
Traveller-digest    Wednesday, October 27 1999    Volume 1999 : Number 1268



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

re: GURPS Vehicle Starship Design: LF-78 Light Freighter
Re: 3D starbases
Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives
Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives
Re: Freezing in the Aleutians (was Re: )
Re: TML Members as resources
Re: Antimatter drives
RE:Fellow Traveller
Re: Antimatter Drives
Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives
Re: Antimatter Drives
Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives
Re: Norris the Man
Re: Latest TNS release
Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives
Re: How many Imperial barons?

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

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 00:30:47 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: re: GURPS Vehicle Starship Design: LF-78 Light Freighter

>Here's my first attempt at using GURPS Vehicles to make a starship, rather than the 
>modular rules in GURPS Traveller. Please comment away.

GTL10 I presume.

I have just completed this exercise offlist, so know some of the pitfalls.

>LF-78 Design Data

>Subassemblies and Body Features: One turret (full rotation, under body). 
>   Retractable skids (3). Very good streamlining. Lifting body.

Sealed?

>Communications: Two radio communicators with very long range 
> (each 500,000mi, HP 3, 0.1 kW). 

5 million miles. P47, Communicators, 2nd para. 10x range in space. 

>Two laser communicators   with very long range 
>(each 1,000,000mi, HP 14, 1kW). 

10 million miles. Ditto.

>    Sensors:  AESA with 10,000 mi range (HP 169, 2,500kW, scan 35). 
>              PESA with 2,000 mi range (HP 70, neg. power, scan 31). 

Both have 10x range in space, +6 scan. 
AESA p52 2nd col para 1. PESA p54 para 2.

pop turret rotation space? p16

>ECM: Radar/laser detector.

2 is standard.

>Miscellaneous: Three 2-man airlocks (each HP 90). 

Armoured passage tube ?

>3,336 cf access space, 

1300 for the thrusters, 488 for the fusion reactor. What else?

>Empty space 2121.043cf .

Why?

>Volumes:</i> 
>Loaded:</i>

Stray HTML tags.

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 18:51:03 -0500
From: Shimmergloom <shimmer@mhtc.net>
Subject: Re: 3D starbases

what is that url?


david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au wrote:

> Dear Folks -
>
> Thomas replied to "Shimmer" thusly:
> >>With all the talk of 3D modeling on here recently I have not seen any
> >>bases or space stations.  I am trying to create an image map and was
> >>wondering if there are any pictures of space stations in 3D out there.
> >
> >nothing in 3d !!!!That I know of.
>
> Talk to Jesse or look through his site. He used someone's space-station in the
> background of a number of his renderings (with credit and permission, of
> course!). I *think* he has a link to the station's creator on his site
> somewhere.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
> http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
> "I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
> of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
> position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

- --
- ----------------------------------------------
he he he he he he he he he he he he

      Shimmer

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

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 00:39:14 +0100
From: "Matthew Bond" <mgb@akira.swinternet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives

>Since your drives work inside a gravity well, why have starships at all?
>Why not build jump drives in army bases, subway stations, mines, hotels,
>embassies, or whatever and jump people and cargo directly to their final
>destination?


'Coz the Jump field will scoop big holes in the floor..... <g>

Matt

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

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 00:52:37 +0100
From: "Matthew Bond" <mgb@akira.swinternet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives

- -----Original Message-----
From: Joseph R. Dietrich <yikes@evansville.net>
To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com <traveller@lists.imagiconline.com>
Date: 27 October 1999 22:21
Subject: Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives


>>Can the jump capacitors be charged up before exiting
>>jump space?
>
>I don't like it, but possibly. I am having a hard time thinking of a
>handwave to prevent this. I would like them to have to spend some time in
>realspace between jumps -- but I suppose you could make a ship with a power
>plant so big that you could fill the capacitors in a second anyway sooo...
>
>Hmm. Perhaps each jump requires astrogation observations and calculations
>that can take up to a couple of hours to perform.
>
>
>>How long can they be charged?
>
>As long as they can be in Traveller. ;-) I know that's a non-answer, but
>I'm not sure that there is a time limit in the normal rules (here I'm
>talking High guard and MT).


Well, if you include DGP's Starship Operators Manual as MT, then you can
only hold the charge for a few tens of minutes, and HG requires 2 turns
output from the power plant... 40mins.

>>Does holding a charge for long times cause damage?
>
>If it does in Traveller. ;-) See above answer.


SOM has the Zuchai Crystals catastrophically fail... *BOOM*

>>There might still be reasons to go there  For example,
>>you might have run out of Oorts.
>
>Then you'll have to hoof it in realspace. :-)
>
>
>>>3.) No microjumps to the outsystem.
>>
>>Why not?
>
>I mentioned this in another letter. My idea is that you need a big gravity
>well to propagate into. Because of an "uncertainty principle" inherent in
>hyperspace travel, this well needs to be millions and millions of km in
>size, otherwise you might miss (and never come back from jumpspace).


If you can Jump to a Terrestrial Planet, it must be easier to 'hit' a Gas
Giant.

Unless by outsystem you mean the region of space beyond the planetary
system, but still within the 'boundaries' of the stars influence?

>>>4.) Smaller ships, or more free space for cargo and
>>>    other things in existing ships (although this can be
>>>    counteracted somewhat by increasing the volume of the
>>>    jump drive itself.
>>
>> Huge change here.  Little fuel to buy, lots of cargo
>> space, no problems with unrefined fuel: the rates for
>> carrying cargo or passengers would tend to drop.
>
>Yes. This is okay, though. I want space travel to be cheaper, and shipments
>like raw ore or grain to make more sense.
>
>
>>>5.) No High Guard -- except in describing ortillery for
>>>    planetary assault.
>>
>> Or when searching the gas giant for hidden SDBs.
>
>No reason to go to a gas giant anyway -- I follow the "gas giants are
>tactically insignificant" school of thought.


To visit or establish colonies / mining outposts / observatories / etc etc
(on satellites of the GG).  And if people are there then they need
defending, which means military bases, which give GG's a tactical
significance <g>.

<snip snipped comments comment>

All the best,

Matt

Matthew Bond
mgb@akira.swinternet.co.uk
www.akira.swinternet.co.uk/strom.html
- --------------------------------------------------------------
"To strike a man who insults you is one thing...
...To run him through with a sword is quite another!"
- --------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 16:16:06 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Freezing in the Aleutians (was Re: )

In mail you write:

> At 03:28 AM 10/27/1999 GMT, you wrote:
>
>>Well... have you ever drank a slurpee too fast through a straw? That's
>>what breathing Minot air is like. ;-) Imagine, some people ENJOY
>>living there!
>
> My first night on the 'Z, I could hear my breath freeze.  Up until that
> point in my life, the concept of "too cold to snow" was an alien one..

For cold worlds, or even cold areas on worlds, you can always swipe the
native name for an area in Siberia. I don't remember the original, but
it translates as "Land where the piss freezes from the ground up".

Now *that* is an image to to make your players appreciate "cold"!

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 16:23:27 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: TML Members as resources

In mail you write:

>>>>Well, as an Atheist and Archaeologist, I would guess that it's in Exodus
>
>>> Exodus 20, to be precise.
>
>>Interestingly, anyone with a smattering of Greek could guess one place to
>>find the Commandments.  'Deuteronomy' comes from words meaning 'second'
>>and 'law' because it's the second book (after Exodus) in which the
>>Commandments appear.  Interestingly, the two forms are slightly different,
>>though only in wording, not intent.
>
> Good grief.  Is there any subject concerning which someone on this list
> *doesn't* possess erudite knowledge?
>
> :-)

Nope. You see, many, if not *most* of use qualify as fen (members of SF
fandom). And there's an old (and all too accurate) saying that goes
something like this:

One fan is a fount of trivia
two fen are an amazing assembly of arcane knowledge
three fen are an encyclopedia of the strange and bizarre
four fen are the sum toal of all knowledge

We have more than four fen on the list.

In all seriousness, fen *do* tend to not only pick up trivia, but to
*know* people who are experts in odd fields. Add that the the "5
degrees of seperation" theory (that there are no more than 5 links
between any two people in the US) and you can see that when it comes to
scientific or technical knowledge, fen either know it, or can obtain it
quickly. 

For example, I'm but one of the folks here who could dig up rail gun,
laser launch and other "alternative space launch" tech quickly if we
*really* needed it. I *know* the inventor of the "Launch loop" (Keith
Lofstrom), I know well enough to email Jordin Kare (Lawrence Berkley
Labs, laser launch, rail gun work, many other oddities). And UI know of
people who work at various NASA facilities who might answer email on
other topics. And that's just going out to "second" degree!)

I'm sure other folks here have similar "contacts". 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 16:34:25 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Antimatter drives

In mail you write:

> I've been thinking about antimatter drives.  How would they work?  Let's
> say you somehow have access to fairly large amounts of antimatter, what
> would be the best way to use it to send a ship forward?  Would simply
> allowing it to react with an equal mass of normal matter be efficient?  I
> mean, my basic view of an antimatter rocket is just that:  You feed a
> stream of antimatter into a chamber where it encounters a stream of normal
> matter.  They annihilate and you direct the energy out the back of the
> ship.  
>
> But then I got to wondering, isn't most of the energy produced going to be
> in the form of gamma rays and other "high energy" forms?  How easy is it
> to "redirect" this?  How much thrust would you get by forcing this out the
> back of the ship? Do you need reaction mass?  Then I thought "I have no
> idea, I'll ask the friendly folks at the TML!"  And here we are... :-)

Hit a bookstore and buy a copy of Dr. Robert L. Forward's book
"Indistinguishable From Magic". It's got a chapter on anti-matter. 

In essence, the problem is that anti-protons and anti-neutrons *aren't*
elementary particles. So they *don't* convert directly to energy. The
both consist of quark triplets (one each red, green and blue for normal
matter, anti-red, anti-green and anti-blue for anti-matter). So when
they interact, you lose one quark from each pair (say a red & an
anti-red). These convert to energy, and the remain quarks rearrange
into a pair of mesons. Mesons consist of *pairs* of quarks (in this
case a blue/anti-blue pair and a green/anti-green par). These quickly
decay by self-anihilation (the two quarks react with each other).

The firs consideration from this is that the initial annihilation
produces very high energy gamma rays. You need to have some *dense*
material to absorb these and convert them to heat. Forward suggests a
tungsten block.

Next, you have the initial mesons decaying (apparently they decay in
two stages, rather than the simplified single stage I gave above). The
first decay occurs a few meters from the original reaction. Still, it's
impractical to use a block of tungsten that big. So you have to extract
energy from them by making them interact with a strong magnetic field
(which acts as a "nozzle" to direct them in one direction, making the
ship go in the opposite direction). Next, the mesons resulting from
stage 2 will be going so fast that they'll get a couple of Km before
decaying! So you need a *big* magnetic nozzle to extract all the energy
you can before they decay.

There's a diagram of all this in the book. 

Forward points out that there are likely many other ways of harnessing
the energy for propulsion. Nor for the interesting part. *Because* so
much energy is realeased, and antimatter is likely to *always* be very
expensive in relation to normal matter, you'll want to use as little
antimatter as possible. 

So you use it to heat up normal matter, which you spew out thru a
nozzle to propel you. 

It turns out that for anything up to an interstellar flight, the best
designs involving antimatter have one quarter of the ships's mass being
"fuel" (antimatter and reaction mass). Or do I have that backwards?

Anyway whatever the "magic" mass-ratio is, it *is* the same for a wide
range of total mission velocity changes (ie mission delta-V). The more
dV you need, the more of the "fuel" is antimatter. For putting around
insystem, you can get by with a lot of reaction mass and a little
antimatter. The antimatter only heats up the fuel a bit before spitting
it out at a relatively low velocity. For higher dV, you use more
antimatter, and thus get a higher exhaust velocity. All the way up to
the maximum possible, which is suitable for interstellar missions at
fraction of lightspeed.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 17:01:54 -0700
From: "Brian Makens" <bmakens@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: RE:Fellow Traveller

If anybody is interested in Government 0 during a crisis...
I guess you might hit the history books and look
up Barcelona (and the catalonia region) during the
Spanish Civil War.

The anarchist movement physically had control of
Barcelona and Catalonia during part of the Spanish
Civil War, and surprisingly enough it actually was
one of the better functioning parts of the Republican
Side...  I don't remember just how much anarchist
theory got put into practice, but is it really the only
time the anarchist movement got a hold of a territory.
The Paris Communards were mostly Marxists.
In any case, reading about Barcelona might
give you some idea's of the problems and
conflicts a Gov't 0 society might face..

BrianM

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 20:11:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Collin <charles@hebb.psych.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Antimatter Drives

<Anthony Jackson>
The decay products of matter/antimatter collisions are frequently
neutrally charged, making 'directing' them a bit of a challenge. 
</AJ>

Hmm, I had a feeling it wouldn't be so simple.  When you say 'a bit of a
challenge' are you understating the case?  Is there a way of redirecting
the bulk of the decay products?

<AJ>
You don't need reaction mass; a pure annihilation drive would be using the
decay products of matter/antimatter reactions as reaction mass.  This
would tend to be extremely low thrust, however (specific impulse around 30
million seconds, power output 300 MW/newton).  Assuming you have a
</AJ>

SPLURK! Isp of 30 _million_ is low thrust?  Even estimates for fusion
rockets I've seen don't go over 150 000.  Are you sure about that figure? 
Also, what does power output here refer to? 

<AJ>
relatively limited supply of antimatter, the best use for it is probably
using it as a seed to trigger fusion fuel. 
</AJ>

Could you expand on this a bit?  I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
Do you mean to use the antimatter to somehow improve a fusion rocket type
of design?

Thanks for your reply.

Charles C.

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 20:09:38 -0400
From: "Thomas Schoene" <TomSchoene@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives

- ----------
> From: Joseph R. Dietrich <yikes@evansville.net>
> To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> Subject: Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives
> Date: Wednesday, 27 October, 1999 5:19 PM
> 
> >Can the jump capacitors be charged up before exiting
> >jump space?
> 
> I don't like it, but possibly. I am having a hard time thinking of a
> handwave to prevent this. I would like them to have to spend some time in
> realspace between jumps -- but I suppose you could make a ship with a
power
> plant so big that you could fill the capacitors in a second anyway
sooo...

How about the stutterwarp solution from 2300AD? Travel through jump space
accumulates a charge (type undetermined) that requires time in a gravity
well to dissipate.  That means ships have to hang around in real space for
however long it takes to dissipate the charge.  How long this takes is
totally up to you, although I would make it proportional to the strength of
the local grav field, so diving a gas giant can help dissipate the field
faster.

Tom Schoene

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 17:26:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Antimatter Drives

Charles Collin writes:
> <AJ>
> You don't need reaction mass; a pure annihilation drive would be using the
> decay products of matter/antimatter reactions as reaction mass.  This
> would tend to be extremely low thrust, however (specific impulse around 30
> million seconds, power output 300 MW/newton).  Assuming you have a
> </AJ>
> 
> SPLURK! Isp of 30 _million_ is low thrust?  Even estimates for fusion
> rockets I've seen don't go over 150 000.  Are you sure about that figure? 
> Also, what does power output here refer to? 

Power output is the energy output of the drive.  A reasonable antimatter annihilation drive is probably on the order of 1 newton of thrust per ton of drive (capable of 1/10,000th G) so yes, it's 'low thrust'
> 
> <AJ>
> relatively limited supply of antimatter, the best use for it is probably
> using it as a seed to trigger fusion fuel. 
> </AJ>
> 
> Could you expand on this a bit?  I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
> Do you mean to use the antimatter to somehow improve a fusion rocket type
> of design?

Use the antimatter as a conveniently compact way to heat fusion fuel to a temperature sufficient to get fusion.  Basically you are replacing the fission bomb in an H-bomb with antimatter, and then shrinking the bomb dramatically, and treating the whole thing as a Daedalus drive.

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 17:27:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives

John Buston writes:

> If by that you mean precipitated out at the 0.01G limit and can jump from
> the 0.01G limit, then note that this is less than 4 diameters out for
> Earth. Gravity halves with every planetary radius step you take. This vastly
> speeds up transit times and makes planetary defence even harder. 

Um.. get your physics right.  Gravity is divided by the square of the distance, .01 Gs is at 10 diameters from a planet with a 1G surface gravity.

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

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 02:52:12 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Norris the Man

Mark Seemann writes:

>Tue, 26 Oct 1999 16:27:58 +0200 (METDST) Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
>wrote:
> 
>>Just to keep this straight, we are talking about some Aslan clan lord in,
>>say, Dark Nebula sector, who sends off an _ihatei_ fleet that is a threat
>>to the Domain of Deneb, right? That means that he is sending them off on
>>a journey where the ships he wants back is away for 3 to 4 years if they
>>are jump-3. Effectively they are able to defend him for, let's be
>>generous, 3-4 months out of every 3 years, or 10% of the time. If that
>>doesn't put him at a disadvantage against a neighbor who keeps his ships
>>at home, I don't know what does. 
> 
>What if all the other lords did the same? They all have the problem with
>the ihatei, so they all need to get rid of them... 

So they do. The problem is that it is so much more efficient to conquer a
neighbor, take over his land and resettle your _ihatei_ on it. Instead of
getting rid of a fleetload every 3 year, you get rid of a fleetload every
month. Furthermore, once your no-longer-ihatei-but-vassals have settled
down, their taxes can be used to build and maintain some warships. Being
stationed only a jump or two away from your own planet, they can be
summoned to help you if you are attacked. If your _ihatei_ are 18 months
away, it doesn't matter how succesful they are, their ships can't support
you.

>That would create an equilibrium - maybe not a very stable one, though :-)

Exactly my point. And all it takes is a few clan lords with a flexible
attitude to the conventions. And canon gives plenty of examples of Aslans
with flexible attitudes. It even states that there are some Aslans who are
able to rationalize piracy as honorable (not many, but some). We're also
told that there are always a couple of clan wars going on somewhere in
the Hierate. 
 
Keven R. Pittsinger writes:

> Well, they *can't* send them into either Dark Nebula or Reavers' Deep
>without serious repercussions.  The Peace of Ftahalr would prohibit it,
>and *one* thing that Aslans are famous for is keeping their word. It is
>interesting to note that the area behind the Claw is *NOT* covered in
>the Peace.  <grin>

IIRC (and I don't have my MT stuff here, so I may be mistaken), the Aslans
regarded the Domain as being covered until the Rebellion. When they 
realized that the Domain was vulnerable (I know that _I_ claim that the
Domain wouldn't be vulnerable, but canon says it was), some of them began
to argue that the Domain wasn't _really_ covered. They may keep their word,
but sometimes their word is open to interpretation.

Damn... I wish I had remembered that back when _GT:Alien Races 1_ was being
playtested. If I'm right, the various Aslan incursions in _BtC_ and _AR1_
are completely contrary to canon... I'll have to check when I get home.

>>It is still true that an Aslan lord who needs to replace his ships at 30
>>years intervals will be at a disadvantage against Imperials, but first, the
>>Aslan are not at war with the third Imperium, and two, most Aslan lords are
>>placed _very_ far from the Imperium.
> 
>First off, I'd see a lot of those 30 year old ships (and a lot of them would 
>be a *lot* older than 30 years old, btw) as being gunned merchants, not 
>necessarily warships from the keel on up.  Thus, their 'out of pocket cash' 
>flow would be reduced somewhat.  

The price an Aslan clan lord pays for taking still servicable ships from
their regular duties and giving them to his _ihatei_ is that he will have
to build new ships to perform those duties more often. Thereby the effective
cost of his ships is increased. Not because he pays more for them, but
because he pays them over a shorter period of time.

>Second, the Aslans are about 30 parsecs from the Imperium and the Solomani
>Confederation at their nearest points: in Reavers' Deep and Dark Nebula. 

Actually, the Aslans shares a border with the Solomani Confederation at
their nearest point: in Magyar and Canopus.

>It was a created buffer zone between the Aslans and the Sollies/Imperium,
>created by the Peace, and *strenuously* adhered to by the Aslans.

Presumably that buffer zone originally continued down through Magyar and
Canopus, but once the Confederation seceded from the Imperium, they moved
into it.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 19:56:39 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Latest TNS release

Volker Greimann wrote:
> 
> At 11:27 26.10.99 +1300, you wrote:
> >Ha, I've been waiting for this one. Now the question is, will he wash out
> >and go on to set up his own film production company? Lucan Films
> >perhaps?
> LucanArts, you mean?

