Teleport boarding

[rancke]

Of course all of this assumes that potential/kinetic energy is being converted into HEAT. Conservation of Energy can also be preserved by Matter to Energy conversion as well (even 'sort of matter-energy conversion' like when relativistic velocities start affecting mass and the energy required to accelerate it).

Larry Niven's teleportation networks include energy dumps/reservoirs that technologically compensate for changes in potential energy and vectors. Might Zhodani devices that do the same exist? A knapsack full of either very cold or very hot phase-change material, for example?


Hans

 

[McPerth]

Larry Niven's teleportation networks include energy dumps/reservoirs that technologically compensate for changes in potential energy and vectors. Might Zhodani devices that do the same exist?

THose networks are fixed points taht can be specially designed for this pourpose, and have inertial compensators and energy sinks for that (ane even then I guess they will only allow that much change, forcing you to make several stops to reach locations where those changes will be too severe), while Zhodani comandos teleport to locations not specially built for it...

I can buy Zhodani ships have special rooms, with reinforced inertial compensators, to put an example) to receive teleporting personnel (officier transfers, etc...), so that they can teleport from an other ship without exactly matching vectors (though they'll try to make them as close as possible, even if to make the teleporting more confortable) but I don't believe they can so easily overcome those limitations in open locations or in unwilling ships.

A knapsack full of either very cold or very hot phase-change material, for example?

Those materials can raise or lower external (skin) body temperature quite quickly, but will need some time to affect internal temperatura, so to avoid the effect on internal organs, as organic heat conductivity is only that much (see that among the medical applications listed there is not using them against fever sizures).

 

[rancke]

Those materials can raise or lower external (skin) body temperature quite quickly, but will need some time to affect internal temperatura, so to avoid the effect on internal organs, as organic heat conductivity is only that much (see that among the medical applications listed there is not using them against fever sizures).

Obviously I'm postulating some TL15 (or 14, since we're talking Zhodani technology) dodge to channel all the energy differential into the phase change material. And/or a vehicle-mounted device that absorb/deliver the energy from/to the teleporter at the moment he teleports, leaving behind the enabler device. (In both cases he'd have trouble getting back, I guess).


Hans

 

[McPerth]

Obviously I'm postulating some TL15 (or 14, since we're talking Zhodani technology) dodge to channel all the energy differential into the phase change material. And/or a vehicle-mounted device that absorb/deliver the energy from/to the teleporter at the moment he teleports, leaving behind the enabler device. (In both cases he'd have trouble getting back, I guess).


Hans

I'm afraid this device would need to somewhat reach the internal organs to avoid them to be exposed to too sudden temperatura changes...

Taken from another thread:

There is this in MgT: Alien Module 4: Zhodani (p. 77):

Guards Combat Armour (TL 13):
Guards combat armour is based on the earlier officer model (including the computer weave and communications system) but has been further improved to enhance the psionic activity of the wearer. It rapidly cools or warms the body after a teleport, minimising damage from sudden energy gains or losses. This allows a character to jump up to 600 metres, up or down, in a single teleport, or up to 10 kilometres in a single hour when using successive jumps. Special wiring patterns within the armour can be switched on to provide psionic shielding; and switched off to avoid interference with psionic activity. Special glove palms can be removed to expose bare hands for psionic activity requiring physical contact.

I don't remember if that is original to MgT, or based on a description in an earlier iteration of Traveller.

So it seems that th Zhodani, with all their studies and R&D about psionics up to TL 14, could only allow the temperature changes to be increased by 50% (according CT:LBB3 page 45, without it jumps up to 400 m can be done).

Off course, I'd assume all those numbers to be for 1G gravity, and I guess it should be modified accordingly in other grav fields...

 

[rancke]

I'm afraid this device would need to somewhat reach the internal organs to avoid them to be exposed to too sudden temperatura changes...

So it would. It would propably need to utilize some sort of artificial psionic effect.

So it seems that th Zhodani, with all their studies and R&D about psionics up to TL 14, could only allow the temperature changes to be increased by 50% (according CT:LBB3 page 45, without it jumps up to 400 m can be done).

