Babylon 5 - Jump Gates

[Oracle]

I have the two B5 Mongoose Publishing products...I have a question about the Jump Gates.

Now what I am doing in my game is I either have large ships create a Jump Bumble, and then they can jump from one point to another point in space. Only the large vessels can do this, but in my campaign some military vessels and large Corp Jump Carry-Alls can transports smaller vessels and carry them to another point. Most ships can not do this.

Now I have defined Jump Gate technology, as having a Jump Gate point one in one starting system, and another at another solar system. The two gates can form a worm hole between the two points and the ship can travel through the wormhole to end up in the other solar system from where it started. It takes time to travel through the wormhole, but it is a why smaller ships can travel between system.

In my campaign mankind used Arks to travel to a new solar system and settled there, then they have explored and set up a spider web of Jump Gates out from Earth II (new home world), and there is 35 other systems that have been partly explored but do not have Jump gates within them.
The new solar system I am creating with these two new races is a totally unknown solar system, and the players will be the first Scouting team to enter and explore the system. Also these two races are the first intelligent life forms that mankind has encountered.

Also although they have 6 colony worlds out of the 20 that have Jump Gates in them , all of them have heavy terraforming going on to make the colony planets perfect for human life. The new world that these two life forms call home, is a perfect world for human life without any terraforming at all. Add to that the systems other orbits are super rich in many minerals and rare elements too. They do not have ANY Prime Directive. It is the players that will help to set the mode of what happens with this system and these two new intelligent life forms.

GM Note: If played right over time both of these races can become fast partners to mankind, and can with help become uplifted fast. That is all long time, beyond the scope of the campaign.

Back to my question, how where the B5 Jump Gates supposed to work?

 

[Hopeless]

Wouldn't they rely on exploration ships to help build a gate in that new system?

 

[AdrianH]

In B5, a jump point is a sort of wormhole but it does not lead directly to another system. It leads to hyperspace, which is red, swirly and looks like this. You then navigate to the destination and open another jump point back to normal space. It is possible to lose your way by drifting too far from the beacon, in which case you are in serious trouble. (See the season 2 episode "A Distant Star".)

Large ships may carry jump engines with which they can open their own jump points. Jump gates provide the necessary power to generate a jump point for the benefit of smaller ships without jump engines, though even large ships often use them in preference to generating their own jump points. Once a jump point has been formed, either by a jump gate or a jump drive, other ships or fighters can use it; there were scenes in which a big warship arrived in system accompanied by fighters travelling through the same jump point. So you don't need a "Carry-All" to transport smaller ships, but it does need to accompany them through hyperspace if they intend to arrive in the destination system without using a jump gate.

Hopeless is right; humans, at least, use giant Explorer ships to build (and maintain) the jump gates. Your Ark ships would effectively be Explorers, though with the added task of transporting a colony as well as building the jump gate. (If you find "A Distant Star", you'll get a good view of an Explorer.)

 

[locarno24]

Pretty much as AdrianH says.

A Jump gate has two functions. Firstly, a door in and out of hyperspace useable even for non-jump capable ships. Secondly, the 'beacon' is a line projected between one system's jump gate and another system's jump gate.

These are occasionally encrypted or otherwise protected, but essentially they define a navigable straight line that someone in the swirling miasma of hyperspace can follow from one system to another. Drift too far away from that signal and loose contact with it, and you're essentially dead meat - you'll never find it again and any hyperspace exit will be in deep space. Travelling without a beacon is nigh on impossible - which is why explorer ships are such huge, long-endurance vessels; they take forever to get vaguely close to an uncharted star system.

 

[Oracle]

Wouldn't they rely on exploration ships to help build a gate in that new system?

Hi there and to answer your question, the "Carry-Alls" are set up to have the other smaller ships attach themselves to the bigger vessel, and then the bigger vessel creates the bubble that enwraps everything (including any smaller carried vessels). Now what happens is a Scout Carry-All jumps into system and drops off vessels and then leaves. Doing it this way is much more dramatic plot device making the players meet targets and stay on target with gameplans and goals for the scope of the game.

The vessel that is being dropped off is a 1200 Ton Scout explorer with a (12) man crew, and (6) Robots along with (6) Driods run by the ship's AI. Each player has two characters that they can run, a Primary and backup one. The backup crew are used by me the GM as NPCs until the host player needs to run their backup PC.

Now the "Carry-Alls" tend to be used to bring in the materials needed to construct the Jump Gates. The requirements to build one is quite alot of stuff, plus their are construction based tenders and building ships specifically designed to do that job.

At this point no one has ever been in this star system yet, and the players team will be the first to enter it and explore it. They have to survey the complete system first and run many surveys on each and every orbit first. After all the system has been surveyed, then the data must be sent back to the reviewed and examined to determine what the next steps might be. As you can pretty well guess they will want to build a Jump Gate here.

 

[Oracle]

In B5, a jump point is a sort of wormhole but it does not lead directly to another system. It leads to hyperspace, which is red, swirly and looks like this. You then navigate to the destination and open another jump point back to normal space. It is possible to lose your way by drifting too far from the beacon, in which case you are in serious trouble. (See the season 2 episode "A Distant Star".)

