I'm actually writing one.
Any Time Travel in Traveller?
- Thread starter Shonner
- Start date
I'm actually writing one.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
heh :devil:
CT LBB3 copyright 1981 (not sure it's in the 1977 printing or not):
Page 15 (tech level chart):
Tech Level 16 - Transportation - matter transport (aka transporters)
I seem to recall MegaTrav breaking that down a little more, with basic matter transport at TL16 and no safe people transporters until TL... 18?
3 words...
Puppeteer stepping disks!
Peter Newman
SOC-12
I'm not sure that "tech we can't do yet" is the same as "magic tech". Was the airplane "magic tech" in 1865 but regular tech in 1915? Was a fission powered submarine "magic tech" in 1935 but regular tech in 1975?
We've got quadrillions of examples of self sustaining high output fusion power plants being run by nature with no active controls other than the laws of physics. The hangups are 1) practical at a smaller scale 2) still high output at a small enough scale to fit in a vehicle, and 3) safe in a vehicle. It seems as if #3 will be the trickiest since vehicles crash - both accidentally and deliberately.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I have no doubt that fusion power stations will eventually be built, I can even see them eventually being reduced in size to power aircraft carriers and big subs.
But without a major breakthrough in physics making the gravitic confinement of the plasma a possibility I can not see how vehicle sized power plants will ever be possibly - therefore it is magic tech because it relies on magic tech (gravitics) to function.
But without a major breakthrough in physics making the gravitic confinement of the plasma a possibility I can not see how vehicle sized power plants will ever be possibly - therefore it is magic tech because it relies on magic tech (gravitics) to function.
But it isn't a separate magic tech from the gravitics that way, though, just an extension of the gravitics, right? (Although personally I'd hesitate to call the manipulation of gravity magic tech, since from the little I know it doesn't seem that we've really got any idea of how it works to know whether we could manipulate it or not.)
I agree, there isn't a unified theory explaining how gravity works, so until that time that it said it positively can't work, gravitics doesn't necessarily violate physics.
For what it's worth the adventure I'm writing (as I bitterly try to piece it together after a major hard disk crash...the final draft was lost, and now I have to start from near scratch), it's essentially an old fashioned "maybe they'll do this in the future" kind of technology. I guess you could call it "magic tech", but the technology itself isn't endemic to the adventurers in that they'll be able to harness it after the adventure is over, because they won't. The technology is important to get the adventure running and keep it entertaining, but beyond that there's nothing more to it.
I personally don't believe time travel is possible, but it is interesting to entertain in media of all sorts. I'm not sure that Traveller would benefit from anything beyond specific adventure one-offs written up for adventures. Then again your TU may vary.
I personally don't believe time travel is possible, but it is interesting to entertain in media of all sorts. I'm not sure that Traveller would benefit from anything beyond specific adventure one-offs written up for adventures. Then again your TU may vary.
Amber Chancer
SOC-12
I suppose I MIGHT just be persuaded to let my players have an Omega 13 device some day; but apart from that ...
Heh, I remember in Red Dwarf Rimmer quips about the heady atmosphere of Renaissance interstellar space when they went back in time, only to discover they hadn't moved one iota from their physical location. Funny stuff.
I agree. In my mind, magic tech refers to tech whose fundamental principals are a complete mystery. Fission power in 1935 was sci fi, but conceivable. Fission power in 1865 - when the atom was believed to be the smallest fundamental particle and when elements were believed to be unchangeable - was not only inconceivable but a laughable violation of scientific principals as they were understood at the time.
I was under the impression that a fusion reactor basically stops when damaged. On a vehicular scale, collapse of whatever field's holding the plasma means a very small quantity of a very hot plasma is free to come into contact with the solid parts of the reactor - very bad for the reactor but not much of a threat outside of it. Cracking it free of the reactor means a possible burn and fire danger at close range, but I think it'll float straight up.
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'.
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'.
Rigel Stardin
SOC-13
aramis:
We can also make an assumption that gravtronics plays apart in fusion reactor as well considering that our sun is a massive object in the center of our solar system. Compressing the gas might just be as important as the magnetic feild in Traveller Tech.
Just a Leyman observation...
We can also make an assumption that gravtronics plays apart in fusion reactor as well considering that our sun is a massive object in the center of our solar system. Compressing the gas might just be as important as the magnetic feild in Traveller Tech.
Just a Leyman observation...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-6hJ8sltdI looks interesting. It's a proposed fusion reactor using current tech.
3 words...
