Up by the bootstraps or, Interstellar Empire sans gravitics

[FallingPhoenix]

I'm looking for some ideas as to how to make getting off-world and/or colonizing/exploration/space empires and anything related plausible without gravitics.

I love the idea of ships needing rotating sections and creative ways of getting down to a world and back up again, but I must admit I've been straining my brain to come up with many plausible ideas.

FP, always in need of more Applied Phlebotinum.

 

[rust]

If you do not know it already, this website could contain a lot of interes-
ting and useful informations and ideas:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/

 

[captainjack23]

If you do not know it already, this website could contain a lot of interes-
ting and useful informations and ideas:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/

Hey ! That's Winchell Chung. He drew the iconic Ogre designs for (what is now) SJG ! COOL !

 

[Zowy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

Carbon Nanotubes may make a Space Elevator possible?

 

[RockViper]

Check your local gaming stores bargain bin or ebay for Cyberpunk 2020 Deep space. or 2300 AD (also known as Traveller 2300) there is an adventure with a space elevator (The module is named Beanstalk), also TSR released a supplement for 2001 a Space Odyssey for Star Frontiers. You can get a lot of good ideas out of theses older games.

 

[Golan2072]

This will actually make things more diverse, as without gravitics you have various competing ways to get off planet: air-breathing spaceplanes (for atmospheres with available oxygen), space-elevators (for well-developed worlds), mass-drivers and magnetic rails (great for sending raw ore off that airless rockball strip-mine) and many more.

 

[simonh]

There is an alternative approach to gravitic technology I came up with a while back that might help.

In this approach gravitic drives do not generate any thrust at all. In fact they aren't really drives, but field generators. The effective mass of all objects within the field for gravitational purposes is reduced by a factor proportional to the strength of the field. The inertial mass of objects stay the same, only mass for the purposes of calculating gravitational effects is changed. A powerful field might reduce the mass by a tenth, so objects within the field will 'weigh' one tenth of their actual mass, but the output of a drive required to accelerate that mass would not change because the inertial mass is still full value.

With this drive you still need some form of propulsion to actually be able to manoeuvre, but it makes all kinds of propulsion systems and vehicle concepts that otherwise would be impractical suddenly very practical indeed, such as ducted fan propulsion and blimp-like heavy cargo vehicles. You can have high performance space capable vehicles with much smaller engines and drastically lower fuel requirements than would otherwise be possible, without losing the gritty, realistic feel.

Maybe not the sort of thing you're after, but I thought I'd put it out there as an option.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Infojunky]

Simon you have just recreated ContraGrav from TNE....

It is a good idea....

But, a setting with a reactionless thrusters (not contraGrav) is pretty much a setting with the ordinary Gravity drives.

To make Contragrav feel more bootstrappy, you need reaction Drives to push things around.

 

[EDG]

Why not use HEPlaR from TNE?

 

[simonh]

Why not use HEPlaR from TNE?

Because it's an abomination?

Well, perhaps that's a bit harsh. HelPAr is problematic because it pretends to be realistic, but actual is physicaly impossible. Thus it pleases neither the Hard SF brigade because it's grossly unrealistic, nor the Space Opera Sci-Fi brigade because you don't get to zoom around without having to worry about fuel budgets and such.

It also puts a massive fusion canon on the tail of every space ship in your campaign. That's the real deal breaker for me. I can conveniently ignore the fact that these spiffy thruster/grav drives theoreticaly lead to problematic applications such as near-c rocks, and counter them with equaly theoretical countermeasures such as monitoring an intercept stations, and just make sure to not have any of that impinge on the actual plot of the game I'm actualy running. It's all off stage.

I find it a bit harder to ignore the fact that every spaceship has a humungous great doomsday weapon sticking out of it, which it then proceeds to fire, regularly and often, just to move about.

Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

Sorry about that - unwarranted and off topic rant. I'll try and controll, myself a bit better.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Infojunky]

Sorry about that - unwarranted and off topic rant. I'll try and controll, myself a bit better.

No you told us your objections.....

I will note that Heplar defined as a conversion drive instead of a Plasma drive does involve quite as much bending of physical laws....

 

[EDG]

Why not use HEPlaR from TNE?

Because it's an abomination?

well, one can change the tech/rationalisations behind it and use the game stats for it at least. It's not a reactionless thruster, is what I was trying to get at.

 

[Ishmael]

I don't think HePlar is an abomination. So what if its impossibly fuel efficient and has an exhaust velocity greater than 'c'? I can live with that easier than I can with reactionless thrust. And giant spaceships will have giant weapons/engines on the back. IIRC, you could use them in book2 LBB's if you set up your vectors carefully enough.

It definitely changes the TU from the ordinary setting...lots.
If its coupled with mass-based accelerations, then paying close care to ship masses will be very important ( no big battleship with meter thick BSD armor that has any agility ).
Accelerations may be fractions of a G and partial burn transits will be the norm ( long long travel times compared to OTU ).
Fuel usage will be for thrust mainly as reaction mass
Jump drives which only need energy input will use comparatively no fuel as fusion plants can deliver it while using only a few liters of liquid hydrogen ( as far as I know, anyways )
Low accelerations will make missiles more important
no grav tech means no gravitic focusing so point defense may suffer a bit and ship combat won't resemble OTU at all... ships will have to get very close to do damage except by missiles. nuc-pumped x-ray lasers will rule.
no grav tech means no superdense ( which canon says is made possible by grav tech, iirc )

no air rafts !
trains and ocean ships and parwigs and ground cars and mecha and tanks and all kinds of cool stuff that'd be made obsolete by cheap grav technology.

it'd look more like 2300AD ( yay! )

higher cost/trouble to lift massive goods up a gravity well will change trade, I'd think
big worlds will import things to the surface more than export out of the gravity well, with most outbound goods being made in space/orbital complexes or on smaller worlds/moons
many goods dirtside may have been manufactured on the surface of the world making tech level available more closely resemble the tech level of local manufacture

people would have to actually use zero-g skills
and run combats in zero-g

just ideas....

 

[rust]

My setting's technology is somewhere "in between": Gravitic technology
does exist, but almost all of it has to be imported from the alien species
which invented it, and it is therefore both extremely rare and extremely
expensive, used almost for (preferably small) starships and small craft
only - and making them rare and expensive, too.
Normal citizens have to rely on more conventional Terran technology, so
grav vehicles are seldom seen in private hands, and very few technicians
have an idea how to maintain or repair them.

 

[AndrewW]

higher cost/trouble to lift massive goods up a gravity well will change trade, I'd think

Or an alternate to grav tech may be developed for this. Perhaps they have gotten a space elevator to work. Or use large rail guns to cheaply fire stuff into orbit.

 

[kafka]

Another alternative would be have dozens of super massive space cities/colonies already in orbit...not having anything to do with the dirtsiders except trade. There was a Canadian RPG (High Colonies was the name...I think**) in the 1980s that dealt with that...but doing away with Gravatics makes it hard to do a Galactic Empire maybe some sort of commonwealth...as you have really slowed down contact...doable but more early B5 or DS9 than Star Wars or Star Trek.

**Had some pretty racy artwork that makes Mongoose look quite tame.

 

[BP]

Drives and such without gravitics in Traveller doesn't change things very much - there are plenty of alternatives ((ion, plasma, exotic matter drives and anti-matter should address this - Core p. 109 and MGT HG p. 42 briefly touches on these).

Starship interiors (and shapes) however, would take quite a blow - like most theatrical sci-fi, ships are assumed to have an internal pseudo gravity (but I don't recall any that used gravitics as propulsion). In Traveller the greatest allowance is probably dealing with high-G acceleration. Adding acceleration couches and suits would probably sufficiently address this rarer problem.

(BTW: The 2001 and 2010 movies are fine examples of 'realistic' gravity issues in space - not to mention the zero-g and vacuum environs.)

Ignoring medical effects - pseudo gravity does not really seem a necessity for space-faring cultures.

Air/raft, G/Carrier, Grav-Belt and Grav-Floater would of course need to be replaced with near equivalents, just with different limits (quite doable with atmo and less so with thin/no atmo planets).

In the late 70's/early 80's there were actual working experiments using microwaves in atmo for lift (power and diminishing returns at higher altitudes are primary problems). Acoustic lift might also be viable (think crystals) given power and applied tech.

Coming up with an OTU compatible non-gravitic TU is about as difficult as applying gravitics consistently in the OTU. :sad:

In MGT I like the fact that most Gravitic vehicles are pricey (as with rust's minimizing their general use) - though the Grav-Floater seems way out of balance with a price of only 500 credits (esp as a precursor to the Grav-Belt at 100,000 cr - Core pg 103).

 

[kafka]

You see, I was taking the Hard SF track - the elimination of gravatics eliminates one of the major handwaves in Traveller. If you wish to substitute for another...then of course, you can still have Traveller as we almost know it. Grav drives have their advantage for the setting over the "alternatives ((ion, plasma, exotic matter drives and anti-matter should address this - Core p. 109 and MGT HG p. 42 briefly touches on these"

However, the thing about these handwaves that Traveller does, is one should at least try to posit some sort of fix with reality. Thereby avoiding the worst excesses of Space Opera.

 

[BP]

Gravitics fit into hard SF when properly defined - i.e. with balances similar to our current theories of relevant science and a minimum of speculative exceptions. With higgs bosons and otherwise following the Standard Model, one can 'create' a pseudo-gravity/anti-gravity model that requires only one fiction (and it is actually based on RW theory).

[To use Trek as an example: Tachyonic FTL systems (Warp drive) are a simple extension of Einstein's theories mathematically involving the square root of -1 (the imaginary number i). This is science and the math can be carried out in all cases (i.e. balanced). The fiction is in the 'negative mass'. An acceptable fiction. (of course, less well educated authors put there own fantasy spins on it resulting in poor SF).

Also Trek uses ION manuever drives - which at the time where pure speculation, but today are actively used in the newest DirectTV satellites and some space probes.

And anti-matter is quite real and possibly a viable power source/storage (though, like fusion power plants not yet practical)]

The problem with Gravitics in Traveller is that it is not 'defined' with a balance - i.e. no 'free power/perpetual motion' limitations. The scale and range are not defined. So what happens is several 'laws' or 'common sense properties of nature' are violated - resulting in a suspension of disbelieve issue.

The game mechanics of Gravitics and Manuever drives was never as well done as the rest of the setting. The game mechanics of Jump drives (which provides a setting limitation that works) I find quite acceptable - though I consider the 'explanation' fraught with holes and a poor attempt at best. Defining how something works in Hard SF is great, but often 'explaining why' is like polishing a turd -> the results are less than satisfactory.