Leaving Jump Space

[Allanimal]

I am starting to play Traveller again after a few decades off, with a group of role players who have never played before. I decided that they all started on a planet that has not yet invented the Jump drive, and the system is restricted from entry by the Imperium. The people in this system are space faring, but have no evidence of any life outside of their system.

The players will be doing a routine cargo run to a colony on a moon of the system's gas giant when they see a ship exit jump space nearby. Whether it is a jump mishap or simply a captain ignoring imperial restrictions to skim fuel, I haven't decided yet. Either way, I am wondering if there is a good description of what it looks like when a ship exits the jump. I imagine it will be quite dramatic for these people who have never seen such a thing before. Is there a canon source for how this appears, or does the ship just appear out of nowhere?

I hope this is an appropriate place for this question. I didn't see any other forums that would be better.

 

[The Oz]

There never was any official CT description of how jump looked, going in or coming out. It was described in the Starship Operators Manual (for MT) as looking like this:

A point of blue light appears from nowhere. The blue rapidly expands into the ship, with its jump grid brightly illuminated with a blue-white light that quickly fades out. Every race uses a different shape of jump grid, so you can identify ships by their jump grid. Imperials and Solomani use squares, Droyne use hexagons, Zhodani use triangles, and Aslan use spirals.

 

[Allanimal]

A point of blue light appears from nowhere. The blue rapidly expands into the ship, with its jump grid brightly illuminated with a blue-white light that quickly fades out.

Thanks! That's almost exactly what I imagined... I must have read that somewhere and tucked it away in my subconscious.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Just remember the Doppler effect. Outgoing would shift to the red spectrum while as the description indicated would be blue for incoming ships...

 

[Dragoner]

to me space ripples like a drop of water in a pond.

 

[PereX]

Just remember the Doppler effect. Outgoing would shift to the red spectrum while as the description indicated would be blue for incoming ships...

Well, no Dopper effect here, because the ship never reaches relativistic speeds. Glitter is due to the network of lanthanum, which shines blue when ionized.

The blue-white light appears at the input and output.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

At the moment of insert into hyperspace, there would be a red shift. The reason for this is now the ship's velocity has begun to excellerate (mispelling). Even thou the grid is emitting blue light, the shift would take place as the ship matchs its "environment" to hyperspace. You might say the shift turn purple or plum, but there would be an effect asthe ship transverse to hyperspace...

 

[whartung]

Couple things, regardless of the effect, make sure it's "bright enough" for the players to see it. Doesn't have to be too far off for the effect to be invisible to, at least, the naked eye. Also if it's near the Gas Giant, it's going to be 100D out from it (barring a mis jump).

The whole red shift/blue shift thing -- I dunno. There's nothing that suggests the ship is "accelerating" or "decelerating" in to and out of jump space. They jump in, they jump out. It's extra-dimensional. I have no problem with the effect having, well, any color actually, but I don't think whatever color it is has anything to do with the speed of light.

 

[Frankymole]

Didn't DGP describe it as "tumbling" in and out of jumpspace? Effectly just wrapping a different set of dimensions around yourself.

Ships have been accelerating out to the 100D limit, presumably they won't have bothered decelerating so will be moving at quite a pace; when they emerge from jumpspace, they will still have the same relative speed and direction, but now they're in a new system so will have to adjust to the proper motion of the star and planets therein. They could well find themselves moving rapidly in the wrong direction!

There are some indications that good navigators adjust the vector of the ship before entering jump, but this could take many hours/days.

 

[boomslang]

There are some indications that good navigators adjust the vector of the ship before entering jump, but this could take many hours/days.

And a really good navi could figure out the likely destination of an opponent's escaping-by-Jump starship by extrapolating the best fit from the observed pre-Jump vector to the various proper motions of all in-range destination worlds.

But I myself am not inclined to hack together a spreadsheet for it...

 

[aramis]

At the moment of insert into hyperspace, there would be a red shift. The reason for this is now the ship's velocity has begun to excellerate (mispelling). Even thou the grid is emitting blue light, the shift would take place as the ship matchs its "environment" to hyperspace. You might say the shift turn purple or plum, but there would be an effect asthe ship transverse to hyperspace...

No, it doesn't accelerate AT ALL. Jumping isn't any form of acceleration; at least not one measurable from N-Space.

Jump entry is a blue flash, the same characteristic frequency as exit... But starting with the grid, then the whole hull, then shrinking to nothing a fading out.

THe ship's "speed" in jumpspace isn't speed in any newtonian/einsteinian measure (if it were, then all sorts of ugly relativity and causality based issues arise). It's literally a step "sideways" into another plane, and THERE a residuum of the jump entry results in a parabolic course through J-Space... but no acceleration measurable by any instrument.