How far did the First Imperium get with J1?

[EDG]

I have to wonder why would you say GT is not canon?

Well, GT is considered an "alternate universe" because it diverges from the OTU by not having the Rebellion. With no Rebellion, there's no Virus and New Era, and no 1248. The divergence point was sometime in the late 1000s/early 1100s in the OTU timeline, it's never been made exactly clear.

That part is fair enough. Of course, there are those who use that as the primary reason for being all smug about how GT isn't real Traveller because of its alternate universe status. This despite the fact that the quality and depth of material available for GURPS Traveller is vastly superior to anything that came before it (with the possible exception of the DGP stuff). But go figure.

Of course what they forget is that GT:IW is set about 2500 years before that 'divergence point', so that means it can't be set in an alternate universe...

 

[-Daniel-]

I have to wonder why would you say GT is not canon?

Well, GT is considered an "alternate universe" because it diverges from the OTU by not having the Rebellion. With no Rebellion, there's no Virus and New Era, and no 1248. The divergence point was sometime in the late 1000s/early 1100s in the OTU timeline, it's never been made exactly clear.

That part is fair enough. Of course, there are those who use that as the primary reason for being all smug about how GT isn't real Traveller because of its alternate universe status. This despite the fact that the quality and depth of material available for GURPS Traveller is vastly superior to anything that came before it (with the possible exception of the DGP stuff). But go figure.

Of course what they forget is that GT:IW is set about 2500 years before that 'divergence point', so that means it can't be set in an alternate universe...

Thank You EDG for helping me understand where some folks are comeing from.

Daniel

 

[EDG]

"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 refueling 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 and came back less than a year later."

Pfft. Is that the best you can do? You focus on a word that you even admit is vague and ill-defined, and then have the gall to call it "sloppy" when GT:IW comes up with an explanation that contradicts your own personal interpretation of the word?

It goes on to note first contact, and that by 2116 colonies existed in both Barnard's and Alpha Centauri.

Right, the AC one would be the colony established by ESA on Prometheus by STL ship.

Note also the Barnard's is J2 from ANYTHING. So, by terran contact double jumping was known to Terran using a refueling base.

Right. And that base is around a rogue planet in the hex between Barnard and Terra. Note though that at the end of the 1st IW this all becomes irrelevant because the Terrans invented J2 at that point. All the Terrans need to do is pull the wool over Vilani eyes for that one war, and then they're on an equal footing.

GTIW expands this to be something else

No, it doesn't. AM6 just says that a base was established. While your interpretation is a valid one, it's equally valid to say that it was established ON or AROUND something. Like a Brown Dwarf. Or a rogue planet. That it took several trips to establish it is not an issue - whether it was a stand-alone refuelling station or on a BD moon, they may still have needed to do a few round trips to set everything up.

Sorry Aramis, but on the one hand we have a very vaguely-worded statement that can be interpreted by individuals in a number of ways, and on the other we have an official traveller product giving us a much more detailed and less ambiguous account of what happened. You don't really have a leg to stand on here.

Barnard's is moving rather fast, towards us, so significant amounts of time probably were spent matching vector, given Marc's JTAS article on Jump Space. But that still leaves a probably several month on-station at Barnard's.

Not really. Its proper motion translates to a true velocity of 142 km/s (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_motion anyway). Wolf 424 is another star with a very high true velocity (555 km/s), and that's supposedly the Ember system in the OTU (SR 2227), and nobody seems to have any problem jumping to that.

Damned sloppy.

Not at all. I find the GT accounts much less ambiguous than your personal interpretation of a highly subjective sentence in AM6.

 

[EDG]

Anyway. If you want to continue to argue about whether GT is canon or not, please do it elsewhere (preferably very far away from this board...). I'd rather keep this thread for talking about how the Vilani could have gotten to where they did before they got J2, given that empty hex jumps were not possible pre-IW.

 

[EDG]

Okay, I just took a short break and checked out the homeworld of the Suerrat -another race contacted well before J2...Illish/Illish 2907 -

It is in fact also inaccessable by continuous star to star jumps.
I also note that a waypoint allowing one to get to Illish from Vland would also open up trade with not only an advanced major race (in space longer than the vilanii, but non-jump only) but a main with about 40 planets. Seems woth an investment, says I......

The Suerrat homeworld (Ilelish) is on a small (subsector-scale) Main itself, which I'll call the Illelish Main.

Looks like the Ilielish Main actually needs two jump points to reach the Vilani Main - one at Ilelish 2405 or 2505, and the other at Gushemege 1634. That's the shortest distance I can plot between the two anyway.

 

[EDG]

The Ilhandre are on the Vilani Main in Lishun, so they're good.

