What exactly is a parsec?

[The Chef]

Thank you both,

That has been bugging me for ages.

Chef

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

So far, so good, and kudos to Gruffty for answering my next question before I asked it.

Eyethangewe! :mrgreen:

 

[GamerDude]

Would it not be more sensible for a starship crews in traveller to go into cryosleep during every jump?

In MGT, the only rules I found were in Signs & Portents 63 (I don't know if that makes them official or not). A medic with Medic-0 needs to roll 11+ for sleeper survival there (8% survival rate), with Medic-1 he needs 10+ (17% survival rate), with Medic-2 he needs 9+ (28% survival rate). With Medic-3 or more, survival is automatic (which makes me wonder what was the point of saying the survival roll was 8+, if nobody ever actually rolls that).

In the MGT Main Rule Book, Pg 137, in the section "Passage" it says

Low Passage: A low passenger is frozen in a cryoberth and carried as cargo. There is some danger to the passenger – a Medic check is required upon opening the capsule, applying the passenger’s Endurance DM to the check. If failed, the passenger does not survive.

This makes sense as the greater the skill of the medic and the better the health of the passenger, the greater the chance they will survive, but life can still be cruel and the healthiest person ever under the care or the greatest medic ever can still die when being revived from coldsleep.

 

[CosmicGamer]

See comments about Low Berths in this thread:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=40380&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

 

[Bygoneyrs]

Being a old timer Traveller player with many In House Rules, I have always liked slower travel between systems for my own game.

1st) Everyone travels via Cryo-Sleep (that includes crew too).

2nd) I use travel time 3 months for Jump-1, 5 mouths for Jump-2, 7 months for Jump-3, 9 months for Jump-4, 11 months for Jump-5, and 13 months for Jump-6. Now there are other Tech factors that can cut down
the jump times buy 1-2 months, but the fastest Jump will always take at least 1 month time.

3rd) Cryo-sleep berths have a pretty good survival with the base roll set at a 8, with modifiers for the passenger's End, and Medic skill level. Thus a End-6 is 0, End-7 is +1, End-8 is +2 and etc. The Medical skill bonus is Medic-0 is 0, Medic-1 is +1, and Medic-2 is +2 and so on. Thus it is very easy to have almost everyone survive. If someone does fail, then the Medical staff can try to save someone still.

I like to picture the tech level like that of Aliens II with a few other tech increases also thrown in. I guess it is all in just the flavor of your own campaign and mine has existed for over 20+ years and I have been playing and GMing Traveller now for 30+.

Penn

 

[That Blasted Samophlange]

I've always figured that 'making the kessel run in under 12 parsecs' was Han boasting about how he found a shorter route that what is normally taken. See, in Star Wars, you have to plot a hyperspace course, so if you are really good at that you can shave time off you trip by making it a shorter route.

A parsec is a unit of distance, not of time, which makes Han's boasting nonsensical.

While it is true that if you can plot a tighter course that decreases the distance you have to travel, you will arrive sooner than going on a longer route. But strictly speaking, that doesn't mean you're travelling faster. Let's take a real world example. You have a car, and you want to get to the shops. There are two routes, one is longer than the other. Assuming you drive at the exact same speed (or to put it another way, nothing about the routes changes your engine performance in any way, shape or form), the shorter route will mean you will arrive at the shops sooner than you would by going on the longer route. Are you going 'faster' though? Perhaps from a figurative point of view, you are but your engine's speed hasn't actually changed - you just used a short cut.

Obi-Wan wants to get there as quick as possible. That is what is implied in the movie, once again to my understanding. If the course is plotted along the shorter route and they get there in a speedy fashion, in essence getting there 'faster'. Considering that TIME can slow down, such as when being absorbed in a black hole, Han could be referencing a time dilation effect that occurs with hyperspace travel. So maybe a shorter hyperspace route does takes less time.

The problem with that scene, and the explanation that was introduced in one of the Han Solo books from the SW EU, is that Obi-wan in the cantina pointedly asks if the Millenium Falcon is a fast ship, which is when Han boasts about making the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs. To return to the real world example above, that would be like a passenger asking you how fast your car is, and you replying "Well I got to the shops in less than 10 km". This is meaningless, because the shorter route may be under 10 km, but travelling down it doesn't have any implications as to how fast your car actually performs. Similarly, having done the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs may be quite an achievement, but it doesn't actually answer Obi-wan's question.

To use your example of the car, if I am given 30 minutes to accomplish the task of hitting both shops, and if taking the shorter route lets me accomplish this in 10 minutes less time than the longer route, isn't that faster?

At best, Han was possibly talking about the Falcon's superior navigational systems that allows it to find 'short cuts' like his Kessel Run trick. But that scene is still a gaffe for the simple reason Obi-wan was talking speed, especially in the context of getting from Tattooine to Alderaan as quickly as possible, and Han replies with distance... which is information that hardly even relates to Obi-wan's concern. The explanation given over the Kessel Run was interesting, but it is something that can only really relate to that Maw area of space adjacent to Kessel. When being asked how fast can the Falcon get from Tattooine to Alderaan, why bring up the Kessel Run as a noted achievement when that was done under unusual circumstances to begin with?

You'll find that many of the truths we cling too rely on our point of view. Perhaps, like the answer that I give to the above car example is relevant in Han's eyes. Taking a shorter route will get you there before whoever was chasing you can catch up. Once again, that seem's faster. If You and I were trying to get from opposite corners of a square field, and you walked along the edge and I walked diagonally across, wouldn't I logically get there before you, assuming we were walking the same speed of course?

To top it off, later in the film at docking bay 94, Han boasts "She's make point 5 past light speed" in reply to Luke's disbelief at the 'pile of junk' before his eyes. The question that arises though, is why didn't Han simply say that to Obi-wan back at the Cantina?

Seems logical to me. Now, as to Lucas not being able to write, I disagree. Writing is for the most part fine, however, he does have some issues with directing. Look at Empire - it wasn't directed by him (Irvin Kershner directed it) and most people find this the best one of the lot.

Lucas didn't write Empire either. In fact, of all the SW films, he had the least amount of involvement on Empire, in contrast to the other five. Star Wars (now known as Episode IV, or A New Hope) was written and directed by Lucas, but he was quite young and of course, wasn't the big success he soon would be with SW's release. He had a lot of help from his friends whom he went to for advice, not to mention his wife for editing.

So, when it says on the back of my DVD case Story by George Lucas, that means he didn't write it? He didn't write the screenplay, but the overall story was written by him.

Return of the Jedi is when Lucas began to exert more control over the franchise, and people like Gary Kurtz (the overlooked and unsung contributor to Star Wars) wasn't involved at all. Plus, I think he had split with his wife at that point as well. Still, Jedi is a good film, but it's number one flaw is: Ewoks. When the original idea was going to Chewie's home planet. :!:

See, I don't mind the ewoks all that much. Considering how strong, intelligent and technological savvy wookies are, wouldn't it be a really bad idea to build a technological terror using them? Then again, maybe it was the wookies that, while working on the original Death Star made it so a exhaust port connected directly to the main reactor.

There is also the fact that wookies are an intelligent species, loved by many, and building a secret weapon around a populated planet, even in the times of the empire, could provide a large amount of security leaks. But a planet in a small, relatively unknown sector with no spacefaring civilizations, only a primitive overlooked mammal species seems a better idea.

Further credit to the Ewok's, they were going to eat Luke, Han, and Chewie. Their a vicious cannibalistic (as in eating another sentient species) species. Also, the Zulu's beat back the British Empire by surprise attacks, and they did it with primitive weapons. Ewok's are not cute or cuddly, the little blighters are likely to eat you.

Then you have the prequels. While I'm not a prequel hater, I can't say that I'm in love with them. I find TPM at best dull, at worst godawful (Jar Jar!), while AOTC is a good film in the body of a poor one (great ideas, poor execution, basically). ROTS is the best of the prequel trilogy, and closest in feel to the original films, but it still suffers from prequel-itis.

I congratulate Lucas for making films that have provided me with countless hours of entertainment, but I'm not gonna kiss his butt over it - the prequels especially could have been so much better.

I agree with the fact that the prequels could be better, but that is as much a fault of the writing as remembering the originals through rose coloured glasses.

The argument over parsecs is kind of a funny one considering, that a Galaxy Far Far away, and along time ago there is SOUND IN SPACE.

Now, I'm not 'kissing Lucas' butt', just stating how I interpreted that scene. And from my point of view it seems logical that a shorter route means the traveler's get there sooner, rather than later. That being said, I do believe that there is no speed of light in the Star Wars universe, only the speed of 'plot'

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

.....soooo, let's talk about Traveller now.... :lol:

 

[rust]

Forgive my lack of knowledge, but I have no idea what exactly a parsec is.

A parsec is:

a) a measure of distance,

b) a code word to start a discussion about Star Wars.

 

[GamerDude]

The argument over parsecs is kind of a funny one considering, that a Galaxy Far Far away, and along time ago there is SOUND IN SPACE.

While I can't remember where it was, I read that in certain circumstances there IS sound in space...

The basic idea was that if you were close enough to a large enough object that had air in it, when that object exploded, for a very short distance the expanding gas would still be dense enough to convey the sound of the explosion.

 

[captainjack23]

From the Encyclopedia Imperica Galactica 1101 edition.

Parsec (Paar-sek) n.

1. A standard upper jump limit unit used to define the performance of standard Jump drives within the Imperial Standard System of weights and measures.

The unit defines the maximum number of standard jump units that a given drive can travel in one activation. Thus, a J4 drive can initiate a hyperspace jump of up to, but no more than 4 parsecs.

2. An obsolete Unit of measurement based on highly parochial and Solomani centric measurements, defining as one second of parallax as computed from Terra/Sol and equivalent to 3.26 Sol standard Light years, defined as the distance that light travels in one average orbit of Terra around Sol.

Derivation
Parsec was originally used exclusively by Terra bound astronomers as an astronomical measurement until shortly before after the fourth Interstellar war. The term for standard jump unit as used in terra was the original Vilanii term "Yaddayaddayahgulshuggliii". However, as a result of widespread hostility towards the first Empire fostered by the bombardments of IW3, the imperial jump unit term fell out of favor, and in the absense of a simple word to replace "upper jump drive displacement unit", common usage, and practical usage settled on Parsec, largely due to the close correspondence between the two units (roughly 3.38 terran LY per jump unit vs 3.26 per paralax second), and it's general ease of use compared to the Vilani term.
As the Terran confederation replaced the Vilanii imperium in forming the Second imperium, the Terran usage of Parsec for jump units became standard. This usage was continued on Sylea thru the long night due to the continuity maintained with the second empire, and Parsec, along with numerous other tecnical measures, became the easiest common references as civilizations recontacted one another.

Cultural Notes
The similarities between the two measures have been brought forth as evidence of pre-imperial Terran influence on Vilani cultures by various pop science and fringe theorists; however, the similarity is simply coincidental, and in any case, illusory. Vland's year, relative lightspeed calculation and paralax calculation all give very different results, as would any such calculation from almost any other planet. The similarity to the Median Jump Constant of the Parallax from Sol is purely co-incidental, and no more accurate (or useful) than noting its similarity to Pi.

 

[Stofsk]

Obi-Wan wants to get there as quick as possible. That is what is implied in the movie, once again to my understanding. If the course is plotted along the shorter route and they get there in a speedy fashion, in essence getting there 'faster'. Considering that TIME can slow down, such as when being absorbed in a black hole, Han could be referencing a time dilation effect that occurs with hyperspace travel. So maybe a shorter hyperspace route does takes less time.

You're stretching. The point is, making the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs had nothing to do with the Falcon's hyperdrive speed.

To use your example of the car, if I am given 30 minutes to accomplish the task of hitting both shops, and if taking the shorter route lets me accomplish this in 10 minutes less time than the longer route, isn't that faster?

Relative to what? If you drove down both routes at a constant speed of 50kph, but one route happens to be shorter than the other, and all other things being equal, then the shorter route will result in you getting there sooner, but your engine isn't travelling 'faster'.

You'll find that many of the truths we cling too rely on our point of view. Perhaps, like the answer that I give to the above car example is relevant in Han's eyes. Taking a shorter route will get you there before whoever was chasing you can catch up. Once again, that seem's faster. If You and I were trying to get from opposite corners of a square field, and you walked along the edge and I walked diagonally across, wouldn't I logically get there before you, assuming we were walking the same speed of course?

Of course, but if you were just walking, while I was sprinting, then which of us is actually travelling faster?

So, when it says on the back of my DVD case Story by George Lucas, that means he didn't write it?

The overall story, yes, but the dialogue and events that happened in the film weren't, not really. Story is a lot vaguer and broader than scriptwriting.

See, I don't mind the ewoks all that much.

I don't think they're as bad as others make them out to be either, but they sure weren't optimal. I hated how Han and the Rebel commandoes were essentially diminished because they stupidly walked into a trap, and it was only because a tribe of primitive spear chuckers were around to save their ass that they could finish their mission.

The biggest problem with Jedi, for me, is Han's character development. He spent the last two films being kind of awesome, and the third film a lame duck.

I agree with the fact that the prequels could be better, but that is as much a fault of the writing as remembering the originals through rose coloured glasses.

The more I think about it, the more disappointed I am with the prequels more than anything else. That's not remembering the originals with rose-coloured glasses, that's remembering the originals period. There was heaps that was stated and implied in the originals which ended up being totally dismissed. (Obi-wan mentions Yoda as the Jedi master who taught him, yet TPM comes around and it's Qui-gon Jinn who is Obi-wan's master. That's one example off the top of my head, there are more) There were also missed opportunities too. I would have loved to have seen Tarkin as a major character and a player in the Clone Wars, and it would have been interesting to see his relationship with Bail Organa (maybe they were enemies and hated each other, it would add a layer to the reason why Tarkin was quite willing to blow up Alderaan years later). I would have changed the idea of the Clone Wars as well.

 

[GamerDude]

Nice post Capt Jack... that was quite clear and concise... thanks.

 

[JimG]

...the original Vilanii term "Yaddayaddayahgulshuggliii"....

My new favorite vilani word. :lol:

 

[captainjack23]

Glad to be of interest and entertainment...or, as the Vilanii would say: VrillishallibariShggliiiii ! :wink: