How long does it take to jump from Terra in the Solomani Sphere to say Regina in the Spinward Marches?
Does anyone know the answer to that one offhand? For the sake of simplicity lets say we have a J-6 ship doing all the jumping.
I am just trying to get an idea here.....
There are a couple of TNS newsbriefs datelined from Regina which quotes dispatches from Terra. Assuming no misprints of dates, one of them got from Terra to Regina in 346 days, the other one in a couple of days more. This is an analysis I did to see if that was even possible:
From Terra to Muan Gwi is two jumps. I don't have Diaspora sector entered in my Galactic program, so I can't work out an exact route from Muan Gwi to Capital, but the two worlds are 120 parsecs apart. That might be done in 20 6-parsec jumps, but that is unlikely. An average of 5.5 parsecs per jump should be doable, however. That makes it 22 jumps from Muan Gwi to Capital.
From Capital to Vland is 59 parsecs and there's a good route that takes 11 jumps. From Vland to Deneb is 66 parsecs and a good route that takes 13 jumps.
From Deneb to Mora is 20 parsecs and 4 jumps. and from Mora to Regina via
Rhylanor is another 4 jumps for a grand total of 56 jumps. To do that in 346
days you need to average 6 days, 4 hours and 17 minutes, which is remarkably fast. Theoretically possible, but certainly quite unlikely.
But it may not be a full 56 jumps. If the Navy really wants to hurry -- and it is certainly concievable that they would not be satisfied with anything less than the very lowest communication time possible -- they can shave two jumps off the Muan Gwi-Capital run, another off the Capital-Vland run, and two more off the Vland-Deneb run, for a total of 51 jumps from Terra to Regina.
To do that, the Navy would have to mess around with deep space fuel depots in those places where there are no system that fits the full 6-parsec jumps, This does sound excessive in terms of the resources it would require, but military minds do like their information fresh.
There's another possibility, anyway. To get from Vland to Regina via Deneb and Mora, the route makes a rimwards curve in Deneb sector, which adds several jumps to the trip. Going directly from Vland to Regina is 94 parsecs, which is theoretically doable in 16 jumps, more likely in 18. That makes the route 52 or 53 jumps. That requires an average of 6 days, 12 hours, and 40 minutes. Still remarkably fast, but not impossibly so, especially if you use the multiple courier model.
Incidentally, going from Terra to Vland via Muan Gwi and Capital is also going along a curve. I haven't checked it out, but I believe it must be possible to shave another jump or two off the route by going directly from Terra to Vland. I don't believe that is very likely (surely all dispatches would be routed through Capital?), but it is a theoretical possibility.
Finally, there's the possibility of a misjump. Misjumps are rare; misjumps that just happens to move a courier in the right direction are rarer still, but not *that* much rarer. Roughly one misjump in six will be in the right direction; any that puts a courier into a star system without thrashing its engines will allow it to take advanage of the mishap. Maybe only one misjump in twenty will work out like that, but with thousands of couriers jumping every day it must happen once in a while. A 21-parsec misjump like that could put a dispatch two or three jumps ahead of schedule. That could reduce the required average for the rest of the jumps to 6 days and 22 hours. Of course, you'd need something like that to happen two times in a row...
If you're thinking about how fast a passenger could get from Terra to Regina, I'd suggest calculating with the 56 jumps and, say, 10 days per jump, for a total of 560 days. Plus any delays due to missed connections. However, it's sector capital to sector capital all the way from Terra to Mora, so the connections should be fairly good.
Hans
