (pick any 1)

1) the jump calculations were based upon an assumed mass-shadow as a target, and were basically inaccurate as all hell, so you need that big target to hit*
2) The Vilani made no deep space jumps**
3) Jump drive was upgraded by Yaskodray tweaking J-Space during the Aslan Border Wars.***
4) The Vilani kept double jumps a military secret ****

* but that would also rule out asteroids... since the exclusion zone of a movably small asteroid is smaller than jump's inherent inaccuracy
** which means the canonical borders or the canonical map are wrong
*** Which means all J-space is an artifact. It's a potential universe breaker.
**** Yeah, right. I can see them saying "We have this mass at a hidden location. Load those tramps on the jumpship and we'll have you there in 11 drandir."

 

[rancke]

Yes, I'm beginning to think I'm wrong about this. Maybe there is no good way to make the restriction fit with the rest of canon.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

The Loeskalth specifically used SLT to cross the Great Rift, but the rest of your examples are cogent. So we're back to workarounds that work for individual ships but are a problem for massed fleets.

Hans,

Yes, they did cross the Great Rift via STL.

They also moved the freakin' huge planetoid to the edge of the Great Rift with jump1 and, after crossing the Rift, moved it to the Far Frontiers sector with jump1.

Is this a trick question?

No, it isn't.

Why does GT:ISW state there is no brown dwarf in the Sirius - Sol Gap? Because the fundamentally flawed Interstellar Wars history in GT:RoF says no attacks took place across that gap. It's a case of one mistake compounded another.

Jon Zeigler screwed up when he used Imperium to write his history of the wars. We'd only had the bare minimum of information regarding the Wars before then, just basic stuff about how jump3 and meson guns broke open the front, how the ZS Central Fleet was destroyed, how the Terrans were ignored for too long. After RoF we had specific accounts of each wars' campaigns, the major battles, and territorial exchanges. All good stuff except....

.... Zeigler used a NON-TRAVELLER wargame to create it.

Imperium pre-dates Traveller. The map isn't derived from the affected Traveller subsectors, instead the subsectors were partially derived from the map. The movement mechanism being modeled isn't jump drive either, the first edition notes specifically mention transit lines(1) not jump routes.

Sure, GDW kit-bashed the game into Traveller canon. They released a few versions actually. The changes made were a few descriptive changes like changing the unnamed empire to the Ziru Sirka, adding the terms Vilani and Solomani, changing a few system names, and throwing in some Traveller history to put the game in context. They even added a few more rules like the campaign system. What they never did was change the map and the FTL system the lines on the map modeled(2).

So, we have a non-Traveller map and a non-Traveller FTL drive being used to play out the history of the Interstellar Wars. And because that non-Traveller map doesn't show a transit line used by that a non-Traveller FTL drive between Sirius and Sol, Zeigler's history states no attacks took place across the Gap. If that isn't an example of being fundamentally flawed I don't know what else could be.

RoF made the original mistake and ISW compounded it out of ignorance. Asserting that the techniques for mass-less deep space jumps were not developed until the Aslan Border Wars era impacts everyone who used jump drive everywhere before that era and not just the course of the Interstellar Wars.


Regards,
Bill

1 - The term "transit lines" strongly points to the Alderson Drive of MiGE.

2 - I've no trouble with a wargame simplifying the mechanisms being modeled for ease of play. FFW's designers wisely excluded jump fuel regulators from the game as keeping track of partial fuel loads would have slowed the game greatly. I do have a problem with people either ignoring or being unaware of how mechanisms in a game have been simplified. If someone wrote a history of the FFW that explicitly stated there were no jump fuel regulators during the period and that jump fuel regulators were invented after the period in question they'd be making a canon-wrecking mistake. The same holds true with the RoF/ISW assertions regarding deep space jumps.

 

[rancke]

First up, my position on this has changed from pro-IW, albeit not all the way to anti-IW. I still approve of what Jon attempted to do, even though I'm coming around to the view that he didn't succeed.

Imperium pre-dates Traveller. The map isn't derived from the affected Traveller subsectors, instead the subsectors were partially derived from the map. The movement mechanism being modeled isn't jump drive either, the first edition notes specifically mention transit lines(1) not jump routes.

Sure, GDW kit-bashed the game into Traveller canon.

And here's why I approve of the attempt. Yes, Imperium started out as being non-Traveller. But it didn't stay that way. And once GDW dragged it into canon, it was an excellent idea to try to make it fit in with the rest of canon. <-- Stated as a fact because I consider it a truism.

So, we have a non-Traveller map and a non-Traveller FTL drive being used to play out the history of the Interstellar Wars. And because that non-Traveller map doesn't show a transit line used by that a non-Traveller FTL drive between Sirius and Sol, Zeigler's history states no attacks took place across the Gap. If that isn't an example of being fundamentally flawed I don't know what else could be.

Why would making it a historical fact that no attack did, as it happened, come by way of crossing the gap be fundamentally flawed? There could be any number of reasons why the Vilani never tried that. Like the one I suggested: it was considered more trouble than it was worth.

RoF made the original mistake and ISW compounded it out of ignorance. Asserting that the techniques for mass-less deep space jumps were not developed until the Aslan Border Wars era impacts everyone who used jump drive everywhere before that era and not just the course of the Interstellar Wars.

But Dark Nebula makes that claim, and DN was Traveller from the start. The problem I have with Jon's solution isn't that he tried to make Imperium and DN fit in, it's that, reluctantly, I've come over to the opinion that he didn't succeed.

2 - I've no trouble with a wargame simplifying the mechanisms being modeled for ease of play.

And that's exactly the explanation for the jump lines. Why would they represent anything connected with single jumps? Each turn is a year. My explanation is that the jump lines represent routes that are practical for fleets to travel. The fleets can't move off them for the same reason War in the West has provisions for a Vichy France but no provision for a "Vichy" <any other nation>. Not because it might not have happened, but because it didn't happen in "reality".


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

And here's why I approve of the attempt. Yes, Imperium started out as being non-Traveller. But it didn't stay that way.

Hans,

Sure, the chrome got changed, but the map and the lines on it did not. They weren't changed and stayed non-Traveller.

Why would making it a historical fact that no attack did...

That historical "fact" didn't exist until Zeigler wrote RoF. All our other information was silent on the subject, just as it was silent on the course of the wars.

Like the one I suggested: it was considered more trouble than it was worth.

Yeah, attacking your enemy's homeworld directly instead of hammering your way down a chain of fortified systems first is never worth the effort.

But Dark Nebula makes that claim, and DN was Traveller from the start.

DN's chrome and setting was Traveller from the start. Dark Nebula's map style and FTL mechanism are directly copied from Imperium and Imperium was not and is still not Traveller WHERE IT COUNTS.

Chris Trash's other excuse that "GDW is on the box" is complete bullshit and you should have called him on it. GDW is on the cover of A:4 Leviathan and are jump torpedoes canonical?

And that's exactly the explanation for the jump lines.

They aren't jump lines, they're TRANSIT LINES. They were transit lines when GDW first laid them down and they're use has never been changed. Changing the label doesn't change what those lines were originally designed to model.

The technological advance Thrash is bleating about at SJGames in response to your questions there happens to be an optional rule and it never existed in the first versions of Imperium. Speaking of rules, unless you employ an optional rule, the map in DN changes every time you play. Does that mean the subsectors in the Dark Nebula Sector shuffle themselves about?

You and Chris can spin this from now until the heat death of the universe and you'll never succeed. Jon Zeigler screwed up when he used a non-Traveller wargame to write the history of the wars and ISW screwed up when they tried to explain the consequences of that fundamentally flawed history.

Also, when Chris talks about the canonical history of the wars he's referring to Zeigler's fundamentally flawed history because all the canonical information prior to that doesn't even mention the topic. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Our pre-RoF information regarding the wars was spotty at best.

