TL 16+

[AndrewW]

@ AndrewW = What mad early '90s planet are you from to have an internet and yet no mobile phone??

:lol:

One in a galaxy far far away...

 

[locarno24]

My sensors tell me where the target was twenty seconds ago, that being the distance and light-lag between us. The gun fires at that point in space-time.

Pretty much what I was suggesting.

 

[Solomani666]

*ahem* I can't treat any sf author who uses the word "ansible" to describe an FTL communicator seriously.

The story goes that Ursula K leGuin invented the term to describe this miraculous MacGuffin, and - stuck for a name for it - came up with the word "ansible." Which happens to be an anagram of "lesbian."

Authors need to at least do some research into the things they write. I mean, if you've got a world where Shakespeare never existed, nobody's going to start using lines or terms from Shakespeare, such as "Measure for measure," "pound of flesh," "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," and so on.

So. Ansible. That is so Seventies. Traveller needs a better word for that.

The TL16+ Terellian Empire IMTU have an FTL communications network called a 'tachyon relay' which is really a misnomer because it does not use any form of wave at all. It actually uses "spooky action at a distance" or quantum entanglement. Two or more particles are entangled at the quantum level and then split, thereafter a change to one particle also instantly changes the other particles at any distance.

Unfortunately the entanglement is broken of either particle enters jumpspace so the relays containing the particles have to be delivered by a secret fleet of sub-light starships. In enemy systems, the relays are hidden, with meson communications being used to establish the link to the relay network.

An entire 'Order of Tachyon' has been created to manage this network and to guard its secret. Only members of the order are allowed into the relay rooms and that are guarded at all times and are equipped with self destruct mechanisms.

The deception is VERY elaborate. The relay rooms on board of starships contain a very sophisticated exotic particle emitter with a meson communicator in it's core. The particle emitter is used only when they want the enemy to know where they are or have been. Sometimes encrypted messages are encoded within the exotic particle bursts for the enemy to find because supposedly extraneous particles are sometimes created along with the "tachyons". False secret papers are occasionally published in academia. Strange antenna arrays can be found in planetary orbits and on capital ships. Secret movements of Tachyon Order personnel and cargoes are staged. Transports with several tachyon relays have be self destructed just prior to capture tying up hundreds of enemy scientific personnel in analysis instead of research. The list goes on...

.

 

[barnest2]

So it takes years to set up this network, yes?
I mean if you want to deploy one in another system which is two parsecs away and assuming you can travel at 0.5c, it would take 12 years to get there.
Right?

 

[rje]

Can anyone help me build up a picture of TLs from 16 to 20? Where would matter transporters, FTL comms, replicators, tractor beams etc be???

Or is this sort of 'whatever you want'.

TL 16 is where globes become standard.

TL 17 is where disintegrators become standard.

TL 18 is where antimatter becomes standard.

TL 19 is where things like jump projectors show up.

TL 20 white globes show up here.

TL 21 ... Have to check.

 

[GypsyComet]

It's a truism of the TL chart that hindsight and foresight are focused on big changes, while the here and now is much more detail oriented. It's why several editions' TL14 through TL16 look like one TL compared to the rest of the chart, and TL14 and 15 ARE two halves of the same TL in CT High Guard for everything except Jump range.

 

[rje]

It's a truism of the TL chart that hindsight and foresight are focused on big changes, while the here and now is much more detail oriented. It's why several editions' TL14 through TL16 look like one TL compared to the rest of the chart, and TL14 and 15 ARE two halves of the same TL in CT High Guard for everything except Jump range.

Agreed. We will fix that. A bit.

 

[Solomani666]

So it takes years to set up this network, yes?
I mean if you want to deploy one in another system which is two parsecs away and assuming you can travel at 0.5c, it would take 12 years to get there.
Right?

Exactly. Except that they usually jump to the starting point. Drop a relay (or add a particle chamber to the existing relay) and then travel only 1 parsec to the next relay. A 2 parsec run is usually done with 2 ships and 1 relay at the center.

 

[zero]

You'd think with how tech marches on that higher TLs would find a way to break the 6G barrier. I'd like to see a TL 19 ship that can do 12G!

I have written an idea for a Capital Ship from an ancient civilisation that also has it that the ship doesnt have a Jump Drive but such a ship can accelerate and go into relativistic time dilation for the crew :wink: - A parsec takes a 3.4 year trip outside the ship, but actually takes just over 220 days - 7 months and 10 days inside the ship. Its slow, but actually more realistic than the use of a Jump Drive.

 

[locarno24]

Also reading TL 26, I dont see why ships are just an obsolete and cheap transportation versus portals that link systems.

They kind of are. In situations where the gate network goes down for whatever reason, the response is usually "bugger. Anyone got any jump-capable ships?" "Errr.....nope."

There are also still non-civilian ships. Scouts need ships because there's no gate at the other end, and military forces need ships because the gate at the other end is unlikely to accept an incoming call from @invadingdroidarmy.grandfather. Think Stargate, more or less.

You'd think with how tech marches on that higher TLs would find a way to break the 6G barrier. I'd like to see a TL 19 ship that can do 12G!

Definitely. If small craft can pull it off, then it's clearly not some fundamental limitation of the gravetic drive.

 

[Captain Jonah]

At work so I cannot check but I'm sure they do go faster than 6G. FFS perhaps or one of the other versions but I got the tech 17 7G raiders from somewhere :wink: