Jump Space - What does it look like?

[captainjack23]

Realistically (well, insofar as you can get here!) Jump Space shouldn't look like ANYTHING... the only reason we'd see it is if it's emiting photons. Does jumpspace have photons? I guess if it's a universe that formed in a vaguely similar way to our own it might just be a random sea of photons. But if it doesn't have anything like that at all, then it should just be black.

Or maybe you're seeing the reaction of the hull (or jump bubble) as it's being bombarded by exotic particles that don't even exist in our universe.

In point of fact, anything that causes the optic receptor nerves to fire will be "seen". IIRC the apollo crews tested for and found Cosmic ray flashes while completely blindfolded.

A wide variety of things can make ones eyes react other than visible light...magnetic fields, strong radiation, fists and thumbs to name a few....

So.....who knows what it looks like. I'm still on the "basic forces differ" kind of universe (as it helps explain why H2 is important) with some leakage thru the bubble (as it helps explain why electronics and computing become unrelaiable within jumpspace - IMTU). So who knbows how trivial but strange changes in electrochemical constants/reactions would effect the firing of nerves.....

 

[rust]

In my setting hyperspace looks exactly like what people expect it to look
like, so each person "sees" his or her personal view of hyperspace: If one
expects it to be black, it is black, and if one expects it to look like a rose
garden, it looks like a rose garden. The human brain cannot use the input
it gets in any meaningful way, so it tries to find and "recognize" the expec-
ted pattern / picture, somewhat like with a Rorschach test.

 

[GamerDude]

I remember reading somewhere (might be Licensed ATU material) that the jumpspace bubble outside the ship is black broken up by electrical discharges from the bubble edge to the ship.

 

[DB]

Thanks all, I think I'll keep a note of all these versions and randomise between them whenever I'm asked this again, that should worry the group!

 

[GamerDude]

Thanks all, I think I'll keep a note of all these versions and randomise between them whenever I'm asked this again, that should worry the group!

ahh, nice idea... keep the group worried and confused.

 

[Supergamera]

In my setting hyperspace looks exactly like what people expect it to look
like, so each person "sees" his or her personal view of hyperspace: If one
expects it to be black, it is black, and if one expects it to look like a rose
garden, it looks like a rose garden. The human brain cannot use the input
it gets in any meaningful way, so it tries to find and "recognize" the expec-
ted pattern / picture, somewhat like with a Rorschach test.

Invariably, a Navy, Scout or Merchant recruit wants to see what Jumpspace looks like on their first trip. It is a rite of passage for the other crew members to take the rookie to the bridge, where the display screen has been set to show some sort of absurd image (floating puppies, tentacles, etc.). The crew then acts like the rookie is seeing something they don't. To deal with their "jumpshock", the rookie must then consume a "special medicine", typically foul-tasting, alchoholic, and/or hallucinogenic.

 

[Paladin]

Invariably, a Navy, Scout or Merchant recruit wants to see what Jumpspace looks like on their first trip. It is a rite of passage for the other crew members to take the rookie to the bridge, where the display screen has been set to show some sort of absurd image (floating puppies, tentacles, etc.). The crew then acts like the rookie is seeing something they don't. To deal with their "jumpshock", the rookie must then consume a "special medicine", typically foul-tasting, alchoholic, and/or hallucingenic.

That's great.

 

[drdentista]

According to the Starship Operator's Manual by DGP, intended for MegaTraveller, the bubble that protects the ship from the strange physics of jump space is "...a dull, gray, undulating 'wall'about a meter from the surface of the ship." That's the description I've always used.

Sevya

Yep, that's how I see it too. Actually, SOP from DGP has a lot of interesting info on how jumpspace looks and feels, and how an outside observer would percieve a ship going into jump and also precipitating from jump.

Actually an excellent book imho

 

[andrew boulton]

As I heard it Loren originally described it as what you see on a TV when its not tuned to a station. However he changed it when he realised that the younger generation (people with newer TVs) incorrectly interpreted this as "its blue".