You've got that mains map posted here. Go ahead and ask Chris Thrash to explain it away and watch him spin. Then ask him why brown dwarfs were everywhere everyone from the Zhodani to the Vargr needed them to be except between Sirius and Sol. Ask him how the Zhos launched their first Core Expedition in -4000 without knowing how to make deep space jumps. Ask him how the Loeskalth got that planetoid vessel to the Great Rift with only jump1 and how they reached the Far Frontiers afterward.

You'll get a lot of bloviating, mostly because ISW idiotic brown dwarf excuse and the "No one invented DSJs until the Aslan Border Wars" were primarily his suggestions, but you won't get an real answers. You'll get special pleading instead; i.e. "no dwarf" or "the Vilani were stupid and forgot".


Regards,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Hans,

Missed the bit about being pro-GT:ISW or anti-GT:ISW.

Guess what? I'm pro-GT:ISW. I think it's a fine book. I just don't think it's perfect.

Every sourcebook has it's flaws, some major in number or effect and some minor in the same. GT:ISW has it's flaws and the way it handles DSJs is one of them.

You can easily ignore the DSJ portion of it and then make minimal rewrites where necessary.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

Sure, the chrome got changed, but the map and the lines on it did not. They weren't changed and stayed non-Traveller.

I don't quite accept that there isn't enough of an overlap to qualify it as OTU (albeit flawed). Be that as it may, I still think that it would be better to reconcile it with other parts of canon than not.

That historical "fact" didn't exist until Zeigler wrote RoF. All our other information was silent on the subject, just as it was silent on the course of the wars.

That doesn't address my question. This bit of canon didn't exist until an author wrote it. What a unique piece of canon. Oh, wait! No, it's not unique. Most of canon hadn't been mentioned before it was written. Big deal. I asked why this particular historical fact is inherently bad. Because the only thing that could justify your attitude towards it is if it was totally unbelievable. Which it isn't.

Yeah, attacking your enemy's homeworld directly instead of hammering your way down a chain of fortified systems first is never worth the effort.

Who said anything about 'ever'? I'm talking about one specific historical sequence of events. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you can't possible imagine any history where the Vilani didn't decide to make a direct assault on Terra across the Sirius-Sol Gap? That's it's inconceivable that they wouldn't do it?

DN's chrome and setting was Traveller from the start. Dark Nebula's map style and FTL mechanism are directly copied from Imperium and Imperium was not and is still not Traveller WHERE IT COUNTS.

Maybe not where it counts for you. For me, background information counts for more than boardgame mechanics. So Dark Nebula IS Traveller WHERE IT COUNTS!

They aren't jump lines, they're TRANSIT LINES.

Ah, but do they reflect "real" world physics or are they a game mechanic? Obviously, since they describe events from the OTU, it's the latter :devil:.

Speaking of rules, unless you employ an optional rule, the map in DN changes every time you play. Does that mean the subsectors in the Dark Nebula Sector shuffle themselves about?

Oh, that's a toughie. Let's see, do you think this rule reflects the realities of the Dark Nebula Universe or is it a game mechanic?

Jon Zeigler screwed up when he used a non-Traveller wargame to write the history of the wars and ISW screwed up when they tried to explain the consequences of that fundamentally flawed history.

One out of two, Bill. I think using Imperium for inspiration was an excellent idea, but I have to agree that the explanation in IW was bad.

Also, when Chris talks about the canonical history of the wars he's referring to Zeigler's fundamentally flawed history because all the canonical information prior to that doesn't even mention the topic. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Our pre-RoF information regarding the wars was spotty at best.

You're missing a vital point here. Zeigler's history is official (I'm avoiding the word 'canon' to ward off digressions into the status of GT material), whether you like it or not. And as long as the history just says "Neither the Vilani notr the Solomani ever tried to mount a major offensive across the Sirius-Sol Gap", I don't see anything fundamentally flawed with it.

