FTL starship today

[Tom Kalbfus]

A warp field requires positive and negative gravity, it would obtain this by splitting the vacuum, manipulating quantum effects and extracting negative energy from it, if the do this enough, they can create a warp field. You need some other force to hold the negative matter particles together, perhaps the strong force. The strong force clumps these particles together until the gravity builds to such an extend, that no more can accumulate. In the mean time a black hole forms in front of the ship. the negative matter ball with its antigravity pushes the black hole away, the black hole attracts the ball of negative matter, the two natural accelerate in the same direction with the black hole in front. Over time virtual particle pairs erode the ball of negative an positive matter, they shrink the warp field collapses when both fall below a certain threshold. As the ship is isolated from the Universe, they can't stop this until the warp field collapses, then they create another warp field to carry the ship further. To create on board gravity, you need to isolate some of the negative particles and store them above the ceiling, and the positive particles have to be isolated and stored below the floor. The positive attack , the negative repel, this creates a gravitational dipole, similar to the force lines of a magnetic field. If you are in between the two poles, you can experience normal gravity onboard the ship. Probably this works best when the direction of "down" is in the direction the ship is warping in, that is you keep the black hole beneath your feet, and the positive gravitational pole above your head. The tidal effects mostly cancel out too. attractive gravity stretches and pulls, repulsive gravity squashes and pushes.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I'm thinking about taking my original MTU concept I created years ago and take elements for this campaign's story. In 1960, Frank Drake founded Project Ozma and aimed his telescope to a few planets away from the direction of Epsilon Eridani and found nothing. His team went back to other pursuits. However, in 1971, Drake and others developed a new endeavor, a multi-dish array named Project Cyclops. They kept the price tag low so it was accepted but not as extensive or powerful as they would have wanted. Years later, project volunteer Jerry Ehman was sweeping the array toward Eridani again but thought to look at the range of commercial and tv signals and found them! The sounds and images revealed what seemed a race of humanoid dogs!

The frequency bands and modulation another culture uses to transmit signals has nothing to do with the frequency bands and modulation we use; they are essentially arbitrary, and not optimal in any particular way that would lead to “convergent evolution” of signal construction. Additionally, the encoding of the signal is just as arbitrary; it would essentially have to be “hacked”.

See the original “Independence Day” for a good example of this; Jeff Goldblum’s character, David Levinson, sees a rogue signal being broadcast across the television satellite network. The encoding is like nothing he’s seen before, but he’s a decent enough mathematician and computer scientist that, given the fixed and constant rate at which it changes, he figures out how to decode it, and concludes that it is a countdown, since symbols for each alien digit always change at a frequency corresponding to their respective power of the alien numerical base. From that, he’s got their entire number system in radio form, and, given an example of some alien computational hardware implementing that number system as well as the alien version of assembly instructions, he then has all he needs to put together a computer worm that destroys the Alien Invasion. I personally like to think that, by running a computer with a PowerPC processor running Mac OS in a world full of Wintel, he had all the experience he needed to deal with cross-compiling into alien endian-ness, bases, operating systems, and so on, since he largely did that as part of his day-to-day job.

Also, with a system consisting of multiple dishes, wouldn’t “Project Multiclops” be more appropriate? Or, for a more appropriate analogy of a gigantic insect eye, maybe “Project Mothra”?

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I had a thought about landing...

Suppose you drop from orbit a “drydock rig” that unfolds like the bases of the Pathfinder, Spirit, & Opportunity missions, and arms fold up to “catch” the ship in a docking orientation. You wouldn’t need any fancy retractables in the right orientation... you could have plenty in the more convenient wrong orientation, though!

 

[Reynard]

I was thinking about that myself for downports. Problem is even partial streamlining stinks for planetary landings and making a habit of it invites a bad piloting roll. I see it that the ring structure give it the overall clos structure configuration while the main body could be more streamline when separate. I really don't see a problem with a ship that can't land. A lot of scifi stories do it and rely on small craft. Even Enterprise did that until they again realized transporters sped up the story. As is, the limitation demands highports and makes the systems featuring them very important. Downports will cater to small craft traffic. I keep thinking how to use Traveller rules to detatch the warp drive, which are mostly the rings, so the main ship could become a lander. When Highguard come out, maybe I pore over and something will click.

For fun, I next need to create a bevy of TL 9 intra-planetary small craft and system craft that are the workhorses exploiting maneuver/fusion technology to explore and exploit the Sol system while we find someway other that decades to communicate with the Vargr.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

The rings aren’t necessarily unaerodynamic. You can make an aerodynamic version of them... there’s even a cute little indoor airplane you can make using two circular paper rings and a straw. Admittedly, Traveller rules fall apart here... again. An aerodynamic version of this thing would be distributed for collisions, but not for landing.

 

[Reynard]

Must reread the Breakaway rules again and again. Just like I messed a little bit with the alternate warp mechanics, IF I really feel starships need to land, I can rule, like we see Obi Wan's little ship did, the main ship can detach and leave the warp section in orbit. Disadvantage? It's inert and vulnerable. You lose that, you lose FTL. Maybe have to add the external clamp option. Some prefer the cheaper whole ship while more expensive detachable engines work for ships regularly performing frontier duties. I'd rather not overcomplicate this with tons of homebrew rules.

Another long term consideration for this campaign is understanding, if only as a mental challenge, how long it will take for Earth and it's expanding influence to advance technology. This would be more for having campaigns in future eras. Supplement 12 Dynasty makes Tech advance very vague and a calculation to other values. Trillion Credit Squadron (page 20) has a simple way to advance tech. I may use the Technology Advancement section in Marc Miller's Traveller: Pocket Empires and Mongoosize it to give a time frame when MTU leaves the Prototype Era and will enter Commercial Era. Colonization and exploration will be part of the first era while trade between systems become more viable when better systems are available.