That was Neil Gaiman having a joke at William Gibson's expense.

Neil,

Long time reader, first time writer. I'm sure you've been asked this before, but as I can't find it discussed on the message boards:

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." - William Gibson, Neuromancer

"The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel." - You, Neverwhere

?

You're either paying homage to Gibson, which is weird because the two books are in different genres and he isn't mentioned in the acknowledgements, or perhaps there's some manner of Jungian collective unconscious phenomenon at work here, in which you have unwittingly mimicked Gibson, or..?

Rob

Or it was a very small joke, essentially pointing out that since what is arguably the most famous opening sentence in SF was published in 1984, the nature of what a "dead channel" looked like had completely changed, from grey static fuzz to a pure dead blue. Well, I thought it was funny, anyway.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/12/some-days-bears-on-top.asp

 

[Supplement Four]

Earlier this week I was asked this question by my son after he read that jumpspace travel took a week. After a moment I realised that despite a large amount of CT books I can't find any mention of this. My probable assumption is a blankness/black void. Was this ever mentioned?

There's an interview with MWM (I think in White Dwarf?) where Marc discusses this. He finished Traveller just before Star Wars came out. He went to see it, and looking out the Falcon's cockpit ports, seeing that dull white glow wormhole, he said, "That's it! That's what jump space looks like!"

I need to find the article for reference. Thinking hard that it was White Dwarf where I read that.

 

[Shiloh]

"What does J-space look like?" and "What do I see out the viewport when we're in Jump?" are two separate questions. IMTU I like the idea that the jump bubble is proton plasma, which I see as glowing blue, though I should probably look up what colour proton plasma does glow, and is thick enough that nothing can be seen of J-space itself. If you were to poke a camera close enough to the edge of the bubble that you could see through the veil, you'd see precisely nothing.

Actually, thinking about it, if you had a pure proton plasma, of naked hydrogen nuclei, I don't think it would glow at all, since most of the time photons are emitted when electrons drop between shells in atoms. So the glow must come from electron "impurities"...

 

[Patron Zero]

This is from Traveller:The New Era - The Death of Wisdom by Paul Brunette (*), page 74;

".....just a blackness across which played the jump fire, discharges of static electricity between the ship and the jump field."

Had not heard the reference to the phenomena as 'jump fire' before but a very nice turn of phrase all the same.

(*) ISBN 1-55878-181-1

 

[starfleet]

Well technically your suspended in a bubble of Boiling hydrogen.. however if you look up information on hydrogen you find out that Hydrogen burns 'near clear' on everything but the UV spectrum.. it only gets it's color from other materials that burn with it.

The best example is the Space Shuttles actual MAIN engines, the most you see is a slight blue region near the exhust itself and nothing else..

So to me jump space is basically what ever color is beyond.. there wouldn't be any other coloring from the hydrogen.. even if it burnt as plasma it'd be burning clear or at the most a blueish tinge that was bearly noticeable.

 

[Myrm]

Elizabeth Moons 'Serrano' books have a some characters go outside during jump and the description there was quite interesting - particularly the mental effects.

 

[Shiloh]

Well technically your suspended in a bubble of Boiling hydrogen.. however if you look up information on hydrogen you find out that Hydrogen burns 'near clear' on everything but the UV spectrum.. it only gets it's color from other materials that burn with it.

Technically, it's already boiled, and technically, it's not burning. What you're actually in depends on what you reckon happens to the H2 that you use at Jump point.

 

[lastbesthope]

Elizabeth Moons 'Serrano' books have a some characters go outside during jump and the description there was quite interesting - particularly the mental effects.

I remember them doing that, and how dangerous they thought it was.

LBH

 

[Alan Hume]

If I remember correctly
Loren, in one of his talks at this year's Gencon UK
said that it was envisioned as being like "Paisley" patterns and stuff

that kind of makes sense to me

 

[Alan Hume]

Oh, and you wouldnt want to look out of any window at it
as it would drive you insane (hence the screens coming down before entering jump)