On 6/28/2020 12:44 AM, Alex Goodwin wrote:
> I get the impression that discovering Jump independently would be a
> massive exercise in Zen - multiple, apparently-mutually-contradictory,
> things that combine to point and laugh at what you_think_ you know.
That's the general impression I've gotten from the various notes about the jump
drive discovery process. And for each level of the jump drive you need to repeat
the process. A breakthrough in mathematics, followed by a set of engineering
breakthroughs in power management and field generation.
The question is never can we repeat the misjump, but rather can we duplicate it
in multiple different places, with slightly different starting conditions, and
do so safely. Misjumps are a tantalizing look into the future of space travel,
and a reminder of how little we know.
> How does that scale up to higher-order drives? > > Eg https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Hop_Drive - a Hop-N drive would seem to>
cover up to 10N parsecs in a single week. No idea whether it's> quantised to
integral multiples of 10 pc or not. I guess the misjump> distance would also be
multiplied by 10?>
The Hop drive is quantized to 10 parsecs per jump, and each level beyond that
is another 10x multiple. The usual workaround is to aim for the gravity well of
a star at your destination, but short of the 10pc. That just makes the
Navigation that much more difficult.
The TL 17 Hop drive relies on two technology discoveries. Stable Antimatter
power and quantum field generation.
The BHHR is akin to a liquid fuel rocket. It produces a great deal of energy in
a very short period of time. But like the rocket, the reaction is barely
controlled and directed to a single purpose. Now you can use the same basic
reaction in a more controlled fashion and get the same or more energy from it,
but that won't produce the same effects.
Each level of the jump drive (J2,..J6, etc) requires larger and larger
quantities of energy. J10 energy requirements are impossible to meet, and a J8
would be the theoretical maximum and still have a ship to move.
Antimatter power, which isn't just dump some antimatter into magnetically
shielded chamber with some matter and capture the produced particles for energy,
but rather <more handwavium> process of direct conversion to energy. Basically,
if you have the mc^2, you can get all the E you need at any rate your machine
can handle it. Which is good because the field create a HopDrive Hop requires a
power slug with close to a kg of antimatter.
The Quantum field, first discovered with the Black Globe generators, generate
both the field to create the Hop insertion and the field to protect the ship
while transitioning through the Hop space wormhole. No pressurized hydrogen
which can fail and let the wormhole space intrude and destroy the ship. Makes
the Jump / Hop process much safer.
It is possible to build an anti-matter/field generator version of the Jump
Drive. It requires a fraction of the power the hop drive does, and the huge fuel
tanks on the ships all go away. The <now simple> engineering problem is
distribution of the Antimatter technology to ensure a fuel supply. The equipment
to generate antimatter on that scale is not small or cheap.
Even still, many of the Hop Drive ships also mount a AM powered J1 or J2 Jump
drive. Usually as an emergency measure in case of misjump, a much more likely
event as the Astrogation calculations now exceed most Sophont + Advanced
Computer ability to prove safely complete. Fixing that to allow the higher scale
drives requires another TL advance in computer technologies which won't come
until TL 20 or beyond.
The TL-14/15 collector system is an interesting half step between the
conventional Hydrogen fueled jump drive and the AM fueled Hop drive technology.
The system deploys a collector system to collect <name of famous scientist>
particles which flow through the universe. These in turn are used in a similar
manner to the Hop drive AM/field generator to create a safe Jump. The problem is
no one knows how to generate these particles, especially in quantity. The
breakthrough that figures that out gives you the Antimatter power system.
The Collector jump system remains a dead end technology, endlessly rediscovered
and used in different places, but always replaced by the easier to engineer
Hydrogen Jump Drive or the more powerful AM Jump/Hop drive.
> If that orders-of-magnitude extrapolation holds up through
> https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Jump_Drive , a Vault (x 10^5 pc) misjump
> would_suck_. Departing Terra for Andromeda, goof it, and end up in
> ruddy Triangulum.
>
--
Thomas Jones-Low
Work: xxxxxx@softstart.com
Home: xxxxxx@gmail.com