Plus the subsidiary ILM: Imperial Looting and Mayhem....

- -- 
AuricTech Shipyards Journeyman Gearhead
"Gold-Plated [tm] solutions for copper-plated problems!" (r)
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776

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

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 21:19:40 -0400
From: "Thomas Schoene" <TomSchoene@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives

- ----------
> From: Steven Hudson <shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca>
> To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> Subject: Re: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives
> Date: Wednesday, 27 October, 1999 3:26 PM
> 
> >From: "Joseph R. Dietrich" <yikes@evansville.net>
> >Subject: Just say "no" to lhy for Jump drives
> ...
> >5.) No High Guard -- except in describing ortillery for
> >    planetary assault.
> >
> >What else. Poke holes in this idea please.
> 
>   Are you using thrusters or a reaction drive?

This made me think of some experimentation I've been doing with the new
GURRPS Space 3rd Edition).  I wanted a different feel from classic
Traveler, but I wanted to be able to recycle as many deckplans as possible
(so I'm lazy that way :-).  Here's what I have come up with:

A tramline type jump drive (similar to the Alderson drive in Pournelle's
CoDominium universe, with an admixture of David Weber's Honorverse).  This
uses no fuel but requires lots of energy stored in a an energy bank of some
sort.  Each jumpline has a transit limit that governs how much you can
throw through it.  (Jump gates may be possible, but very expensive and
suitable only for major trade routes)

A total conversion maneuver drive.  This requires fuel, but not realistic
amounts so ships can pull multiple Gs and still have enough fuel for
hundreds of hours of burn.  (Think Heplar, but worse :-)

Military vessels probably end up being similar to those in Traveller (lots
of fuel tankage), but merchants should carry much less fuel. 

What I haven't settled yet is how far ships will have to go to get to the
jump point.  

Any thoughts?

Tom Schoene

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

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 03:43:01 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: How many Imperial barons?

Jon Zeigler writes:

>Hmmmm.  Canon says that every Imperial noble -- at least members of
>the peerage with hereditary titles -- has a seat in the Moot.  

If the Moot works the same way the British House of Lords works (worked? ;-),
then that is the definition of a peer: Someone who has a seat in the Moot.

>I rather doubt that most of them actually use that seat, though. Most of
>them appear to vote by proxy, so that a nobleman who actually lives near
>Capital can hold the proxies of many nobles out in the fringes.

Or maybe fringe nobles take turns staying at Capital and voting each other's
proxies.

>Another point: I don't see why someone with a non-hereditary title (a "rank"
>or "acheivement" noble) should be entitled to a seat in the Moot.

But then he wouldn't be a peer and would not be eligble for high office.
 
>I can also imagine an agency of the Imperial bureaucracy whose purpose
>is to help the Emperor keep track of all the high-noble families.

IMTU I have the Imperial Office of Arms. This is ostensibly an Imperial
department for the registration of heraldic coats of arms and equivalent
devices, but in reality their most important function is to evaluate local
titles, offices, and positions and translate them into equivalent Imperial
social positions. On the recommendation of the IOA the holder of a given
title, office, or position automatically recieves a knighthood in an
appropiate Imperial order. This just as automatically gives him or her a
fitting position in Imperial society.

>What *is* the population of the Imperium, anyway?
 
15 trillion.
 
>     Hmmmm.  I wonder if work has started on the GT book on Imperial
>Nobility yet. . .this is an area that sounds like it needs some thorough
>housecleaning.

It's still on the wish list and the capsule description is still missing.
I've been thinking about putting in a bid for it, but at the moment I'm
concentrating on PYRAMID submissions and playtests. Odds are that I wont
get around to it in time (But I've decided that starting tomorrow I'm
going to stop procrastinating, so who knows? ;-).

>    On reflection, I think you're right.  Most of the mid-to-upper level
>managers in the Imperial system are probably not peers.  Being a
>peer should give you *authority*.
 
Well, if the writeup of Forboldn that I've submitted to PYRAMID is accepted,
there will be a canonical example of a director of an Imperial subsector
level official (the Director of the Duchy of Regina branch of the Colonial
Office) who is only a knight or a baronet (Sir Louis Farlane).


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1268
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