What happens when...

[Daidoji Dave]

you open the airlock on a ship in Jump-space?

 

[mike wightman]

Whatever you want to have happen...

ok, in classic patron encounter format:

1 - nothing, the jump field remains intact protecting you from jump space, but you can't stop staring...
2 - the jump field reconfigures to maintain integrity with the nearest bulkhead, but you now have jump space only a few metres away and it's inside your ship
3 - whatever is in the airlock (hopefully the idiot that opened it in the first place) is grabbed by a jump kraken tentacle and is pulled into the jump dimension
4 - you immediately precipitate into an alternative universe, looking in the mirror you now have a rather distinguished beard
5 - your ship is slowly turned inside out, reflected in a higher dimension and put back, but now your heart in on your right...
6 - ship explodes, generate new characters

 

[coliver988]

Whatever you want to have happen...

ok, in classic patron encounter format:

1 - nothing, the jump field remains intact protecting you from jump space, but you can't stop staring...
2 - the jump field reconfigures to maintain integrity with the nearest bulkhead, but you now have jump space only a few metres away and it's inside your ship
3 - whatever is in the airlock (hopefully the idiot that opened it in the first place) is grabbed by a jump kraken tentacle and is pulled into the jump dimension
4 - you immediately precipitate into an alternative universe, looking in the mirror you now have a rather distinguished beard
5 - your ship is slowly turned inside out, reflected in a higher dimension and put back, but now your heart in on your right...
6 - ship explodes, generate new characters

All most excellent possibilities.

Also throw in which version of Traveller: T5 at least has 3 different types of jump mechanics:

1. Jump Grid - built into the hull, so I imagine jump space is right there....
2. Jump Plates - not as precise and there is probably a bit of space between you and jump space depending on the physical layout
3. jump bubble - again depending on where the air lock is located, lots of space

Although just finished a book that had basically jump dragons in it (and otters, but I am leaning towards the otters were young jump dragons...) The dragons were from a different dimension, the jump space basically, but were inquisitive and apparently friendly if you could see them. Only some navigators could see them, and those were the ones that could basically jump without jump gates. Hmm...I can see this having some impact on navigation for Traveller, other than plotting the course and hitting a button with not much else to do job-wise.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends.

In Forty Kay, I'd bet on tentacles.

 

[whartung]

you open the airlock on a ship in Jump-space?

The door is stuck, and the servo motors short out trying to open the lock.

 

[King Midas]

In depends on where the ship is. In the vast majority of space, this:

1 - nothing, the jump field remains intact protecting you from jump space, but you can't stop staring...

Literally nothing. As long as the jump bubble exists, the ship is in its own universe. I don't care for Niven, but his description as "The brain trying to see what is in back of you" fits quite well.

However, in the Lanth Abyss...

3 - whatever is in the airlock (hopefully the idiot that opened it in the first place) is grabbed by a jump kraken tentacle and is pulled into the jump dimension

...this is one of the better things that can happen!

 

[willtron3030]

Although just finished a book that had basically jump dragons in it (and otters, but I am leaning towards the otters were young jump dragons...) The dragons were from a different dimension, the jump space basically, but were inquisitive and apparently friendly if you could see them. Only some navigators could see them, and those were the ones that could basically jump without jump gates.

Title/Author?

 

[Timerover51]

you open the airlock on a ship in Jump-space?

The person who managed to open the airlock despite all of the safety locks vanishes into jump space, never to be seen again. Someone does have to go out and shut the airlock door prior to landing on a planet. Upon landing, generate a new, and hopefully slightly less foolish, character.

Optionally, staring into jump space destroys their mind and they become catatonic. If you can manage to shut the airlock door, insert them into an available low berth, and decant when you are arrive at your planet destination. If you cannot shut the airlock prior to exiting jump space, the body vanishes into the vacuum of space, but you still have to shut the airlock hatch. In both cases, fill out the necessary incident report, spend an extra week in port while the port authorities investigate to make sure that there was no foul play, notify the next of kin, and then roll up a new character.

 

[Enoki]

In MTU, the person wouldn't suffer any consequence until they stepped out of the ship. The instant they did, their velocity and vector would be different from the ship in minute ways. That means they are highly unlikely to be able to reenter the ship. If tethered to the ship they might be able to reenter it depending on their level of zero G and vac suit skills. If not...

They and the ship would continue inside the jump well to the point of collapse, just like the ship. The time to this point would be approximately equal to that of the ship, be it hours or days. There would be slight differences between the two.
The end result is the person stepping out of the ship dies when their suit air runs out and they might be recovered after the jump ends in normal space if the ship can find them. They will also be eligible for a Darwin Award.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

you open the airlock on a ship in Jump-space?

Things could get blown out through the airlock into space. Your space, inside the bubble surrounding the ship. Anything going through the bubble, into jumpspace... refer to rule of cool.

 

[coliver988]

Title/Author?

Jacey Bedford: Empire of Dust

From the blurb: To combat manipulative megacorporations with telepathic technology, two heroes must rebel, overthrowing the enemy's oppressive influence in the first book in this exciting sci-fi adventure

The jump dragons don't really come into play until the 2nd book.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Prior art: The Game of Rat and Dragon, by Cordwainer Smith (1955).
Project Gutenberg Link

Story includes lethal hyperspace-dwelling creatures, and since it's Cordwainer Smith, it also includes cats.

 

[Grav_Moped]

you open the airlock on a ship in Jump-space?

Hmmn. I considered this before...

1. Jumpspace intrudes into the airlock, conforming to its interior surface. Contents of the airlock are swept into Jumpspace.
2. If you close the outer door but leave the inner door closed, you've trapped a bubble of Jumpspace inside it. When the ship comes out of Jump, the space occupied by the bubble ceases to exist. This isn't vacuum, but instead a hole in spacetime. As a result, the airlock collapses to a geometric point and all of the atoms of its inner surface attempt to converge on that point simultaneously. High-energy physics ensues.
3. If you open the outer door that was closed in (2) before exiting Jumpspace and leave it open, nothing exciting happens except the contents of the airlock vanish.
4. If you open the inner door with the outer door closed, the bubble of Jumpspace in the airlock expands to the contiguous airtight compartment (bulkheads and decks with closed hatches) adjacent to the airlock. See (2) and (3), above. Personnel in Vacc Suits with life support that will last through the remaining duration of Jump could possibly survive if the hatch is opened exactly as the ship exits Jumpspace -- they'll be thrown clear of the ship, likely with some insane velocity*. One might require that the vacc suits have an embedded lanthanum grid for this to work though. In any case, direct exposure to Jumpspace is almost certainly lethal.

There are alternate interpretations, though. I've read discussion of crewmembers working outside the ship, just inside the Jump Bubble (painting the hull, actually) that seemed plausible. It all depends on how you want to play it.


*Adventure hook: your ship's sensors detect a cloud of debris containing several vacc suits inbound at a significant fraction of lightspeed...