The Answerin are right there in Vland on the Main, so they're fine.

The Ael-Yael are on the Vilani Main in Gushemege, so they're also good.

The Jgd-Il-Jagd on the other hand are outside it. There has to be one Jump Point at Lishun 1310, and then it's 11 J1 jumps to the Jagd system.

 

[AKAramis]

The Ilhandre are on the Vilani Main in Lishun, so they're good.

The Answerin are right there in Vland on the Main, so they're fine.

The Ael-Yael are on the Vilani Main in Gushemege, so they're also good.

The Jgd-Il-Jagd on the other hand are outside it. There has to be one Jump Point at Lishun 1310, and then it's 11 J1 jumps to the Jagd system.

The Jagd-il-jgd don't use jump drives, only STL, and by 1100 are into the marches. Do the math... they overlapped the Vilani mains already.

As to canonicity of GT: Marc announced the GT license as "Non-authoritative" in '96 and has never rescinded that. It was reiterated that NOTHING in GT was referenceable for T20.

MJD has made mention of avoiding even his own GT works in doing SM.

GT is a parallel, and close, universe; the divergence point is well before the official differences, and GTIW is proof of that.

I find the need to have gravity wells to be the bogus invention (and one that quite obviously was NOT included in any of Marc Miller's works). That three prior editions allow empty hex jumps, why the Vilani wouldn't is simple: they culturally are not innovators, and with J1 being so useful, had little need. Terrans, however, within 50 years of Jump Drives, were doing deep space jumps to fueling stations.

 

[EDG]

The Jagd-il-jgd don't use jump drives, only STL, and by 1100 are into the marches. Do the math... they overlapped the Vilani mains already.

But the Vilani do use Jump Drives, and I'm going by how many jumps the Jagd homeworld is from the Vilani Main.

As to canonicity of GT: Marc announced the GT license as "Non-authoritative" in '96 and has never rescinded that.

He hasn't made a statement about IW's canonicity. GT's 'non-authoritativeness' may count for post-1100 GT settings, but before the 'divergence point' it's the OTU and nobody has said otherwise.

It was reiterated that NOTHING in GT was referenceable for T20.

Given that GT didn't cover the pre-1100 era (or the area of space T20 was set in), there wasn't really much that could have been "referenceable" there anyway.

MJD has made mention of avoiding even his own GT works in doing SM.

Again, because the GT SM book is set post-divergence point.

GT is a parallel, and close, universe; the divergence point is well before the official differences, and GTIW is proof of that.

No it's not. There's no evidence for that at all.

I find the need to have gravity wells to be the bogus invention (and one that quite obviously was NOT included in any of Marc Miller's works).

So you're argue that anything that Marc himself didn't say can't be canon now? I think you've been taking the Vilani mindset too much to heart...

That three prior editions allow empty hex jumps, why the Vilani wouldn't is simple: they culturally are not innovators, and with J1 being so useful, had little need. Terrans, however, within 50 years of Jump Drives, were doing deep space jumps to fueling stations.

Nothing in GT:IW contradicts that. GT:IW just adds that deep space jumps only became possible with no mass at one end a lot later than the IW and a lot earlier than the 3I, is all. This breaks absolutely nothing.

But like I said, go argue about this elsewhere, because I'm really not interested in hearing your anti-GURPS tirades.

 

[EDG]

Anyway (again).

The Geonee are in a situation similar to Terra. They have one system within one pc of their homeworld, and then they're surrounded by a J2 gap. They are somewhat problematic in that they developed J1 on their own (from an Ancient derelict) but there's lots of J2 gaps around them (GT:H has them going down two short Mains, each separated by J2. And then going down a third main after another J2 hop, and then doing yet another J2 hop to find the remains of an extinct human race at Zarushagaar 1238.

So either the Geonee had damn good astronomers, or maybe they towed planetoids out into the empty hexes via STL that they could use as jump points to bridge the gaps. Or their Ancient-based jump drive was A Bit Spiffy and could do empty hex jumps, which I don't think is that improbable actually given its advanced nature - maybe it also provided the means to solve the jump equations? That said, if that was the case then they'd have a hard time keeping that from the Vilani, especially when they conquered the Geonee.

That said, Geonee have a somewhat confrontational attitude to nature (which often causes them trouble), and may have viewed their isolation yet another challenge that a harsh universe threw at them that they needed to beat. Coupled with their great technical prowess and practicality (but poor theoretical ability), I think that the "STL planetoid towing" explanation actually makes the most sense for them, since it grants them the opportunity to give nature the finger and foil its attempts to box them in on J1 mains. Towing a planetoid to use as a jump point means that they actually get the satisfaction of beating nature, which fits right in with their psychology.


