Subj:	TRAVELLER digest 382
Date:	95-08-18 17:03:59 EDT
From:	traveller@mpgn.com
Sender:	traveller@mpgn.com
Reply-to:	traveller@mpgn.com
To:	traveller@mpgn.com (Multiple recipients of list)

			    TRAVELLER Digest 382

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) FTL	by John Muir Macpherson <muirmac@uclink.berkeley.edu>
  2) Mertactor talk...	by Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
  3) Colonists (was Mertactor)	by Svend.Andersen@vuw.ac.nz
  4) Keepers of the Flame close?	by bjm@dsc.com (Brian Makens)
  5) Re: TRAVELLER digest 381	by "Kenneth G. Hagler" <khagler@kaiwan.com>
  6) Modern day naval ship lengths	by HA281PMR01@ntu.ac.uk (Lynx)
  7) Design & Naming conventions	by HA281PMR01@ntu.ac.uk (Lynx)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 14:06:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Muir Macpherson <muirmac@uclink.berkeley.edu>
To: Traveller Mailing List <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: FTL
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9508171358.C4899-0100000@uclink.berkeley.edu>

>Shalom Zaidfeld, if get the name of the publication where that mentioned
>paper will be published, could you please inform me.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Joni Virolainen

	Could you inform me as well?  Or perhaps just post it to the list? 
I saw the article describing the Alcubierre drive and I've been thinking how
it might be adapted to Trav.  Unfortunately, my knowledge of physics is 
limited. I'll give a brief description of the drive in the hopes of 
provoking discussion :)
	The drive creates a local distortion of spacetime that creates and
expansion behind the ship and a corresponding contraction in front of the
ship.  This leaves the ship in free-fall and gives it no "real" 
acceleration in that it does not suffer time dilation.  However the ship
does gain "coordinate" acceleration in that it moves.  Because the ship
stays within its local light cone (the light, and everything within the
radius of the disturbance is also accelerated) the ship can travel much
faster than light (relative to a stationary observer at the ships starting
point).  In fact, Alcubierre postulates that the ship could travel almost
instantaneously.
	There are some curious things about the drive though.  For 
instance, the article states that halfway to its destination, the ship 
must perform a familiar turn-over maneuver to accelerate in the opposite 
direction.  What if the drive failed before turn-over, would the ship 
continue traveling at FTL speeds essentially forever?  Would it be 
destroyed?  And what about the ships local light cone?  If it is being 
accelerated also then it will quickly leave the region of the disturbance 
and begin to move more slowly than the space craft, allowing the ship to 
catch up and the light to be caught in the disturbance again.  This would 
seem to my layman's eyes to create something analogous to a sonic boom 
coming from the ship.
	There are of course many other interesting things about a ship 
which travels in this fashion, and since, according to Shalom Zaidfeld 
this idea is gaining scientific recognition, this may be the way humanity 
someday reaches the stars.

	-- Muir


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 14:58:49 -0700
From: Christopher_Griffen@dmcwave.com (Christopher Griffen)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Mertactor talk...
Message-ID: <033bbbe0@MailXFER.DMCWAVE.COM>

     Hans and my continuing discussion about my Mertactor RICE paper:
     
     
     >>I agree that you could make a good case for a planet like, say, 
     Weiss or Windsor (which lies in the middle of the area shown as 
     settled) not necessarily being settled at the time shown, but 
     Mertactor lies on the edge of the border shown. It may be too 
     complicated to show non-settled worlds in the middle of an area, but 
     it's quite simple to draw a border either way around a border world. 
     Surely the edge would've been on the other side of Mertactor if it had 
     been unsettled. (Tarsus dosen't prove anything as it IS on the other 
     side of the egde in the 300 and 400 map AND is shown as settled on the 
     500 map. Which fits perfectly with what other knowledge we have.)<<
     
     Mertactor's _right_ on the edge of Regency space.  I interpret that to 
     mean that it is on the very edge of what was Imperial space.  I 
     believe that supports my argument that it could've been one of the 
     _last_ systems to be settled.
     
     >>Chris:>Or a propaganda stunt to discourage _more_ colonists from 
     coming to >Mora from the more settled regions of Imperial space.
     
     Hans:  I don't quite catch your drift here.<<
     
     My intent is to express that Mora could be trying to set an example 
     for other would-be colonists.  Many billions more could be applying 
     for their Moran visas through civilized space.  If news of this 
     arguably expensive deportation gets out, it could save Moran citizens 
     from what they perceive to be far greater expenses in overcrowding and 
     pollution.
     
     Part of the allure of the frontier would be the wide open spaces.  
     That's why so many colonists came to the Americas initially.  I don't 
     see why it shouldn't apply on an interstellar scale.
     
     >>But if it isn't Moran citizens being booted off planet, whet's their 
     beef? Surely they neither needed, nor wanted to settle on an already 
     inhabited planet if the had a whole colonization ship with them.<<
     
     Unless the reason they left their homes in distant Imperial space for 
     the relatively civilized confines of Mora.  There's a bit of a 
     dichotomy here that I think makes for fascinating history.  Colonists 
     may well yearn for the wide-open spaces and liberties of the frontier, 
     yet they might also inwardly want to cling to the familiar.  Mora 
     would have likely offered the familiar in that it had cities, 
     skyscrapers, grav vehicles, etc.
     
     >>>Chris:  The colonists have 
     >already done it for me when they calculated the tonnage to move 
     >themselves from their former homes in the established Imperium.
     
     Hans:  Again, I don't see why emigrants from, say, Deneb, with their 
     very own colonization ship can be said to come from Mora if all the 
     contact they have with that planet is being gouged a bit on the fuel 
     bill (and believe me, there's a very definite limit to how much the 
     Morans _could_ gouge them before someone else started shippin in fuel 
     from Jokotre and under- cutting them).<<
     
     You're forgetting one thing that may negate most of this part of the 
     debate:  fuel scoops.
     
     In this age, there is little in the way of enforcement at gas giants 
     in many systems.  Furthermore, Moran officials may have leaned on 
     other governments along the path to Mertactor to allow the colonist 
     flotilla skimming rights.  That cuts a seriously large chunk out of 
     the budget.
     
     >>Chris:  Yes, the numbers are astronomical, but have you ever 
     considered what >it must've cost the Sword Worlders to immigrate from 
     Terra?!  Now that >must've been a pretty penny.  
     
     Hans:  Yes, but that was colonization, not population pressure 
     relief.<<
     
     Different reason.  Same costs.
     
     >Chris:  Expeditions are often undertaken with little consideration 
     for the >financial costs.  
     
     Hans:  Nonsens. Someone will have to foot the bill, and that someone 
     will have to believe it worthwhile.<<
     
     Discussed above.  See my second comment, regarding "setting an 
     example."
     
     >> Chris:  Just ask Kevin Costner.
     
     Hans:  That one went right by me. Didn't even see it.<<
     
     This one addresses the recent film, WATERWORLD, starring and partially 
     directed by actor Kevin Costner.  WATERWORLD featured the largest 
     motion picture budget of all time with little chance of delivering a 
     profit.
     
     >>Do you really think any government would be willing to spend that 
     kind of money just to get rid of an insignificant part of their 
     population? I don't.<<
     
     Once again, I defer to my second comment, above.
     
     >> The other kind is where you (the government) build a ship, load it 
     with people (volunteers or "volunteers"), send it to some other 
     planet, dump the people, _and comes home for another load to repeat 
     the process_. Now you _may_ be getting into something managable. Now 
     we're not just building a ship and waving goodbye to it.<<
     
     It could've been this way.  I left my paper intentionally vague for 
     just this reason.  I write the historical facts.  I leave the 
     logistics to individual referees.
     
     
     >>Dosen't quite sound like the free and easy Spinward Marches I've 
     read about, but I can't come up with any official statement about it, 
     so I'll just say: "Well, maybe."<<
     
     Okay.
     
     >>No, it wouldn't. But that little water isn't there. 20% of a 
     planet's surface is 20%, big or small. Two planets with the same 
     hydrographic percentage is roughly equally lush/arid. (I speak subject 
     to correction by anyone who knows anything about the subject).<<
     
     I don't think you'll find anyone who's travelled to the habitable zone 
     of any other systems besides this one, but I've always been willing to 
     believe that there are probably enough chemical variations in the 
     universe to support some pretty bizarre happenstances.  Like maybe an 
     atmosphere that is slightly rich in carbon dioxide.  Not enough to 
     hurt its status as a type-6 standard atmosphere, but enough to spur a 
     somewhat extraordinary amount of flora.
     
     >>But if so then it's an unusual feature of the planet and deserves to 
     be mentioned. (Anyway, you can stuff the soils with chemicals as much 
     as you like; without water it's going to be a desert).<<
     
     Once again, I like to leave something to the individual refs out 
     there.  You're right, it's an important consideration, but in this 
     case, since I neglected to mention it, it'll have to fall under the 
     category, "to be determined."  I could mention a lot of things, but I 
     think each individual writer should cover the stuff he thinks is 
     important.
     
     For instance, I use Alvin Plummera's Deneb paper for my own campaign 
     background, but I include mention of The Church of the Stellar 
     Divinity, which he neglected to mention.  The Church of the Stellar 
     Divinity was mentioned in MegaTraveller Digest #3 by DGP.  I simply 
     meshed it into the piece Alvin had written.  (As a side note, I also 
     shortened the approval period to get on-planet at Deneb.)
     
     >>It's just that I and several others firmly believe that if 
     everything GDW has told us about the basic situation of the Aslans 
     (TL, culture, etc.) and the way shipbuilding economy works is taken 
     seriously, then there's NO way the Aslans could even begin to encroach 
     on the Domain back in 1116 much less actually capture a 
     high-population TL 15 world. And even if by some bizarrely impropable 
     concatenation of events (one that none of us has had the highly 
     inventive imagination to concieve) they did manage to grab hold
     of Glisten or Tobia there's no way that Norris would accept such a 
     situation, nor any reason why he should, since he would have all the 
     ressources he needed to kick them off again. (Well, I suppose that if 
     the Aslans managed
     to grab Glisten and Tobia without damaging the defenses AND take over 
     those defenses then Norris would have some grey hairs coming. Now all 
     you have
     to do is to come up with a scenario that allows the Aslans to sneak in 
     and steal a few score fully manned TCSquadrons and system defenses. 
     Good luck.)<<
     
     So in your campaign the ihatei advance never happened?
     
     In any event, I merely mentioned the influence of the aslan because 
     they're a local major alien race.  They didn't take over Mertactor or 
     Collace or anything!
     
     Since we've broached this tangent, I agree with you.  Especially in 
     light of the rather large separation in weapons advancement between 
     TL-14 and TL-15 lasers that TNE proposes.  Regardless, I believe the 
     aslan would have had a great deal of success conquering low-population 
     worlds and even outer and inner-system worlds of large-pop. high-tech 
     systems.  No one ever said the aslan yearning for land extended only 
     into a system's habitable zone!
     
     >>This has been discussed several times before (not heatedly, because 
     we're a pretty laid-back bunch of people here on TML, but intensely), 
     so I didn't want to rip it up again, but I always vince when I see 
     references to Aslans lording it over Glisten or any other 
     Domain/Regency world.<<
     
     Who says the aslan took Glisten?  In Alvin's Glisten paper, he only 
     said the aslan were present as citizens, not landlords.  They may be 
     traders or mercenaries who immigrated from the worlds the ihatei _did_ 
     take in the Trojan Reaches.
     
     >>Sure. It's just that I firmly believe that in an "shared universe" 
     like GDWs Traveller Universe it is not only polite to make every 
     effort to fit your new material to what has been produced before, it 
     is also, in the long run, the most expedient thing to do.<<
     
     I agree completely.  The best thing Traveller has going for it is its 
     rich historical background.  I've been playing the game since 1980 and 
     it reads like a great sci-fi novel.
     
     I only lament that you don't feel I've done so.  But then, I have no 
     control over that.  I welcome you to freely edit or completely discard 
     my paper for the purposes of your own campaign.
     
     >>Chris:  That said, let's see some more RICE papers from others on 
     the TML.  >Hans, I haven't seen you contribute one yet.  Have at, pal! 
      There are >hundreds of worlds we need to know more about.      
     
     Hans:  Maybe one day.<<
     
     Looking forward to it.  I can see by your concerns that you wouldn't 
     take the task on lightly!
     
     --Chris

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 10:44:05 +1200
From: Svend.Andersen@vuw.ac.nz
To: TRAVELLER@MPGN.COM
Subject: Colonists (was Mertactor)
Message-ID: <009950E0.0135CBBA.69@matai.vuw.ac.nz>

  Hans Rancke-Madsen made an interesting point about the financial costs of
shipping excess population off-world.  Indeed, it seems hard to see why a
government would spend so much, to send dissadents to a whole new star
system.

  Now, I don't know whether this is a solution, or whether it's feasible, but
-
what about the colony ships used to settle Mora?  What happened to them?
Could
they have been moth-balled, and then refurbished and used during this
trnsfer?

  I know there were some moth-balling rules somewhere, and you might have to
have the government upgrading the Jump drive or something, and darned if I
know
why whoever paid for the *Moran's* trip let them keep these valuable pieces
of
hardware on ice... but how would this suggestion affect the cost-worthiness
of
the proposal?

  I guess I just have this vision of this great congregation of ancient
colony
ships orbiting around a minor planet, waiting to be called to service once
more... ;^)

Svend Andersen  "An abacus is a primitive comp, right?  So, has anyone
written
		 `Abacus Invaders' yet?"

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Aug 95 19:28:36 -0700
From: bjm@dsc.com (Brian Makens)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Cc: bjm@dsc.com
Subject: Keepers of the Flame close?
Message-ID: <9508180228.AA28388@neptune.dsc.com>


There was a posting on Genie, from somebody
who went to the traveller seminar at GencCon
last week, that the Regency Source Book was
going to the printers this week. Hope its
a true rumour.
BrianM

PS Thats me over there in the corner, jumping
up and down giddily, and yes, I do know where
the bathroom is...


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 21:58:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Kenneth G. Hagler" <khagler@kaiwan.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 381
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950817215046.24162B-100000@kaiwan009.kaiwan.com>

On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 "Upton, Django"  wrote:

>      >>The Old and New Islands Subsectors were unknown until a scout vessel
>      misjumped into them in... I forget the year, but it was quite recent.
>      The inhabitants had never heard of anyone from outside and noone
>      outside had heard of them.<<
> 
>      Whoops.  Where's that?  Trillion Credit Squadron?  I knew I shouldn't
>      have sold that book! <g>  Reft'll have to be changed to Gushemege or
>      Dagudashag. Thanks for enlightening me.
>  -------------------------
> 
> I think you'll find that it was a battle damaged cruiser that misjumped.
> They had to manufacture jump drive components to get back.
> When the official scout service contact mission arrived they found that the

> locals had made copies of the drives they helped fix.

Specifically, the Serendip Belt, the system the cruiser had jumped to,
had copied the technology and was busily conquering its neighbors. The
scout mission distributed jump drive tech to everyone, restoring a
balance of power.

Steve Higginbotham ran a play-by-email game using the campaign
described in the TCS book a while back. The events of that campaign
have formed the basis for a TNE campaign setting centered on the Rift
Alliance, an interstellar government centered on the unified Islands
Cluster. 

                               Kenneth G. Hagler

      |           khagler@kaiwan.com           |   Finger me for PGP    |
      |     http://www.kaiwan.com/~khagler     |   v2.6ui public key.   |
      | Hitotsume no kotoba wa yume nemuri no naka kara mune no oku no  |
      | kurayami o sotto tsuredasu no --Myung Fang Lone, "Voices"       |


------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 10:48:46 +0100
From: HA281PMR01@ntu.ac.uk (Lynx)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Modern day naval ship lengths
Message-ID: <95081810484664@newvax.ntu.ac.uk>

In a previous thread concerned with the lengths of starships, Kelly St.Clair
said:

>The rule of thumb I remember from the World Book encyclopedia's article
>  on the metric system was:
>
>1 km = 5 city blocks    ->   1 city block = 200 m

>Perhaps someone could post the dimensions of various present-day ships
>  (wet navy, that is) and their crew complement?

I don't know the crew complements i'm afraid but here are some simple
dimensions
for a number of TL-8 Wet Navy ships:

Type Name			Length (m)	Displacement (tons)
DDG Arleigh Burke		142			6609
DD Improved Spruance		172			5830
BB Iowa				270			46177
CVN Nimitz			333			81600
FFG O.H. Perry			136			2769
LHA Tarawa			250			25120
CG Ticonderoga VLS		173			7260
FF Type 23 'Duke'		133			3500
CVH Invincible			193			16250
DDG Type 42/3 'Sheffield'	141			3550
FFL Vosper Mk5			 95			1350

Hope these are of some use to someone.

Paul Radford


------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 10:53:22 +0100
From: HA281PMR01@ntu.ac.uk (Lynx)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Design & Naming conventions
Message-ID: <95081810532188@newvax.ntu.ac.uk>

Does anyone know what the definition of a destroyer, and a frigate is?

If a ship is designed in FF&S terms, is there any feature of it that would
make it a destroyer rather than a frigate or visa versa?

The US Navy fields both destroyers and frigates with destroyers having a 
tendancy to possess greater offensive capability and play a variety of roles.
In the Royal Navy, frigates appear to possess more ability than do destroyers.

Is it all something to do with cultural history or is there a naming and
design convention?

Paul Radford


------------------------------

End of TRAVELLER Digest 382
***************************