Comments are encouraged.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Must reread the Breakaway rules again and again. Just like I messed a little bit with the alternate warp mechanics, IF I really feel starships need to land, I can rule, like we see Obi Wan's little ship did, the main ship can detach and leave the warp section in orbit. Disadvantage? It's inert and vulnerable. You lose that, you lose FTL. Maybe have to add the external clamp option. Some prefer the cheaper whole ship while more expensive detachable engines work for ships regularly performing frontier duties. I'd rather not overcomplicate this with tons of homebrew rules.

Another long term consideration for this campaign is understanding, if only as a mental challenge, how long it will take for Earth and it's expanding influence to advance technology. This would be more for having campaigns in future eras. Supplement 12 Dynasty makes Tech advance very vague and a calculation to other values. Trillion Credit Squadron (page 20) has a simple way to advance tech. I may use the Technology Advancement section in Marc Miller's Traveller: Pocket Empires and Mongoosize it to give a time frame when MTU leaves the Prototype Era and will enter Commercial Era. Colonization and exploration will be part of the first era while trade between systems become more viable when better systems are available.

Comments are encouraged.

You ever watch those Star Trek movies? Seems they relaxed the requirement that starships can't land. Remember that scene where the Enterprise was hiding under an ocean? the original idea was the Enterprise was too delicate to survive the rigors of atmospheric entry and it had no landing gear besides, yet it could travel a warp velocity get to a distance star system in a week's time, but its too delicate to land on a planet! Such a study in contradiction! Some starships are too delicate, a solar sail for instance. A ship that is powered by antimatter, maybe be able to land on a planet, but you may not want it too!

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, let's just leave those Abrams movies out of any conversation. He pissed on the Star Trek universe to mark them as his. I can point out far too many things wrong but I'll just mention for this thread he made starships instant teleporters over interstellar distances taking a canon over the top and into the dirt. Football field sized ships with nacelles on flimsy supports that should bend and break in a grounding is silly too. Star Trek pretty much made it clear for decades the ship as a whole was moving as a single unit in a bubble of real time and space. If, as you are suggesting, it's actual acceleration, it would disintegrate in the seconds it goes from sublight to faster than light. As to anti-matter engines, and we'll use Star Trek again, the scifi theory is they got it well under control for hundred, thousands and maybe millions of years and the precautions work. Same for Traveller super tech anti-matter devices and standard fusion reactors that don't go bang when damaged or destroyed.

I accepted that if I used the rings it only makes sense that the beast is not able to land. I'm trying to tweak canon as slightly as possible here and keep it close to mechanics. Warp drive in Traveller is an FTL system only. Why reinvent all the other systems as warp extensions Traveller already provides? My flavor is the ring look. Traveller does give a lot of latitude as we see very little detailed description what most systems, especially FTL and gravitic drives, look like and function except in the MegaTraveller Starship Operator's Manual. Flavor becomes quite possible and makes Traveller better because there's choice and diversity without going beyond the mechanics. I've built Battlestars using Traveller mechanics just not as bulky or spacious inside. This is that 'universal' concept.

I will also note here I gave the shape the close structure configuration. That means these ship can make wilderness fueling when newer ship are designed with scoops and processors based on the functional analysis of the IXS. Right now Enterprise is good for 12 weeks endurance (someone check my design that I interpreted the design rules right). That's what seems to be a feature of the warp drive rules.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

 

[Reynard]

Just so you know, I have several books considered official with detailed descriptions of Star Trek Universe, as opposed to Traveller Universe, warp physics. A huge graphic diagram was a little over the top to explain your point. Still, as I said, we're talking Traveller warp systems in Traveller which, so far as we have described, is not the same thing though at least somewhat similar. No anti-matter needed but can be useful at higher tech levels. No dilithium crystals. Quite possibly The IXS universe uses zuchai crystal in warp engine to convert and focus power from the ship's plant and lanthanum is the important rare earth metal that creates the grid in the ring to control and manipulate warp field operation. This makes Traveller warp leaving Scotty scratching his head.

This is the fun part with Traveller we can take a concept from other sources and have a Traveller version that works in Traveller. I must say though, according to a recent Star Trek technical guide, the Impulse engines, which are plasma ejectors, would be closer to a Traveller HEPlar than the iconic gravitic maneuver drive which is actually more efficient. That would make ST Enterprise both very advanced with anti-matter power while less advanced with HEPlar reaction motors.

 

[John Done]

James O'Donoghue, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Specialist and Former NASA Officer estimated the speed of ships with a warp drive - a hypothetical device that allows you to move at superluminal speed. As an example, O'Donoghue took the fictional spaceship USS Enterprise from the science fiction series Star Trek: The Next Generation. According to the manual, there is a superluminal velocity scale determined by the warp factor. Thus, a warp factor of one corresponded to the speed of light, and the upper limit of 9.99 was 2140 times the speed of light. A starship, whose speed is the speed of light, would take 5 hours and 28 minutes to reach Pluto, which is 5.9 billion kilometers from the Sun. At the same time, it would reach the closest star to the Sun - Proxima Centauri - in four years and three months. With a warp factor of 5, which is 213 times the speed of light, the ship would reach Pluto in one minute 30 seconds. However, a flight to Proxima Centauri would have taken a week. Finally, at maximum warp speed, the flight to Pluto would take only 10 seconds, and to Proxima Centauri - 18 hours. However, in the case with Milky Way, even the maximum warp speed is too slow. It would take 96 years to travel from one edge of the galaxy to the other. To the Andromeda galaxy, which is 2.4 million light-years from Earth, USS Enterprise would fly 300 years. It means that for today, humanity has not yet reached even 10% of the speed of light.