One of those mains reachable by J2 buts into the Darmine Main, which occupies most of the bottom-right of Zarushagaar sector and pokes into the spinward part of Massilia. That in turn is separated by a single J2 jump from the small Dishaan Main, which is a small cluster of 16 worlds.

After that, it's a J2 hop, then a 20-ish world Main, then another J2 hop, then another 20-ish world Main, then another J2 hop, and then a third batch of about 20 J1 jumps in the big Main that connects Suerrat Main to the Vilani Main, and then a last J2 hop to rejoin the Vilani Main.


Thus, to get to the Geonee homeworld from the Vilani main requires four J2 jumps to get to the Dishaan Main, then a fifth J2 to get to the Darmine Main, then a sixth J2 to get to one of the Geonee Mains, and finally a seventh to get to the Geonee homeworld itself. That's a total of seven J2 jumps. That said, that gets us about two sectors away from the main Vilani Main...


So is this all done by detecting Brown Dwarfs or rogue planets? Not all of them, no - but a few of those jump points could have been found by looking for and finding some. I suspect that the rest would have been done by artificial means - i.e. towing out a large planetoid to a specific location in the empty hex and using that as your jump point. Certainly I think that works for the Geonee, and most likely the early Vilani could have thought of that one as well. It's a somewhat longterm solution though as it requires a long time for the planetoid to get out there to the right distance, but it's arguably more practical than looking for the needle in the haystack (in this case, you actually put the needle there yourself and attach a beacon to it that makes it detectable).

 

[EDG]

Note to any new Mongoose Traveller players who are wondering what the heck is going on here:

This sort of thing happens all the time with Traveller. Believe me, I know it's an entirely pointless discussion/argument about really obscure background details in an era that generally doesn't even really matter in practice for anyone's games. Heck, I'm not even sure why I'm doing it myself. Particularly given that the area of space we're talking about here isn't anywhere near the Spinward Marches... (which is way off to spinward (left on the map) of Vland).

But... it's kinda fun to figure this stuff out even if it's of no relevance to the practice of gaming. I think I'm actually viewing it as some kind of game, to figure out the path between the various homeworlds or to see just how far a main will extend.

Of course the bickering is part of the package too unfortunately, and arguably equally pointless. Regardless of what's "real canon" and what isn't (which I really have zero interest in) - or how the jumps are actually done - the real point of the exercise is ultimately just to see how many J2 gaps the Vilani would have to cross in order to get from the Vilani Main to their subject race's homeworlds.

 

[rust]

Sorry, PG, but a post like that one with no content but personal dislike
is simply a sad waste of space and time - yours, mine and everyone
else's who stumbles across this thread. :roll:

So, please, don't.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

So if we accept that during the IW period Deep Space Jumps (DSJ) were not possible without mass at both ends (or at least the destination), then WHEN did it happen.

Nothing in any of the books suggest a TL at which DSJs are possible.

Given what we know of the details of gravitic technology and the refinements at TL 12, I suggest that THIS is when DSJs become possible. Once discovered, it can be used by lower TL ships within that culture.

Thus in the current (1103 3I time) all of the major and minor cultures have that ability, it is now "trivial" even for a free trader built at TL 9.

Should a minor race that got jump drive from an old First Imperium ship still be out there and not contacted by current societies, it might not have that ability.

This makes the the use of DSJs both trivial and no longer of strategic value. After all a civilizationt that can build Jump-3 ships really doesn't care that much about DSJs. There are very few worlds that they cannot reach. Since it is not of strategic importance after a while, that knowledge can spread.

During the Long Night, the Sylean Federation and the Old Earth Union (and probably many others) kept their knowledge of DSJs so when the Third Imperium was founded, the knowledge was available. It was also pretty common knowledge within many of the pocket empires of Milieu Zero.

While it is only discussed during the IW era, it might be interesting to speculate how the OTHER major races might have been able to expand without DSJs and when they discovered that little secret.

I would expect that the Hivers discovered the ability to DSJ even before they developed TL 12, but that is personal speculation.

Since the Aslan developed their Jump technology from a Solomani ship, they probably ALWAYS had DSJs (very convenient at their lower TLs as they expanded).

K'Kree probably stole it from the Hivers during their war and the Zho's probably had it from the Ancients. Droyne have it, no matter what their TL, due to their little connection with the Ancients. Vargr learned it and lost it several times until after the Long Night when it became more common knowledge.

Again this is all personal opinion.

EDG, personally, I find this discussion interesting; please keep it going.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

OOPPS sorry about most of the previous post. I missed the separate thread on Jumping into Empty Hexes.

Still, how and when the other major races spread out at J1 would be interesting too.