Large ships may carry jump engines with which they can open their own jump points. Jump gates provide the necessary power to generate a jump point for the benefit of smaller ships without jump engines, though even large ships often use them in preference to generating their own jump points. Once a jump point has been formed, either by a jump gate or a jump drive, other ships or fighters can use it; there were scenes in which a big warship arrived in system accompanied by fighters travelling through the same jump point. So you don't need a "Carry-All" to transport smaller ships, but it does need to accompany them through hyperspace if they intend to arrive in the destination system without using a jump gate.

Hopeless is right; humans, at least, use giant Explorer ships to build (and maintain) the jump gates. Your Ark ships would effectively be Explorers, though with the added task of transporting a colony as well as building the jump gate. (If you find "A Distant Star", you'll get a good view of an Explorer.)

Thanks for the pics...I will use them.

The Arks were used to build a colony city on Earth II, so each ark was converted into a Colony city on that planet. There were (21) of them and they arrive two years apart. Mankind has been on that world now for about 200 years and much of the terraforming for Earth II is completed. It is a garden world of many plants and a few selected animals and birds and insects. Now that star system has humans in every orbit in colonies.

For new Colonies, that requires alot of resources and staging and setup vessels. Currently mankind is working on setting up a seventh colony, but that will take between 5-10 years to complete and they are only in the first year of setup.

I like the hyperspace concept, but the way I have been doing it each system gets one Jump Gate. When a ship wishes to travel from one system with a Jump gate and another system also with a Jump gate, the starting Jump gate makes a bridge between itself and the other Jump gate. The ship then calls to the control bridge on the Jump Gate and they set up the bridge and open the start jump gate. The ship passes through the gate and travels down the wormhole bridge connecting the two jump gates. When the ship reaches the other jump gate, it's transponder is picked up and the gate automatically opens to allow the ship to exit on the other side.

Yes I know I am doing things differently, but it limits sprawl of possibilities. Also by limiting the Jump possible ships to really big ones, the PCs are limited to following the general plot that I have designed.

 

[AdrianH]

This isn't that different from B5's hyperspace, except that there is no direct wormhole from start jump point to end jump point. But, as has been pointed out, you really don't want to deviate from a straight line course between the two. The main difference is that "interesting" things can happen in hyperspace. If you want to scare the players, have them meet this coming the other way. :twisted:

Although in B5 a small ship (or even a fighter) can go through a jump point generated by a large ship without having to be physically carried, the episode "A Distant Star" does mention the Explorer carrying scouts, though it doesn't say anything about what sort of craft those are. Since an Explorer is a couple of miles long, it could probably carry that 1200 tonne scout if it really wanted. Of course, your Carry-Alls aren't necessarily the same as Explorers, though they do seem to do the same job, exploring a new system and building a jump gate.

 

[Oracle]

This isn't that different from B5's hyperspace, except that there is no direct wormhole from start jump point to end jump point. But, as has been pointed out, you really don't want to deviate from a straight line course between the two. The main difference is that "interesting" things can happen in hyperspace. If you want to scare the players, have them meet this coming the other way. :twisted:

Although in B5 a small ship (or even a fighter) can go through a jump point generated by a large ship without having to be physically carried, the episode "A Distant Star" does mention the Explorer carrying scouts, though it doesn't say anything about what sort of craft those are. Since an Explorer is a couple of miles long, it could probably carry that 1200 tonne scout if it really wanted. Of course, your Carry-Alls aren't necessarily the same as Explorers, though they do seem to do the same job, exploring a new system and building a jump gate.

Well but limiting the players ability to jump from system to system, they have to go where Big Brother wants them to go (Me the GM)! I always build into any plot multiple sub plots that give the players alot to dig into and explore. In this situation they have a garden Earth planet, and two intelligent races on it. They also have rare to unknown elements in the system, mineral rich asteroid belts, and they have the Kracken (space monsters). There is alot there to dig into and that will keep them busy for quite a while.

Plus when the other Scout teams (2) of them arrive after the players report in with their findings at that time and get resupplied, they will in a couple weeks have two more Scout Exploration teams join them and a couple of the players have rivals and enemies on the other teams. Then some other plots will come into play.

 

[Hopeless]

I am assuming these carry-alls will be dropping off a beacon to make the next trip less perilous so they can speed up the construction of a new gate as well as insure they have backups if the new arrivals need to send an urgent message if something unexpected happens (think B5 Crusade opening episode).

Also who or what locates these systems int he first place?

Are they like the automated ships revealed in the 2nd or so episode of Hypernauts or are there generation ships out there plotting their course to the next system to be investigated?

What if your PCs are dropped off and discover someone shot down the discoverers of this system and they're on the front line of potential either first contact situation or potential war perhaps set up by a rival looking to profit from the situation by blaming them for their piracy/raiding/genocidal attacks?

Exactly how are they locating these new systems?

Did they find a cache of ancient records detailing new star system addresses ala Stargate?

How much do your PCs really know about whats going on or rather what don't they know?

