Lost in Hyperspace?

[Democratus]

I ran into this block when running my game. The players were making a trek from one system to another with no jump lane between them - essentially jumping straight from Centauri Homeworld to Earth.

While they had to make many difficult Astronavigation rolls - I was stumped when they asked me how they could possibly get lost forever in hyperspace. Their ship has a Jump Drive. So even if lost they could simply transition back to real space and get their bearings.

Why would any ship with it's own jump engines be terribly frightened of loosing a gate beacon?

 

[tneva82]

Couple words from JMS himself:

To get in and out of hyperspace you have to know where you are and where you're going, otherwise you'll come out even *more* lost, hundreds of light years from home; you jump in, and you're even further gone now.

And the Cortez might've been able to locate some stars, but any fix on its position would only have been within a few light-years, not nearly precise enough for their purposes. They'd still be lost.

 

[Democratus]

Still not sure I follow this. The Cortez's assignment was to travel to stars that had no gate - and then build them. How could it even do it's job if it isn't possible to drop into real space where there is nothing and then jump back out again?

Seems the the whole idea of an exploration vessel would be moot.

 

[Traveller-61]

As far as I can remember from the episode the Cortez had lost its jump engine as well.

As to getting lost any ship without a jump engine will be doomed; and even if you can jump back to real space you have to try and discover where you are, then try and align to the nearest known gate and jump again, without a beacon lock and vulnerable to any of the tides, eddies and other phenomena of hyperspace.
No wonder they stay lost :shock:

DW

 

[Democratus]

But isn't it the mission of the Cortez to go off beacon and then come back? After all, its primary mission is to explore beyond the rim of known space. It must routinely go to systems with no jump gate at all.

This implies that even going off the gate network to some undisclosed place doesn't prevent you from coming back.

It seems like an inconsistency that I'm finding harder and harder to reconcile to my highly analytical players.

 

[lastbesthope]

Still not sure I follow this. The Cortez's assignment was to travel to stars that had no gate - and then build them. How could it even do it's job if it isn't possible to drop into real space where there is nothing and then jump back out again?

Seems the the whole idea of an exploration vessel would be moot.

It would drop beacons along the way.

LBH

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

LBH is correct, JMS had a pretty good (if a bit handwavy) explanation for how the Cortez (or any exploration ship) works.

You start off within the known Beacon system (which predates any of the younger races).

Go to the very edge of where you can detect the existing Beacons and drop a new beacon. Go to the edge of where you can detect that beacon and drop another.

Personally, I like to think of it as TRIANGLES. Two beacons form a line and you place a beacon at the third point of the triangle as far away as you can. Now, use two of those beacons (the new one and one old one) and make a new triangle slightly to one side. Drop another beacon. Rinse and repeat.

Of course it is more complicated because you are actually dealing with 3D space, Hyperspace tides etc, so they triangles are not all the same size. Also, Jumpgates act as beacons and the exploration ship constructs a gate in every system they encounter along the way.

I have also envisioned Hyperspace as having reefs and shoals. So there are some areas where it is shorter to travel in normal space. So you might want to place two Jumpgates out in the middle of empty space, separated by a few light minutes, to get around an obsticle in Hyperspace. That is my explanation for the weird locations for some Jumpgates (the raider stories in Season 1 are an example). That also makes some jump gates very important as nexi or intersections of several hyperspace lanes.

 

[lastbesthope]

Personally, I like to think of it as TRIANGLES. Two beacons form a line and you place a beacon at the third point of the triangle as far away as you can. Now, use two of those beacons (the new one and one old one) and make a new triangle slightly to one side. Drop another beacon. Rinse and repeat.

Worked in War of the Worlds :lol:

LBH

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

One part that I don't get is how not knowing where you are might cause you to emerge hundreds of Light years off course. ????WTF????

I mean, if you punch a hole from Hyperspace to normal space, there you are. You may not know where it is until you emerge, but the act of knowing shouldn't affect where you come out.

Sure currents, eddies and the pull of the galactic core are going to move you off course, but seriously, hundreds of light years no matter how short of a time you are drifting. Doesn't make sense to me.

I would say that a ship can drift 1d6 ly per day of uncontrolled flight in hyperspace. So you could be off quite a bit, in real space terms. But, it isn't going to throw you to the other side of the galaxy unless the GM wants it to.

The margin of error might be several light years, but it isn't going to be hundreds of light years.

Is there a "reasonable" explanation for why you can get so far off course so fast in hyperspace? The travel times just don't seem to support that kind of speed.

 

[lastbesthope]

Is there a "reasonable" explanation for why you can get so far off course so fast in hyperspace? The travel times just don't seem to support that kind of speed.

Other than "Hyperspace is weird" I doubt it.

LBH

 

[Democratus]

Well, thanks for all the input. I doubt I can convince my players of this mechanic. It just doesn't really make sense - too much "because I said so!" contained therein.

Let's just hope the characters never fail astrogation by too much.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Well "Hyperspace Whirlpools" and "Hyperspace Conduits" might do it.

Also, when the B5 folks first encountered a Shadow Ship, the pilot (forget his name, he died after 1 season) said that the ship "moved in a direction that I have never seen before".

You could argue that Hyperspace is multidimensional (more than 3). The Younger Races (up to the Minbari) have only figured out how to travel in 3D hyperspace, but the Vorlons, Shadows and other Old Ones have figured out how to travel in 4D. As such, there are "shortcuts" around the normal galaxy.

If these shortcuts exist for them to use, then your ship could accidentally fall into one. Similar to the Traveller "misjump".

That MIGHT work...

 

[Paladin]

One part that I don't get is how not knowing where you are might cause you to emerge hundreds of Light years off course. ????WTF????

I mean, if you punch a hole from Hyperspace to normal space, there you are. You may not know where it is until you emerge, but the act of knowing shouldn't affect where you come out.

Sure currents, eddies and the pull of the galactic core are going to move you off course, but seriously, hundreds of light years no matter how short of a time you are drifting. Doesn't make sense to me.

I would say that a ship can drift 1d6 ly per day of uncontrolled flight in hyperspace. So you could be off quite a bit, in real space terms. But, it isn't going to throw you to the other side of the galaxy unless the GM wants it to.

The margin of error might be several light years, but it isn't going to be hundreds of light years.

Is there a "reasonable" explanation for why you can get so far off course so fast in hyperspace? The travel times just don't seem to support that kind of speed.

Because computers in the future can plot astrogation jumps but for some reason can't do it reverse the math. :roll:

Should be "fairly simple" to tract your velocity over an array of time periods, re-align in the opposite direction and do the samething in the opposite direction.

 

[lastbesthope]

Also, when the B5 folks first encountered a Shadow Ship, the pilot (forget his name, he died after 1 season) said that the ship "moved in a direction that I have never seen before".

Warren Keffer.

LBH

 

[Democratus]

Yeah. Too hand-wavy and "cuz I said" for any reasonable player to buy into. If the Minbari could find Earth even though they had shut down the jump gate, then a person can obviously astrogate to any known location in real space.

Dunno. It's never handled very clearly or even consistently in any of the fiction, rule books, or even in the show.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Warren - Thanks LBH (mind blank there for a bit).

JMS made Hyperspace work for the plot. He wasn't as worried about how the "science" might work and the implications of that.

Trying to fit all of the various things said about hyperspace into some kind of coherent theory isn't really going to be possible. Pick the parts that work for your story and ignore the rest.

I figure the Minbari and the Old Ones know enough about Hyperspace that they can plot things a lot better than humans can. Remember, Humans are on the low end of the Technology curve in this setting.

 

[AdrianH]

Suppose that the layout of hyperspace bears no resemblance to the layout of real space? There is a 1-1 mapping between points in hyperspace and points in realspace, but it's really scrambled. So you drop out of hyperspace half way between Sol and Proxima Centauri, and end up somewhere in Minbari space. You try to work out exactly where you are, drifting while you do so, then go back into hyperspace and find you're nowhere near either the Sol or Proxima Centauri beacons.

 

[tneva82]

Suppose that the layout of hyperspace bears no resemblance to the layout of real space? There is a 1-1 mapping between points in hyperspace and points in realspace, but it's really scrambled. So you drop out of hyperspace half way between Sol and Proxima Centauri, and end up somewhere in Minbari space. You try to work out exactly where you are, drifting while you do so, then go back into hyperspace and find you're nowhere near either the Sol or Proxima Centauri beacons.

Heh. Reminds me of how I planned hyperspace to work in my setting where things are REALLY hairy. Basically imagine starting thrust from Earth toward Mars. If you aren't careful but just keep thrusting forward you might end up doing 180 degree turn without even noticing it as your ship...twists...in the garbed dimension that is hyperspace.

Who says hyperspace works with same principles as our own dimension?-)

 

[Democratus]

I figure the Minbari and the Old Ones know enough about Hyperspace that they can plot things a lot better than humans can. Remember, Humans are on the low end of the Technology curve in this setting.

Which would be helpful, if my PCs weren't Minbari.

And there's still the issue of the Minbari fleet attacking earth when it was taken competely off the beacon network. Or the Centauri vessel that first discovered them. Or any number of other instances where a ship went someplace entirely on purpose and with no jump gate.

I guess I'm just going to have to chuck out the whole "lost if you wander" bit - as it seems to be the one inconsistent thing with hyperspace. After all, we were told in on episode that anyone who looses the beacon is lost forever - but in the same episode the ship is recovered. In a later episode, a mostly destroyed White Star also falls off the beacon and recovers.

As the rule goes for movies and television: once sometimes, twice always. So it seems that people can routinely recover from being lost.

Thanks to all for the discussion. It gave me a lot to think about.

 

[lastbesthope]

Yeah. Too hand-wavy and "cuz I said" for any reasonable player to buy into. If the Minbari could find Earth even though they had shut down the jump gate, then a person can obviously astrogate to any known location in real space.

The Minbari are probably the best at hyperspace gubbins of the younger races, see the JP bomb in ITB.

LBH