What if Instead of the 3rd Imperium, a Republic

[Tom Kalbfus]

A Jump Gate is a jump drive that jumps external objects outside itself to specific locations. The regular jump drive is limited by two things, there is no Jump Drive greater than Jump 6, and even if there were, the rule is, you need 10% of the displacement mass of the ship in jump fuel in order to initiate a jump. Even if you could make a Jump 8 it would require 80% of the ship's volume in Jump fuel, so no effort has been made to build such a thing, but external jump drives are under no such limitation, you can have many times the ship's volume in jump fuel to initiate a jump of whatever distance is desired. the larger the target ship and the greater the distance in parsecs of the jump the more jump fuel that is needed, And since the Jump Gate doesn't jump itself, its own volume isn't part of the equation, it remains behind jumping the target ship.

So, taking your ideas in another direction (or at least some of them) - mif long range jump gates were to exist they would need to have access to large amounts of fuel, so maybe there is also compensatory technology that allows such gates to exist within 100D limits and gravity wells - for example in low orbit around gas giants where they draw fule straight from the upper atmosphere?

Makes the gas giant a strategic point in a system and a place of adventure once again - even if the ships themselves don't need to skim fuel from it.

Got to be careful if you remove the 100D limit, its there for a reason, basically to get some use out of your ship's maneuver drive. If there was no 100D limit, you could place a Jump gate on the surface of a planet, there is not much difference between a low orbit, say 300 km above the surface and the surface of a planet. The 100D limit provides an excuse for space travel and opportunity for pirates to attack your ship, while denying you the immediate possibility of just jumping to safety, you ship must reach a certain point while evading fire and engaging your enemy. One problem with Battlestar Galactica is there is no 100D limit, also jumps are instantaneous, it is only a suggestion that you engage the jump drive far away from a planet, and often time this rule was ignored to achieve surprise. I'd rather keep the 100D limit, we are violating enough rules by allowing a 100 parsec jump! The advantage of a Jump Gate is you can jump 100 parsecs, the disadvantage is you don't take the jump gate with you, you could jump to a place where there is no return jump gates, and unlike a wormhole stargate, jump gates don't operate in pairs. A jump gate can jump to anywhere within its 100 parsec range, so long as the destination is outside the 100D limit of any gravitational masses in the vicinity, the jump also takes a week, just as if you used an onboard Jump Drive. There is no minimum size for the object being jumped, there is a maximum size though depending on how large the Jump gate is. The ship must fit within the jump gate's area of effect.

 

[Jacqual]

A Jump Gate is a jump drive that jumps external objects outside itself to specific locations. The regular jump drive is limited by two things, there is no Jump Drive greater than Jump 6, and even if there were, the rule is, you need 10% of the displacement mass of the ship in jump fuel in order to initiate a jump. Even if you could make a Jump 8 it would require 80% of the ship's volume in Jump fuel, so no effort has been made to build such a thing, but external jump drives are under no such limitation, you can have many times the ship's volume in jump fuel to initiate a jump of whatever distance is desired. the larger the target ship and the greater the distance in parsecs of the jump the more jump fuel that is needed, And since the Jump Gate doesn't jump itself, its own volume isn't part of the equation, it remains behind jumping the target ship.

So, taking your ideas in another direction (or at least some of them) - mif long range jump gates were to exist they would need to have access to large amounts of fuel, so maybe there is also compensatory technology that allows such gates to exist within 100D limits and gravity wells - for example in low orbit around gas giants where they draw fule straight from the upper atmosphere?

Makes the gas giant a strategic point in a system and a place of adventure once again - even if the ships themselves don't need to skim fuel from it.

Got to be careful if you remove the 100D limit, its there for a reason, basically to get some use out of your ship's maneuver drive. If there was no 100D limit, you could place a Jump gate on the surface of a planet, there is not much difference between a low orbit, say 300 km above the surface and the surface of a planet. The 100D limit provides an excuse for space travel and opportunity for pirates to attack your ship, while denying you the immediate possibility of just jumping to safety, you ship must reach a certain point while evading fire and engaging your enemy. One problem with Battlestar Galactica is there is no 100D limit, also jumps are instantaneous, it is only a suggestion that you engage the jump drive far away from a planet, and often time this rule was ignored to achieve surprise. I'd rather keep the 100D limit, we are violating enough rules by allowing a 100 parsec jump! The advantage of a Jump Gate is you can jump 100 parsecs, the disadvantage is you don't take the jump gate with you, you could jump to a place where there is no return jump gates, and unlike a wormhole stargate, jump gates don't operate in pairs. A jump gate can jump to anywhere within its 100 parsec range, so long as the destination is outside the 100D limit of any gravitational masses in the vicinity, the jump also takes a week, just as if you used an onboard Jump Drive. There is no minimum size for the object being jumped, there is a maximum size though depending on how large the Jump gate is. The ship must fit within the jump gate's area of effect.

If I thought of using an TL 15 external Jump Gate that could give a ship a longer jump then J6, I would increase the fuel consumption requirement. Say 10% per jump up to J6, then J7 would be say 140% for a jump, J8 would be 160%. Do this up to and including J12, at J13 make it 390% fuel and so on. make every increment of J6 distance increase the multiplier by an additonal 100% of the origional J1 to J6 fuel requirement. Yes speeds up traffic but makes it start to get real expensive.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

So, taking your ideas in another direction (or at least some of them) - mif long range jump gates were to exist they would need to have access to large amounts of fuel, so maybe there is also compensatory technology that allows such gates to exist within 100D limits and gravity wells - for example in low orbit around gas giants where they draw fule straight from the upper atmosphere?

Makes the gas giant a strategic point in a system and a place of adventure once again - even if the ships themselves don't need to skim fuel from it.

Got to be careful if you remove the 100D limit, its there for a reason, basically to get some use out of your ship's maneuver drive. If there was no 100D limit, you could place a Jump gate on the surface of a planet, there is not much difference between a low orbit, say 300 km above the surface and the surface of a planet. The 100D limit provides an excuse for space travel and opportunity for pirates to attack your ship, while denying you the immediate possibility of just jumping to safety, you ship must reach a certain point while evading fire and engaging your enemy. One problem with Battlestar Galactica is there is no 100D limit, also jumps are instantaneous, it is only a suggestion that you engage the jump drive far away from a planet, and often time this rule was ignored to achieve surprise. I'd rather keep the 100D limit, we are violating enough rules by allowing a 100 parsec jump! The advantage of a Jump Gate is you can jump 100 parsecs, the disadvantage is you don't take the jump gate with you, you could jump to a place where there is no return jump gates, and unlike a wormhole stargate, jump gates don't operate in pairs. A jump gate can jump to anywhere within its 100 parsec range, so long as the destination is outside the 100D limit of any gravitational masses in the vicinity, the jump also takes a week, just as if you used an onboard Jump Drive. There is no minimum size for the object being jumped, there is a maximum size though depending on how large the Jump gate is. The ship must fit within the jump gate's area of effect.

If I thought of using an TL 15 external Jump Gate that could give a ship a longer jump then J6, I would increase the fuel consumption requirement. Say 10% per jump up to J6, then J7 would be say 140% for a jump, J8 would be 160%. Do this up to and including J12, at J13 make it 390% fuel and so on. make every increment of J6 distance increase the multiplier by an additonal 100% of the origional J1 to J6 fuel requirement. Yes speeds up traffic but makes it start to get real expensive.

I don't see why you need to do that, its enough of a disadvantage that you leave the Jump drive behind and that it is not available for the return journey, besides it get ridiculous if you do jump 100, and the main purpose of this is so you have faster communication. Now you must realize it still isn't instantaneous, it still takes a week to travel whatever distance, so PCs are still pretty much on their own until help arrives 2 weeks later. It would be possible to send a distress signal over interstellar distances. Lets say you had a distress beacon which weighed 1 ton, you would need 100 kg of fuel to send it 1 parsec, and then you'd have to wait 2 weeks for help to arrive, it really doesn't change things that much. I think a jump gate large enough to send a distress beacon of 1 ton could fit on board a ship. The difference is you send a distress beacon instead of yourself. Communications in this universe is a bit faster than in the OTU, but still help is 2 weeks away at best, so for those 2 weeks, the PCs are on their own. Communications isn't instantaneous enough for headquarters to be looking over your shoulders, so individual initiative is still required. Also for HQ to send you a message, they have to know where you are going to be in one week, starships do tend to move around after all, its easier to send a message to a planet than a starship unless it is preplanned that the starship wait around at a certain location for a message torpedo to show up. Once it arrives it either broadcasts its message or is picked up and the message is downloaded directly, probably arrives faster via broadcast, as there is a little uncertainty as to where the probe will appear, the ship will otherwise have to move to its location to pick it up. Having a Jump Gate that can send a 100-ton scout vessel up to 100 parsecs, does speed up the flow of an adventure quite a bit. I see no reason not to have them, or to make them absurdly expensive, if anything a large external jump drive will have greater efficiencies of scale. I think on rule is anything to be jumped would need a seperate jump drive to sustain the jump bubble once established by the Jump Gate, there is a certain power requirement to do this. I think the "Jump Sustainer" could be small enough to fit on board a smallcraft such as a fighter or a shuttle, the bulk of the Jump drive goes toward establishing the Jump Bubble in the first place. the Jump Gate would speed up long distance communications to allow for elections and the establishment of an Interstellar Republic of about the size of the Third Imperium.