 

[Oracle]

I am assuming these carry-alls will be dropping off a beacon to make the next trip less perilous so they can speed up the construction of a new gate as well as insure they have backups if the new arrivals need to send an urgent message if something unexpected happens (think B5 Crusade opening episode).

Also who or what locates these systems int he first place?

Are they like the automated ships revealed in the 2nd or so episode of Hypernauts or are there generation ships out there plotting their course to the next system to be investigated?

What if your PCs are dropped off and discover someone shot down the discoverers of this system and they're on the front line of potential either first contact situation or potential war perhaps set up by a rival looking to profit from the situation by blaming them for their piracy/raiding/genocidal attacks?

Exactly how are they locating these new systems?

Did they find a cache of ancient records detailing new star system addresses ala Stargate?

How much do your PCs really know about whats going on or rather what don't they know?

All good questions...let me answer your great questions;

1 The Carry-Alls are apart of the Fleet Transport Service and they have a human crew. They have basic or light dry dock services, and carry a wide range of options. Mostly they have a large Scout Core team, with some Star Marshals (The Law), along with Colonial Marines too. The vessels are large and have different amounts of staff depending on the missions they might be assigned.

So basically the Science College Core a division of the Scout Core has studied the surrounding region of space and they can tell basic intel of any given system. They identify the star systems basic sun type, and number of orbits and some generial details about each orbit. In this case they know that there is a high chance that this system has a possible garden (Earth like) planet. Finding worlds for mankind to colonize is always a priority. Since mankind has never encountered anouther inteligent life form before, it is felt Intelligent life is extremely rare in the universe.

Now when the Carry-All enters a new system, they drop off a System Beacon, that acts as a Transponder, and Memory Alpha Data Center. To a slight degree it is also a emergency life boat with (8) Cryo-Sleep Stasis chambers plus some supplies as well. There is a emergency medical bay as well too. In most cases the beacon is a small Space station totally automated, but they can in some cases have a two man crew with AI controlled droids (2-4).

In the case of this brand new system exploration, the System beacon will also have 2 NPCs and 4 Droids, with a small System shuttle for the crew. The fact that this system may have a BioSphere that might support Human life with minor Terraforming efforts, it has a high priority. Part of the job of the team in the Beacon is to aid in Stellar Cartography of the system and surrounding stars region. Also they will begin survey opperations for placement of a System Jump Gate. The system beacon becomes a part of the System Jump Gate, it is first part of the command module section.

2 When a team arrives, the Carry-All stays on station for 48 hrs and also drops off the System beacon. It also does scans of the system and sweeps for Intelligent life. In most cases it will return with one month's time to gain reports, drop off supplies and if deemed drop off other Survey Scout teams. If need is determined, they will drop off a Colonial Marine System Defense Boat with Colonial Marine Combat Squad (12 Marines), station out at the Beacon . In most cases the Beacon is located on the very edge of the solar system very far out from the sun.

3 As I said they have not found any evidence of any other intelligent life at all, and everything has been discovered by Celestrial Cartography and Astronomers using technology and science to locate things.

Next when the players arrive within system, they will be the first humans ever in this system. The players know there is a high chance that the one orbit has a planet that appears to be Earth like. There is no evidence of anyone being there at all. To them this is a total Exploration Opp, and the players characters are a mix of Scouts and Star Marshal types, with a few Spacer Core Naval types too. Remember I have each player have two characters, with one as their Primary character and the other is a backup but I use as a NPC until they mght need to use them.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Do your Jump Gates have a maximum range that limits what other gates they can connect with? Having such a limit would make a spiderweb of your gate network as opposed to any gate being able to connect to any other gate. The network could force Players to go to places they don't want to go, since that is all the farther the gate can reach.

 

[Oracle]

Do your Jump Gates have a maximum range that limits what other gates they can connect with? Having such a limit would make a spiderweb of your gate network as opposed to any gate being able to connect to any other gate. The network could force Players to go to places they don't want to go, since that is all the farther the gate can reach.

Yes they do have a range and that is governed by the power used in regards to bridging from point to point. As far as the player know they can trave a total of 5 hexes between Jump Gates. The system just doesn't have enough power to bridge farther than that, currently. The Inner ring of 21 systems with Earth II at the center, all have Jump Gates. The outer 35 systems that have been explored about 80%, many have Jump Gates in service or are being built currently. They build about two Jump Gates a year currently. It is a slow process, but bigger ships like a Carry-All or Naval Cruiser can usually Jump 5 hexes as well too. A Naval Cruiser usually has a few Shuttles, Fighters, and where there is room for other small vessels under some tonage limit.

 

[Oracle]

Another note, I intend to also have Mankind discover a new power source in the future as a plot line. I always loved Robotech, and with ProtoMatter(Flower of life) as a power source concept with some minor tweeks I can have them discover a Ancient Alien wreck that had the engines and power plant intact. In time Humankind will discover and be able to use ProtoMatter and the distance for things like Jump Gates will be x4 in range. Many new techs will come out of that discovery, but it will be over time in the campaign that in some limited situations they will see proto-type systems being beta tested and put into production.