Please note thjat I'm trying to separate two different issuse that you seem determined to keep together. The explantion for why no one did is one thing; the simple fact that no one did is another.

You've got that mains map posted here. Go ahead and ask Chris Thrash to explain it away and watch him spin. Then ask him why brown dwarfs were everywhere everyone from the Zhodani to the Vargr needed them to be except between Sirius and Sol. Ask him how the Zhos launched their first Core Expedition in -4000 without knowing how to make deep space jumps. Ask him how the Loeskalth got that planetoid vessel to the Great Rift with only jump1 and how they reached the Far Frontiers afterward.

You're not arguing with him, you're arguing with me. I've already agreed with you that the brown dwarf story doesn't work (Though not because they couldn't be everywhere except the Sirius-Sol Gap; there's nothing wrong with a statistical anomaly or two). It doesn't work because if they were there, starship travel would have an extra option, which every other part of canon fails to mention.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

I asked why this particular historical fact is inherently bad.

Hans,

It's inherently bad because the premise behind it is non-Traveller.


Because the only thing that could justify your attitude towards it is if it was totally unbelievable. Which it isn't.

Maybe not where it counts for you. For me, background information counts for more than boardgame mechanics. So Dark Nebula IS Traveller WHERE IT COUNTS!

Remember that recent thread here? The one asking people what makes Traveller Traveller? Everyone had slightly different lists of those things that made the game what it is, but each of those lists had JUMP DRIVE listed at the tippity-top.

Imperium's game mechanics don't model JUMP DRIVE. Dark Nebula's game mechanics are a copy of Imperium's and don't model JUMP DRIVE either. Slapping a Traveller label on them and slathering on OTU background materials doesn't change that fact that the wargame's mechanics still don't model JUMP DRIVE. Zeigler's history and Thrash's excuse are both based in wargames that don't model one of the core characteristics of Traveller; JUMP DRIVE.

Do you seriously mean to tell me that you can't possible imagine any history where the Vilani didn't decide to make a direct assault on Terra across the Sirius-Sol Gap? That's it's inconceivable that they wouldn't do it?

There's a great difference between inconceivable and implausible. The claim that no attempt was made by either combatant during two centuries of war to cross the Sirius Gap in a militarily significant manner is inconceivable. The idea that no successful military operation was achieved is merely implausible. It's not that "fact" that there were no successes, it the "fact" that there were no attempts at all.

You're missing a vital point here. Zeigler's history is official...

By that logic jump torpedoes are "official", but then again they're not, are they? It's the same with the early Library Data claiming that Capital controls the only crossing in the Rift for thousands of parsecs or that the Egryn Subsector is terra incognito after 1000 years of the Imperium being right next door. "Published" doesn't necessarily equate "canonical" or even "official". "Published" can just as easily mean "screwed up".

You're not arguing with him, you're arguing with me. I've already agreed with you that the brown dwarf story doesn't work

No arguing here. I'm debating with you and you're asking questions of Chris.

And Chris has blown off all your questions, hasn't he? You pointed out that logically all those brown dwarf stepping stones used before the DSJ technique was developed should still be there, haven't you? That they should still be used by jump1 vessels to move between the various mains, right? That they should be in all those empty hexes everywhere everyone used them for thousands of years, but they haven't been mentioned either before or since GT:ISW and even GT:FT and GT:FI doesn't say one word about their presence, correct?

And what as Chris written in response? Imperium yadda yadda Dark Nebula yadda yadda and no real answers. He's said nothing, hasn't he? Nothing. Nothing, but the same old excuses about how two wargames whose movement mechanism don't even model JUMP DRIVE somehow hold the answer.

Seriously now, you're asking someone partially responsible for the screw up to admit to the screw up and you actually expect an honest answer?


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

It's inherently bad because the premise behind it is non-Traveller.

A claim you've failed to substantiate. See below.