 

[sideranautae]

It would be interesting. BUT, I don't see any form of human government being able to hold together when the communication times are THAT extreme. The turn around time from the capital to frontiers is too long. It would collapse quickly.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

It would be interesting. BUT, I don't see any form of human government being able to hold together when the communication times are THAT extreme. The turn around time from the capital to frontiers is too long. It would collapse quickly.

Lets see, I checked the Traveller Map at http://travellermap.com/ Each sector is 40 pc from coreward to rimward, and their is 120 parsecs from the Core to the Solomani rim. If we had jump gates with a range of 100 parsecs, it would take 2 weeks to send a message from the core to the rim and 2 more weeks to send a reply, So basically it would take a month to tabulate the results of an election, so a Republic is certainly possible. The United States operated that way in the early 19th century before telegraph and telephone, so its certainly possible, with jump-6, it would take 20 jumps to go from core to rim that is about 20 weeks, or 5 months to send a communication one way, certainly 2 weeks is better than 5 months don't you think?

 

[sideranautae]

It would be interesting. BUT, I don't see any form of human government being able to hold together when the communication times are THAT extreme. The turn around time from the capital to frontiers is too long. It would collapse quickly.

Lets see, I checked the Traveller Map at http://travellermap.com/ Each sector is 40 pc from coreward to rimward, and their is 120 parsecs from the Core to the Solomani rim. If we had jump gates with a range of 100 parsecs, it would take 2 weeks to send a message from the core to the rim and 2 more weeks to send a reply, So basically it would take a month to tabulate the results of an election, so a Republic is certainly possible. The United States operated that way in the early 19th century before telegraph and telephone, so its certainly possible, with jump-6, it would take 20 jumps to go from core to rim that is about 20 weeks, or 5 months to send a communication one way, certainly 2 weeks is better than 5 months don't you think?

Interesting but, I'm talking about the 3I in Traveller. Not a different game.

 

[Reynard]

Nope, this topic is Mirror Traveller Universe where it is a bit... different and tends to change when you bring up an inconsistency to its reality. The Republic has reach to hundreds of parsecs both for command and communications. I think 3IM would have gone a completely different direction once any civilization reached TL 15 and could build Jumpgates. There would be no real outlands or isolated clusters. With a central government able to reach nearly anywhere in a minimum of a week. Why do I see the Solomani government overtaking any other government?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Nope, this topic is Mirror Traveller Universe where it is a bit... different and tends to change when you bring up an inconsistency to its reality. The Republic has reach to hundreds of parsecs both for command and communications. I think 3IM would have gone a completely different direction once any civilization reached TL 15 and could build Jumpgates. There would be no real outlands or isolated clusters. With a central government able to reach nearly anywhere in a minimum of a week. Why do I see the Solomani government overtaking any other government?

Have to remind you the Jump Gates are one way, You could jump a ship into the middle of a rift, say an isolated star, but if there is no jump gate to send the ship back, the ship is stuck. This would be a good way to set up a penal colony, put a prisoner in a ship, use the Jump gate to send him to a place he can't get back from, there are no jail keepers only prisoners, the nearest other star system is more than 6 parsecs away!

One way to get back, would be if the senders sent over parts of another Jump gate to be assembled at the destination, the return jump gate is put together and then ships could be sent back.