Gravitational Neutral Points

[Tom Kalbfus]

I am not making a judgement on whether having a finite or infinite number of access points is the "best" way to go. It is really what the Referee wants for his setting.

Using LaGrange points is a pseudo-scientific way to explain those choke points. Don't want them? Don't use them.

Using Star Gates is another great way - but then you have to explain why a gate is placed in a particular location and not some other place more conveniently located to the main world.

Stargates are cousins to black holes, as such, you don't want them on a planet's surface or near a planet, but you do want them close enough to minimize travel time, An L4 or L5 point might be a good place to put one, otherwise place it in a high orbit around a planet, say about 400,000 kilometers just to be safe. That would be my explanation.

 

[Rick]

So, in your universe, you are using 'Hollywood physics' that says you can travel through some form of a black hole? Are you sure you're not confusing Black Hole with Wormhole, they being 2 very much different ideas?

 

[RogerCooper]

LaGrange points are a finite number
If the criterion to emerge from jump/hyperspace is a shallow gravitational slope, lagrange points offer one set of cheap emergence points, but if you are willing to emerge far enough away from the main star anywhere beyond a certain distance will also meet the criteria. Far enough out the star's gravitational well will be shallow enough that you won't need the counterbalancing gravity of a handy planet to flatten it out enough to make emergence possible.

Simon Hibbs

Actually, far enough out, it will not be flat, because of the gravitational influence of Galactic Core (not to mention extra-galactic factors). My original question, was how large will the influence of extra-solar factors be.

Some have commented, that answer should be, whatever the referee wants. But good SF often explores the consequences of science, rather than working backwards from the desired result.

The idea of gravitational neutrals points has some interesting consequences.

1. You can only jump using, specific predictable points
2. Small bodies can't generate jump points at all (because of extra-solar gravity)
3. Navigation means something. You need to aim the ship precisely at the destination point. Detailed observations would be required.
4. Every had best be sitting still during jumps, lest the ship's aim be thrown off

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

There is always the solution suggested in Iain M Bank's 'The Algrabrist'. Given that with high enough technology the crushing isn't an issue.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

So, in your universe, you are using 'Hollywood physics' that says you can travel through some form of a black hole? Are you sure you're not confusing Black Hole with Wormhole, they being 2 very much different ideas?

A wormhole is a black hole with some negative mass in it to prop it open, Since these things require enormous masses, the stargates I would use are communication wormholes anyway, then you use something like a Star Trek Transporter to digitize objects, sent the information through a wormhole, about the size of a hydrogen atom and then a receiver at the other end will reconstruct the object that was transported.

 

[Rick]

So, in your universe, you are using 'Hollywood physics' that says you can travel through some form of a black hole? Are you sure you're not confusing Black Hole with Wormhole, they being 2 very much different ideas?

A wormhole is a black hole with some negative mass in it to prop it open.

Say what now?
That's some more of that 'Hollywood Physics' again, isn't it? A Black Hole is closed, there is no way of going through to anywhere else. Stuff goes in; very little ever comes out, but when it does, it comes out in the same vicinity. Wormholes are a different thing entirely - they can connect 2 points together and form a 'bridge' between the 2; they are the ones that can theoretically be held open by some negative mass and a bit of exotic energy, not Black Holes.
Like I said originally, these are 2 entirely different concepts.

 

[Reynard]

The physics of a blackhole is to pulls things towards the singularity. Period. IF we believed any kind of physics say the singularity point is, in fact, the interface to another blackhole somewhere else you still have the issue that the other blackhole is also pulling everything towards it, even light. Matter would become an infinite quantum ping pong.

I think sci fi writers invented wormholes as not blackholes.

 

[dragoner]

Due to gravitational time dilation, it takes an infinite amount of time (externally) to cross the event horizon. Puts a damper on using it for transport.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Due to gravitational time dilation, it takes an infinite amount of time (externally) to cross the event horizon. Puts a damper on using it for transport.

Naw, its science fiction! Science fiction is all about building stuff we don't know how to do. Now all I'm saying is a wormhole needs to be somewhat like a black hole, in that it needs intense gravity fields to bend space and make that wormhole connecting to somewhere else, and it takes a lot of gravity to bend space, the negative mass is to bend that space back a bit in the throat so it stays open and allows passage. A wormhole doesn't have an event horizon, you can travel both ways through it, and you can even see through it, it does have gravity. How much gravity, I don't know, so I'm supposing it needs a lot to bend space enough to make it a wormhole, Since crushing down a planet to make a wormhole a few centimeters wide is very difficult to do, I would suggest starting with a more modest amount of mass, say that of a large asteroid of size S in the traveller scale, I believe that crushes down to a black hole in the nanometer range, and you may need a lot of negative mass to hold the throat open so you can send information through, then you need assembler/disassembler arrays to disassemble objects, convert them to information, send it through the wormhole, and then use the information to reconstruct the object on the other side. This is not that much different from how the wormholes in Stargate work.

 

[dragoner]

You mean science fantasy, changing the actual physics as we understand them, infinite time on the outside and it means you never get there. Though you seem to be conflating black holes with wormholes.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Tom, I think you are confusing two terms and thus confusing people.

A black hole is an object massive enough and dense enough that its escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. All matter within the event horizon collapses into a singlularity.

A worm hole is a theoretically possible object that uses negative energy to stay open. It has a smaller distance inside than outside; theoretically worm holes can open at different times as well; but the math is still a bit fuzzy on that one. One way to create a worm hole is through the use of black holes.

Worm Holes have not been found. Black Holes have been found and are real.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Tom, I think you are confusing two terms and thus confusing people.

A black hole is an object massive enough and dense enough that its escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. All matter within the event horizon collapses into a singlularity.

A worm hole is a theoretically possible object that uses negative energy to stay open. It has a smaller distance inside than outside; theoretically worm holes can open at different times as well; but the math is still a bit fuzzy on that one. One way to create a worm hole is through the use of black holes.

Worm Holes have not been found. Black Holes have been found and are real.

I think you would need more positive energy than negative energy to hold the thing together. If for example, you wanted your wormhole to orbit a planet, it would need to have a positive mass, the initial curvature of space around the lips of the wormhole is provided by positive mass. A negative mass can only be compressed so much, there is a theoretical event horizon within a negative mass, the only difference is that this event horizon won't allow entry rather than not allowing escape. With negative mass enertia is also reverse, a push is a pull and a pull is a push, For instance negative mass particles of the same charge will attract and opposite charges repel. You could have a ball of negative mass protons clumped together by their positive charge, this ball would have the density of an atomic nucli, and the only limit would be when the negative mass got so great that gravity opposed the same charge attractions of these negative mass protons, and that would be a lot of antigravity. So what you do is just drop one of these into a black hole, now if the black hole's mass is of greater magnitude than the negative mass ball of protons, it will fall into the black hole, The black hole will compress the negative mass ball of protons up against its reverse event horizon, and the infinities will meet and this ball will prop open the neck of the black hole and turn it into a wormhole.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I am not making a judgement on whether having a finite or infinite number of access points is the "best" way to go. It is really what the Referee wants for his setting.

Using LaGrange points is a pseudo-scientific way to explain those choke points. Don't want them? Don't use them.

Using Star Gates is another great way - but then you have to explain why a gate is placed in a particular location and not some other place more conveniently located to the main world.

Is there a resource that details the design, operation, and capavilities of jump-gates / Star Gates? I seem to remember seeing one, but I cannot find it now.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Fire Fusion and Steel.

 

[agentwigggles]

 

[Arkathan]

View attachment 2355

Good to see I wasn't the only one torn over chastising the use of Necromancy.

 

[Sigtrygg]

What's wrong with revisiting an old thread?

 

[Nelphine]

Nothing wrong per se, but most people who do it, do it for the wrong reasons (answering a question or continuing a debate that was resolved years ago), and so it has a bad reputation.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Considering we are still discussing stuff that was first raised forty+ years ago that is an odd reputation to have.

If there is a new take or a new point or even a new question why start a new thread?

At least it shows people are reading the old threads.

 

[Arkathan]

Considering we are still discussing stuff that was first raised forty+ years ago that is an odd reputation to have.

If there is a new take or a new point or even a new question why start a new thread?

At least it shows people are reading the old threads.

Oh I was just amused that someone else was thinking what I was thinking.
I tend not to look at the dates when reading and was almost to the end of the thread when I realized that everything but the last two posts were nine years old.
I found myself torn between being slightly annoyed and glad I didn't respond to any of the earlier posts. Some of those people might have moved on from playing.
I was glad JLBrown got an answer, so I refrained from posting until the photo popped up.