Imperium's game mechanics don't model JUMP DRIVE. Dark Nebula's game mechanics are a copy of Imperium's and don't model JUMP DRIVE either. Slapping a Traveller label on them and slathering on OTU background materials doesn't change that fact that the wargame's mechanics still don't model JUMP DRIVE. Zeigler's history and Thrash's excuse are both based in wargames that don't model one of the core characteristics of Traveller; JUMP DRIVE.

You're overlooking the difference between the two different (and occasionally mutually incompatible) purposes of game mechanics. One is to model reality at some level. The other is to make a game playable. Each turn in those two games is a whole year. How would you model that accurately? By allowing every ship to 'teleport' to every other star on the map? After all, using jump drive, a ship would be able to get from anywhere on the map to anywhere else on the map in 25 jumps, right? But can a fleet get from anywhere on the map to anywhere else on the map without being intercepted by another fleet? I should think that was highly unlikely. So the fact that the game mechanic doesn't model jump drive accurately at the micro level doesn't prove anything one way or the other. Maybwe it models the realities of interstellar conflict fairly accurately. Or maybe it makes a pig's breakfast of that too. But the one thing it presumably does not set out to do is to model jump drive accurately.

There's a great difference between inconceivable and implausible. The claim that no attempt was made by either combatant during two centuries of war to cross the Sirius Gap in a militarily significant manner is inconceivable.

No, it's not. Whatever else it is, an attempt to cross a three parsec gap with jump-2 ships involves logistical problems and being out of touch, unable to respond to a changing strategic situation for months. Going in the back way leaves the front door unguarded and the besieged able to sally. I see absolutely nothing strange about Vilani governors who prefer to have the bulk of their forces between the enemy and themselves.

BTW, it's not two centuries, it's the period from the 3rd to the 7th Interstellar War, from 2173 to 2214. 41 years, or, more accurately, four potential attempts to venture across the gap.

By that logic jump torpedoes are "official", but then again they're not, are they?

False analogy. Jump torpedoes have been declared uncanonical. Jon's history hasn't.

It's the same with the early Library Data claiming that Capital controls the only crossing in the Rift for thousands of parsecs...

Officially been declared uncanonical, I'd say.

...or that the Egryn Subsector is terra incognito after 1000 years of the Imperium being right next door.

You've got me there. Or rather, you've got TPTB. I've been lobbying for a change of that particular bit of canon. However, until it is changed, it remains canon, so your analogy fails there too.

"Published" doesn't necessarily equate "canonical" or even "official". "Published" can just as easily mean "screwed up".

Yes, it does. Unless it has been officially annulled, 'published' does, in fact, mean 'official' (What it doesn't mean, sadly, is 'not screwed up' ).

And Chris has blown off all your questions, hasn't he?

Leaving me in the uncomfortable position of sitting, metaphorically speaking, between two chairs. Sure. So what? I can still disagree with you even if I disagree with him, can't I?

Seriously now, you're asking someone partially responsible for the screw up to admit to the screw up and you actually expect an honest answer?

Seriously? Yes, if I managed to persuade Chris that he was wrong, I would expect him to change his position. I've defended enough dodgy positions myself, because I was enamoured of them, to be wary of taking a refusal to see sense as a sign of dishonesty. Come to that, I have, on certain rare occasions, been brought to understand that the reason my opponent refused to see sense was that it wasn't sense. I don't think that is the case here, but then again, initially I didn't think it was the case on those other occasions.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Deep space jumps are mentioned in AM5 Solomani, Hans.

 

[rancke]

Deep space jumps are mentioned in AM5 Solomani, Hans.

Could you provide me with a page reference, please?


Hans

 

[far-trader]

Deep space jumps are mentioned in AM5 Solomani, Hans.

Could you provide me with a page reference, please?

The bit on page 4 maybe?

"The range of the jump-1 drives first developed by UNSCA was
insufficient to reach the nearest star- Alpha Centauri. It took
several years before a US Space Force team based on Luna tried
a mission which, in several trips, established an intermediate
stopover and refuelling point about one parsec out. For various
scientific reasons, the mission was to Barnard's Star instead​

of Alpha Centauri. They set out in 2096..."

Considering that the 2096 departure is just 9 years after inventing jump drive that's never seemed like a lot of time for several STL trips so I presumed it was an empty hex jump set up implied.

EDIT: As a side note, it's interesting (and I don't know why I never quite put it together before) that while AM5 has Book 2 ships it talks about a progressive development of jump drive (1 then 2 and so on) which is Book 5 design. Odd no?

 

[rancke]

The bit on page 4 maybe?

I hope not. I'm hoping for a genuine, unequivocal reference to a deep space jump.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Point: Established a refuelling point. Not "moved asteroids". Not "found a dwarf star." Not "found a rogue planet."

ESTABLISHED a refuelling point. In American English, establish has connotations of building, not finding. no mention of it being gravity based... just a refuelling point.

If, in fact, they are using Bk2-'81 ships... well then, J3 is available at TL 9...but you can't get better than J2 in a 100Td hull... and a useful payload means you only have J1 fuel. And they had yet to develop the J2 program for the computer.

Establishing that point took time because they didn't KNOW they could go beyond the solar system... NASA caution to the detriment.

 

[Whipsnade]

You're overlooking the difference between the two different (and occasionally mutually incompatible) purposes of game mechanics. (snip) But the one thing it presumably does not set out to do is to model jump drive accurately.

Hans,

I see I've failed to get the point across and you're well reasoned explanation about how jump drive is modeled in Imperium illustrates my failure nicely.

You wrote that paragraph while still completely oblivious to the fact that Imperium doesn't model jump drive at all. Let me repeat that again:

Imperium does not model jump drive and Imperium never modeled jump drive.

The game wasn't designed with jump drive in mind, those lines were called "transit lines" and not "jump routes", and the latter versions that added OTU historical information did not change the movement mechanisms one bit.

Imperium doesn't model jump drive, so talking about how well or badly it models jump drive is nonsense.

Whatever else it is, an attempt to cross a three parsec gap with jump-2 ships involves logistical problems and being out of touch, unable to respond to a changing strategic situation for months.

Any fleet movement in the Traveller setting involves logistic problems, being out of touch, and an inability to react to distant events.

Going in the back way leaves the front door unguarded and the besieged able to sally. I see absolutely nothing strange about Vilani governors who prefer to have the bulk of their forces between the enemy and themselves.

That excuse presumes only the Vilani will cross the Gap in a militarily significant manner. The door can swing both ways however. Because both sides can cross the gap, having a force in Sirius means that the Vilani governors have placed a force between the enemy and themselves.

False analogy. Jump torpedoes have been declared uncanonical. Jon's history hasn't.

Sorry, but no. Jump torps were once as canonical as everything else. Zeigler's flawed history is now canonical as everything else. Jump torps were decanonized and the same can happen to Zeigler's history.

You've got me there. Or rather, you've got TPTB. I've been lobbying for a change of that particular bit of canon. However, until it is changed, it remains canon, so your analogy fails there too.

I don't care if it's "canonical", it's still completely ⌧ing wrong, isn't it? There's no plausible way Egryn can be terra incognito to the people of Glisten in 1105, is there? It doesn't matter that the decanonization pen hasn't been swiped across it, it's wrong, it doesn't work, and it can't be made to work.

There's canonical and then there's canonical. We both know there are things in canon that simply cannot be explained, excused, or made to work given all other canonical information. I've no trouble ignoring those type of canonical bits and their having some canon label attached to them doesn't even give me pause.

RoF's and ISW's take on deep space jumps does not work and cannot be made to work given all other canonical information. Those takes should be ignored.

... if I managed to persuade Chris that he was wrong...

Fat chance. What's he telling you now? That everyone used STL at high fractions of c to cross the gaps? Aside from being utter nonsense, that's also pretty desperate. Ask him how the Ziru Sirka's doomed Central Fleet moved from Vland to the Rim while also making 2 or 3 fractional-c Gap crossings. Or how the request by the Rim that the Fleet be dispatched reached Vland in time across those same gaps.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Starviking]

Pardon me if I accidently make points already made, but deep space jumps are mentioned as the method that the Aslan cross the Great Rift. There's deep space jumping in The Traveller Adventure (Type R + extra fuel in the cargo bay), and deep space jumping is implied in the roles of the SDB Jump Shuttle and X-Boat Tender in Traders and Gunboats - as both ships can only make Jump-1, though the case of the Jump Shuttle this is only when carrying an SDB.

 

[rancke]

You wrote that paragraph while still completely oblivious to the fact that Imperium doesn't model jump drive at all. Let me repeat that again:

Imperium does not model jump drive and Imperium never modeled jump drive.

I know that, Bill. The thing is, it doesn't matter. Just as many a throwaway reference get picked up and used in ways the original author almost certainly never anticipated, so did TPTB change Imperium from not dealing with an OTU historical setting to dealing with an OTU historical setting. So it doesn't matter how it was originally designed. Does it matter that Gunpowder God was originally an SF short story? Does it matter that The Cosmic Computer was originally Graveyard of Dreams? Does it ruin the novel that Conn Maxwell wound up with a different girl in the short story? It might, if doing so turned a thight well-written short story inot a soppy long-drawn-out mediocre novel. But it didn't. OTOH, there's a Western author that I liked very much, but I dropped him when he started turning his good short stories into novels with two-thirds padding. So what matters isn't how things started, it's how they worked out that's important.

Let me try an analogy. Back when I started the fantasy campaign that would run for 15 years and involve three separate groups and frequent one-shot adventures, I started small, on an island in the straits between two continents. I used the map from City State of the Invincible Overlord to the west and the map to Tarantis (Judges Guild material), only I wanted the straits to be broader, so I interpolated ten hex rows between the two maps. I then added bits of map from various sources. No matter what the scale, I changed it to 30 km per hex. At one point, I needed to figure out what was across the mountain range to the east of the Tarantis map. So I took the map from Divine Right (a fantasy boardgame). The grain of the hexes ran horizontally whereas the grain of the other maps ran vertically, so I turned the DR map 90 degrees. To the north were mountains and to the south were sea, so I turned it anti-clockwise to make mountains fit with mountains. Even so, the eastern side of my map and the "western" side of the DR map did not, of course, match. So I interpolated another ten hexrows and filled the terrain in with mountains and valleys that fit the two sides.

It didn't bother anyone that the DR map was a originally a different scale, a different orientation, and part of a different world. It fit into its new world, and my players visited the Invisible School of Thaumaturgy and various other places of interest. They didn't get to meet The Black Hand, but they did meet Hamahara the Air Dragon. none of which people and places were originally designed to be part of my fantasy world.

Imperium doesn't model jump drive, so talking about how well or badly it models jump drive is nonsense.

Of course it models jump drive. It describes a historical period of the OTU, doesn't it? So it must be modelling jump drive, because that's the only interstellar drive in the OTU. Talking about it modelling tramlines is just nonsens.

Any fleet movement in the Traveller setting involves logistic problems, being out of touch, and an inability to react to distant events.

Yes, but dispersing your fleet across three parsecs, a quarter of them winding up too far from the rendevouz point to make it in one jump (requiring them to try again, a minimum of an additional two jumps to do) is different from having the entire fleet concenterated in a place the Admiralty knows you're at.

Sorry, but no. Jump torps were once as canonical as everything else. Zeigler's flawed history is now canonical as everything else. Jump torps were decanonized and the same can happen to Zeigler's history.

Yes but, and this is where I want you to follow my reasoning like a hawk, it hasn't happened. The decanonization of jump torpedoes has happened. This means the two situations are, you know, different. Not alike. Dissimilar.

I don't care if it's "canonical", it's still completely ⌧ing wrong, isn't it?

No argument there. At least, no argument from me. Sadly, it's not me who needs to be convinced.

There's no plausible way Egyrn can be terra incognito to the people of Glisten in 1105, is there? It doesn't matter that the decanonization pen hasn't been swiped across it, it's wrong, it doesn't work, and it can't be made to work.

And yet, whe Doug Berry submitted a proposal for a Trojan Reach sourcebook based on that very premise, it was accepted by SJG. To change the old saw a bit, canon is what Traveller editors want you to stick to if you want to sell them stuff.

There's canonical and then there's canonical. We both know there are things in canon that simply cannot be explained, excused, or made to work given all other canonical information. I've no trouble ignoring those type of canonical bits and their having some canon label attached to them doesn't even give me pause.

Alas, would that you and I were in charge of the Traveller Franchise. we'd show 'em, wouldn't we?

RoF's and ISW's take on deep space jumps does not work and cannot be made to work given all other canonical information. Those takes should be ignored.

You're at least half right. It doesn't work. That doesn't prove that it (or most of it) cannot be made to work.

him how the Ziru Sirka's doomed Central Fleet moved from Vland to the Rim while also making 2 or 3 fractional-c Gap crossings. Or how the request by the Rim that the Fleet be dispatched reached Vland in time across those same gaps.

There are three parsec gaps separating Vland from the Rim? Because unless there are, my guess would have been that the Central Fleet and Vilani couriers crossed the various two-parsec gaps using jump-2.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

...If, in fact, they are using Bk2-'81 ships... well then, J3 is available at TL 9...but you can't get better than J2 in a 100Td hull... and a useful payload means you only have J1 fuel.

I'm missing the reason for limiting the hull to 100tons? You can do J3 in 200tons*, or J2 in a 400ton hull with much more payload, both at TL9.

And they had yet to develop the J2 program for the computer.

A possibility I suppose. Though I recall nothing in the rules that would support it.

The J1 calibration point is simply an example of the whole mess of B5 and B2 ship designs both being somehow supposedly compatible in the minds of the creator. So while we can build small ships up to J3 at TL9 with one, in the other we are limited to J1 but in much larger hulls. I don't think we can come up with a rational explanation without ditching B2 design from the reasoning.

I just found it interesting that while AM5 invokes deep space jumps to get around being limited to J1 as a way to get out of Sol system, it really doesn't explain why they had to when B2 designs are not limited to J1.

* a guess, didn't run the numbers, might be tight, almost half fuel

 

[aramis]

Why 100Td? because it's implied that it was a small ship. Generally, people don't experiment with large ships.

We know that terran Jump Drives were used at first only within system.

We also know that the TL limits to jump# postdate book 2, but predate AM1. It's a rules/setting disconnect.

@FT: a 200 tonner works somewhat better under Bk2... you can use a Type A with its 90Td of cargo to make 4J1, plus the internal 1J1, plus rip out the 5 passenger SR's and make it 6J1+3mo fuel. In short, if they used any bigger a hull under Bk2, then they could build it for multiple jumps sufficient to make it to Barnard's star in one fuel load.

@Hans: The fact that the fluff was changed still doesn't make Imperium model the OTU effectively. Especially given the 2 year turns, nor the .8C+ speed for non-jump hexes(which wuld result in a steady bombardment with "high-energy alpha" particles (Really, low velocity hydrogen being hit by a high velocity ship, but the effect is the same no matter which is moving fast: Massive secondary radiation).

It's just not credible in this case to take the rules mechanics as indicative of setting truths. Much the same as the Bk2/Bk5 disconnect... neither models the universe behind the OTU publications well, and both provide distorted views... and the AHL can't radiate its own heat under TNE.

GTIW picks one particularly poorly explained mechanic, and presumes it to be an explanation of the universe's physics. (General consensus has never been mass required, and CT had several references to deep space jumps, including explicit "no different" results in TTA.