I'm just brainstorming here. Maybe no such technology exists. Maybe it's experimental TL15 technology. Maybe it's lower tech, but hasn't been invented until just recently, not long enough ago to have been tested thoroughly by the Zhodani Guard and incorporated into their combat armor and battledress.

But if it doesn't exist then it's simply because by authorial fiat¹ it doesn't exist, not because it logically couldn't possibly exist.

¹ If you can use that term when in all likelihood none of the writers have ever thought about the possibility of its existence.​

Hans

 

[kilemall]

[FONT=arial,helvetica]Won't work. The Teleporter doesn't have to match the temperature at the destination, just the vector and gravitational energies.

Note that those can be worked out in actual real world math to joule-seconds, which can then be converted to calories, which can be directly converted (divide by mass and the thermal constant of the material) to get degrees of change. Humans are only slightly better overall than water for thermal constant...

Note also: a 10° change in temperature can kill. If it's increase (going to a lower energy state), going from 38.7° to 48.7° is almost assured to kill you - at the very least, you start into febrile seizures while whatever tech tries to cool you off (but note that any tech the 'porter took with also got thermally changed), and changing core and brain temperatures by more than a degree per minute is likely to result in thermal injury - frostbite if cooling the 'porter down...

Which is why the teleporters need to have the ship pretty much match course.[/FONT]

I fail to see what the thermal shock difference is between the 'potential energy' and external temperature, other then not directly cooking/cooling the internal organs.

 

[mike wightman]

Acceleration compensation fields within a ship must operate on a principle similar to gravitic cold berths - a field of some sort affects the movement of every particle within every object within the field (there is some interesting stuff in T5 about this).

When a teleporter goes from one acceleration compensation field to another it is the acceleration compensation field machinery that alters the particle energy level state within the body of the teleporter.

The Zho suit probably has this stuff built in.

If you want to make it difficult for them to port across switch off your acceleration compensation field.

Note that there are three areas of Traveller technology that are total magic - artificial gravity, acceleration compensation and lastly psionics.

What works IYTU is all that matters.

 

[kilemall]

Acceleration compensation fields within a ship must operate on a principle similar to gravitic cold berths - a field of some sort affects the movement of every particle within every object within the field (there is some interesting stuff in T5 about this).

Whoa whoa- are we talking stasis field, or supercooling via gravitic state?

 

[aramis]

I fail to see what the thermal shock difference is between the 'potential energy' and external temperature, other then not directly cooking/cooling the internal organs.

Because external temperature isn't potential energy. It takes time to act, time which affects those on board equally as badly, if not worse than the teleporters.

PE is an inherent state of the curvature of spacetime.

 

[kilemall]

Because external temperature isn't potential energy. It takes time to act, time which affects those on board equally as badly, if not worse than the teleporters.

PE is an inherent state of the curvature of spacetime.

I have to say I am dubious about gravitic PE state change translating into temperature changes. I reread the rule and no question it's there, just that it's not 'science fact' to me that this would absolutely happen.

If so, then the changing gravitational state our jumps encounter would be flash frying/freezing our crews and their cargo all the time.

 

[aramis]

I have to say I am dubious about gravitic PE state change translating into temperature changes. I reread the rule and no question it's there, just that it's not 'science fact' to me that this would absolutely happen.

If so, then the changing gravitational state our jumps encounter would be flash frying/freezing our crews and their cargo all the time.

Jump Drives are probably not the same method of travel, and probably don't work within the same constraints. For one, Jump always takes a week; teleport takes an action...

 

[Patron Zero]

Seems a lot more cats in boxes than I would have ever expected regarding this subject.

To possibly streamline the inclusion of matter teleporters in Traveller could there not be a restriction for site-to-site transport only, meaning both target and sender each required to have transmission and reception ?

Said arrangement could also involve a mandatory powerplant rating as well as computer model to potentially limit such to orbital-surface facilities and starships of large displacement (5K-10K).

It would be a convenience to 'beam' oneself to and fro at whim but doesn't seem 'practical' to have merchant ships or transports so equipped, specifically such of the tonnage player-characters make use of.

 

[mike wightman]

Jump Drives are probably not the same method of travel, and probably don't work within the same constraints. For one, Jump always takes a week; teleport takes an action...