Puppeteer stepping disks!
...first beamed down with Trek transporters.
Avoids all the nasty ramifications of disintegrating/reintegrating people... even McCoy would be happy!
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The physics behind the fusion reactions that take place in stars is very well understood.
The breakthrough technology in Traveller is most definitely gravitics - by using a powerful artificial gravity generator you can more easily replicate stellar fusion reactions on a much smaller scale.
Gravitics technology also gives us null grav modules, artificial gravity and probably acceleration compensation, and is also probably involved in the development of the Traveller maneuver drive (all except the HEPlaR of TNE that is). Research into fusion technology and gravitics is what leads to jump drive breakthroughs too.
The next breakthrough Traveller technology is the nuclear damper, the ability to manipulate the strong nuclear forces. This is probably why fusion reactors get more efficient after ND is developed.
Mike I was just thinking that thirty seconds before I read your post. A mastery of gravitics would allow incredible feats of engineering that are so prevalent in sci-fi, from which Traveller takes its setting. If you could manipulate gravity, assuming selectively so that your field doesn't interfere nor invite interference from other fields, then you can essentially master the fusion reactor by creating a containment field like magnetic field, but without all the messy EMF stuff.
Brilliant stuff, Mike.
Brilliant stuff, Mike.
Rigel Stardin
SOC-13
Now for a bit of Handwavium from MTU:
Early fusion reactors maybe set up much like nuclear reactors of today. But what if, at some point they come up with a way to harness 90% of the energy released? If they could do that, then that would explain why none of the reactors in Traveller deckplans have heat sinks.
MEG=Multi Energy Gathering.
MEG System are based on the solar cell except that they gather a varying array of radiation throughout spectrum. If this lines the interior of the reactor, it could convert most of the energy coming off our micro-sun created by the gravtronics fields. Combine this with a TEG (Thermo electric Generator) which uses a gas transfer system, it is quite possible to cool our fusion reactor where it would not endanger the crew working in the area. The MEG System would also act like radiation shield bring down the level of radition created by our artifical sun inside the reactor.
MEG is the handwavium part, TEG are real, you can look them up on wikipedia...
DangerousThing
SOC-13
I've never liked miniature fusion reactors.
So I postulate a new form of battery that doesn't work on the chemical level, but rather on the atomic level (perhaps by storing the energy by forcing changes in bond strength, or some nuclear density, or suchwhat). I don't really try to explain it.
This was originally meant for fiction, but I'm using in my game.
I don't try to explain it in either place, but there are some definite effects in society.
For one thing, if batteries can power a star ship including jump, then less powerful and efficient versions can power an Air/Raft for a *long* time with a full charge. Anything that needs batteries would rarely run out of charge (unless your characters forget to check such things...).
I'm trying to figure out the relationship between the batteries and EPs (Energy Points, which T5 uses in equations but doesn't use for anything else like ship's weapons). This way I can figure out how must a ship needs to power its energy weapons and shields.
At its base TL, the batteries hold as much energy as the equal amount of hydrogen for a ship; they get slightly better each TL beyond that until they're replaced with Energy Cells, which hold even more energy.
So basically, as long as it's YTU, you can define whatever you need. I find fewer assumptions in a "magical" battery than I do in a miniature fusion reactor. Too bad cold fusion seems to have fizzled.
So I postulate a new form of battery that doesn't work on the chemical level, but rather on the atomic level (perhaps by storing the energy by forcing changes in bond strength, or some nuclear density, or suchwhat). I don't really try to explain it.
This was originally meant for fiction, but I'm using in my game.
I don't try to explain it in either place, but there are some definite effects in society.
For one thing, if batteries can power a star ship including jump, then less powerful and efficient versions can power an Air/Raft for a *long* time with a full charge. Anything that needs batteries would rarely run out of charge (unless your characters forget to check such things...).
I'm trying to figure out the relationship between the batteries and EPs (Energy Points, which T5 uses in equations but doesn't use for anything else like ship's weapons). This way I can figure out how must a ship needs to power its energy weapons and shields.
At its base TL, the batteries hold as much energy as the equal amount of hydrogen for a ship; they get slightly better each TL beyond that until they're replaced with Energy Cells, which hold even more energy.
So basically, as long as it's YTU, you can define whatever you need. I find fewer assumptions in a "magical" battery than I do in a miniature fusion reactor. Too bad cold fusion seems to have fizzled.
Which puts it squarely into the magic-tech.
And grav-based is how I've used large ones IMTU since the mid 80's.
