Any Time Travel in Traveller?

[Hyphen]

My Droyne isn't crawling into that!

Aargh! Some clean-up required: no Droyne will fit in there - it seems the design has some hold-overs from using the E.R.I.C. page as a template... I'll have to go back and fix the K9 write-up.

If you're a Droyne, you'll do much better with E.R.I.C.:
http://members.tip.net.au/~davidjw/tavspecs/rit/eric.htm

 

[Carlobrand]

Small vehicular/portable fusion reactors definitely fall into the "We have no idea how they're doing it"... Big ones, sure, we can presume that they've simply taken and made more efficient the current techniques - but those techniques involve massive magnetic fields.

Getting it down to something that fits under the hood of your SUV requires dealing with the needed magnetic field, miniaturizing the containment and energy extraction, and a number of other improvements that are questionably possible.

It's the magnetic fields that are the big issue, tho'.

What about that idea of using lasers on glass beads containing the hydrogen fuel? I don't know how that's working out, but one should be able to argue some variation on that theme into some form of future-tech small fusion reactor.

 

[aramis]

What about that idea of using lasers on glass beads containing the hydrogen fuel? I don't know how that's working out, but one should be able to argue some variation on that theme into some form of future-tech small fusion reactor.

They currently run the size of an SUV .... and don't look to be readily shrunk.

 

[SanDragon]

Aargh! Some clean-up required: no Droyne will fit in there - it seems the design has some hold-overs from using the E.R.I.C. page as a template... I'll have to go back and fix the K9 write-up.

If you're a Droyne, you'll do much better with E.R.I.C.:
http://members.tip.net.au/~davidjw/tavspecs/rit/eric.htm

I think those are the wrong trousers...

 

[Blue Ghost]

Is that a Wallace and Grommit reference?

 

[SanDragon]

Yes. Yes it is.

 

[Carlobrand]

They currently run the size of an SUV .... and don't look to be readily shrunk.

Yes but we're dealing with Traveller, where soldiers are running around with man-portable lasers capable of punching through almost an inch of steel in a single shot at TL 9 (unless of course some miraculously effective piece of reflective material gets in the way). Those lasers aren't terribly likely either, but their in-game existence could be used to explain that bit of unlikely Traveller tech: you don't need as powerful a bottle if you can supplement it by pumping in energy by other means.

 

[aramis]

Yes but we're dealing with Traveller, where soldiers are running around with man-portable lasers capable of punching through almost an inch of steel in a single shot at TL 9 (unless of course some miraculously effective piece of reflective material gets in the way). Those lasers aren't terribly likely either, but their in-game existence could be used to explain that bit of unlikely Traveller tech: you don't need as powerful a bottle if you can supplement it by pumping in energy by other means.

I know a guy who built a man portable laser capable of penetrating a couple inches of concrete in one shot. It only had ONE shot per charge, and had a Traveller-sized backpack (some really big capacitor stacks), and a beam diameter of about 2mm. Local cops took it away from him when he shot a hole in the side of the apartment building he lived in while drunk. I don't know if he ever got it back.

I examined the hole - it burned through at a 30° angle or so, and partly through the middle support of the standard concrete block. There was some blowout/spall on the exit side, and from what he said, on the entry side.

That was back in about 1991 or so. So, advances in Capacitor tech can make it practical.

 

[Timerover51]

I know a guy who built a man portable laser capable of penetrating a couple inches of concrete in one shot. It only had ONE shot per charge, and had a Traveller-sized backpack (some really big capacitor stacks), and a beam diameter of about 2mm. Local cops took it away from him when he shot a hole in the side of the apartment building he lived in while drunk. I don't know if he ever got it back.

I examined the hole - it burned through at a 30° angle or so, and partly through the middle support of the standard concrete block. There was some blowout/spall on the exit side, and from what he said, on the entry side.

That was back in about 1991 or so. So, advances in Capacitor tech can make it practical.

Generally, depending on the concrete and its reinforcement, between one and two feet of concrete equates to 1 inch of steel armor.

 

[sabredog]

And don't forget the power requirements for even an FGMP are also man-portable in Traveller. That shows more advancement than a mere laser since they are essentially just man-portable fusion plants with an aperture for venting the fusion containment bottle towards your target.

 

[Hyphen]

Yes. Yes it is.

As is E.R.I.C.

With a rather startled-looking Ervmisbe the Droyne playing the part of Wallace...

 

[Blue Ghost]

I know a guy who built a man portable laser capable of penetrating a couple inches of concrete in one shot. It only had ONE shot per charge, and had a Traveller-sized backpack (some really big capacitor stacks), and a beam diameter of about 2mm. Local cops took it away from him when he shot a hole in the side of the apartment building he lived in while drunk. I don't know if he ever got it back.

I examined the hole - it burned through at a 30° angle or so, and partly through the middle support of the standard concrete block. There was some blowout/spall on the exit side, and from what he said, on the entry side.

That was back in about 1991 or so. So, advances in Capacitor tech can make it practical.

I bought a book on how the basic of how to build LASERs and other energy projectors. The author stipulated it was for useful purposes, and that the science and engineering limited real dangerous applications. Said book was published around 1988 or thereabouts. I still have it somewhere.


But, getting back to TIME TRAVEL;
I was fooling around with the concept of Time Travel last night, and the setting I'm dealing with doesn't allow much play for you die hard time travel types, but, there may be something else that I can monkey with in the meantime.

As for the OTU, I'm guessing actual Time Travel is verboten in Traveller. Someone alluded to Marc Miller stating that the only direction one could time travel was forward. If that's the case, then doesn't that nix any backwards TT capability?

 

[BlackBat242]

Only for those who allow MM to limit and control their "in-game" reality and their imagination.

I don't let anyone do that to my reality.

 

[sabredog]

As for the OTU, I'm guessing actual Time Travel is verboten in Traveller. Someone alluded to Marc Miller stating that the only direction one could time travel was forward. If that's the case, then doesn't that nix any backwards TT capability?

That depends on how you decide to run your game.

But I think the reasoning for Miller is that moving back in time can start all those paradoxes and mess up timelines. You know, the whole kill the emperor/duke/whatever thing and mess up the official history.

Move forward and you can do whatever you want to and the OTU stays the same.

I prefer the third option if I ever try it again: hop across parallel timelines so you can go either backwards or forwards and who cares what happens.

 

[Hyphen]

I have a vague memory that Marcus L. Rowland (Forgotten Futures author) once wrote an article on different types of time flows (linear, parallel), changability (immutable, unalterable etc) and travel methods (time machines, bracelets, time tunnels, etc.)

The one point I really remember is that time machines tend to be shaped like blue boxes...

Anyway, it's a VERY comprehensive article if you can get hold of it. Edit: maybe the original was in White Dwarf #29 (Feb/Mar 1982 "This Is, Of Course, Impossible"), and an enhanced version somewhere in issues 81-90.