Dave Nilsen said there was a link between jump space and psionics, and that many psionic effects use jump dimensional space to explain them.

Higher than Imperial TL magic perhaps...

 

[McPerth]

Seems a lot more cats in boxes than I would have ever expected regarding this subject.

To possibly streamline the inclusion of matter teleporters in Traveller could there not be a restriction for site-to-site transport only, meaning both target and sender each required to have transmission and reception ?

Said arrangement could also involve a mandatory powerplant rating as well as computer model to potentially limit such to orbital-surface facilities and starships of large displacement (5K-10K).

It would be a convenience to 'beam' oneself to and fro at whim but doesn't seem 'practical' to have merchant ships or transports so equipped, specifically such of the tonnage player-characters make use of.

That would probably be fine for teleporting devices (like those appearing in CT:Secret of the Ancients adventure), but psionic teleporting needs not any device, Otherwise, the Teleporting comandos of the Zhodani Consular Guard will not be posible, and they are (I guess) quite canon...

 

[McPerth]

I'm just brainstorming here. Maybe no such technology exists. Maybe it's experimental TL15 technology. Maybe it's lower tech, but hasn't been invented until just recently, not long enough ago to have been tested thoroughly by the Zhodani Guard and incorporated into their combat armor and battledress.

But if it doesn't exist then it's simply because by authorial fiat¹ it doesn't exist, not because it logically couldn't possibly exist.

¹ If you can use that term when in all likelihood none of the writers have ever thought about the possibility of its existence.​

Off course, ultra-high tech may work wonders, but I see quite difficult to cold something so quick (at leats without severe danger). I could buy it for heating, as you can heat internal organs with some kind of microwaves, but cold cannot be produced, at most you can take heat off, and you cannot lower the temperatura quciker than heat is convected.

Acceleration compensation fields within a ship must operate on a principle similar to gravitic cold berths - a field of some sort affects the movement of every particle within every object within the field (there is some interesting stuff in T5 about this).

Whoa whoa- are we talking stasis field, or supercooling via gravitic state?

It would need to work quite quicker than it would (INHO) be safe to avoid fever damage to internal organs. I guess any such use for cold berth cools the passenger quite slowly, something that would not be usable if you need to compensate sudden temperature changes.

 

[aramis]

Dave Nilsen said there was a link between jump space and psionics, and that many psionic effects use jump dimensional space to explain them.

Higher than Imperial TL magic perhaps...

Dave said a LOT of stupid stuff that really doesn't fit the Traveller millieux ... See also Ithklur.

 

[mike wightman]

You could say the same for the MT authors, T4 authors, 1248, etc...

There was a lot of good stuff in TNE, and the explanation of psionics in-setting would have been a great development.

 

[Patron Zero]

..... but psionic teleporting needs not any device, .....

I must have missed that and do confess less than a passing knowledge of the Zhodani.

My only reference to psionic-based teleportation is from my early teen years reading Perry Rhodan novels.

 

[Quint]

Catching up here, while I certainly think it's possible that Zhodani ships have special T-Port rooms, I'm guessing not simply because of how rare Teleportation is. One of the other notes on the Commandos is that they have effects far out of proportion to their numbers because they are so feared and so disruptive.

This also suggests to me that creating a Tport-free zone is difficult or impossible.

Now, IYTU you can certainly tweak the rarity of Tport, but per the RAW the talent itself is among the rarest, especially when you think about matching it to someone with the PsiStr to actually use it.

Personally I think that the rarity itself was enough to control the ability. The RAW about conservation of energy was arcane and confusing enough, without any matching game-mechanic effects, that I handled it as I said earlier.

For the life of me I can't decide if the RAW was the authors trying to "stay realistic" or was an over-the-top reaction to an annoying PC during playtesting... Neither is particularly helpful to the game as a whole, and the RAW is not only confusing but leads to the sort of questions that we're asking here. Given the handwavium of Jump, Antigrav, and Low Berths it's an exceedingly odd place to make a stand.

D.

 

[Spartan159]

What, besides cost, prevents someone from Psi-shielding an entire ship?