The Early Days of Jump.

[Magnus von Thornwood]

I have a question for the Gearhead Crowd:

1. How did any of the Major Races even get to the Theory of Jumpspace?

2. How did they find out that an Iridium or Lanthanum Grids when highly charged and excited in correct fashion allow transition to Jumpspace?

I could see Question One being solved as part of the Higher Maths, we know that's how most of the Major Races get Multi-Gravitic Theory. Do they do the same for Jumpspace as an off shoot, cool. I dig that, in truth it's Question Two that has me wondering.

What were they doing making the Rare Element Grid for originally? Was it part of other Physics Experiments, part of a weird science project, creepy and exotic military proto-weapons?

Do we know how many Experiments Went Horribly Wrong? What happened after and how it was addressed?

I know that Canon Traveller mentions the Vilani and Solomani developing it and during the Interstellar Wars Period the Terrans were going wild with new tech and finally superior Jump numbers. It mentions experiments in the Jovian belts of Sol when Solomani discover Jump, but not a lot of detail IIRC.

I will be going back to My Personal AAB, but that might be a longer time than Gearheads on a board.

 

[pendragonman]

I have a question for the Gearhead Crowd:

2. How did they find out that an Iridium or Lanthanum Grids when highly charged and excited in correct fashion allow transition to Jumpspace?

My guess is that the engineers were going for something else, then watched in horror/fascination as the grid disappeared and reappeared a week later

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

*pumps fist* Yes, it's started!

OK, that right there made my laugh and cringe at the same time, nice work!o:

But still, again we get and why was the grid there, etc. Still, I am loving the looks on their faces right now.....not sure if I want to speed time up and check out the potentially fatal and otherwise horrific "Return of the Mystery Grid!".

 

[far-trader]

I seem to recall the Solomani discovery being based on experiments in gravitic drives and one of them when engaged disappeared the ship for a week and some distance. But that might be an old MTU idea.

The hulls on all ships in MTU are the same no matter if jump or not. The "grid" was there originally for the Contra-Grav and Inertial Dampers, which are tied directly into the Thrusters/Maneuver drive. It's use for and during jump and in keeping jump space away from the ship is coincidental and just another happy bit of serendipity in discovery. In MTU at least. I've not seen that particular bit of explanation used officially.

I suspect the Vilani didn't discover the jump drive but found ancient tech or records and reverse engineered it. Not that I'm a prejudiced Solomanist or anything

 

[robject]

Presumably, this all had something to do with figuring out low-volume fusion reactors, high-powered gravitics, and hydrogen fuel...

 

[aramis]

Neither have I, FT, but it has evolved in several people's TU's independently. It was part of MTU before I hit the nets.

It jives with implications in Imperium.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

BTW, thanks again.

Just a quick thank you to all that have dropped by and left a post, and a big Thornwood Hi to all the other viewers.

 

[BlackBat242]

I have a severe problem with the late canonization of the "hull grid"... which appeared nowhere in the early Traveller works, but did in 1985... just before the advent of Mega-Traveller.

Picture this: you are jumped by Pirates as you near your jump point... you take a couple of hits, and suffer some damage, but manage to make it into Jump.

Standard scenario, right? Well, your hull has been hit, and internal compartments damaged... but somehow that damaged grid (automatically damaged if the hull is on any unarmored ship) still works?

Well, even after the canonization of Jump Grids, the CT rules never gave any penalties to jumping with a damaged grid, or spelled out repair info.

Does any other variant do this... or is the grid somehow not that vital?

 

[far-trader]

...is the grid somehow not that vital?

What's the line, oh yeah...

"LOOK! PIRATES!"

:smirk:

But seriously the only sane way to approach it is to figure the "grid" is redundant enough that only total destruction of the hull will cause problems, by which time of course said problems are not high on the list of issues

And you could lump in "grid" damage with the damage rolls of "jump drive" (and in MTU maneuver and power). Or make it that a hit of "jump drive" means not just (or even) that the actual jump drive plant buried deep in the hull is hit but that portions of the hull and "grid" are damaged such that maintaining a jump is impossible at whatever original level the drive had.

 

[Icosahedron]

MTU pseudo science:

Gravity is intimately tied up with other dimensions - ask any black hole. The Grand Unified Theory that incorporated gravity required the existence of Jump Space, and experimentation in both fields was carried out near simultaneously.

I don't have Jump Grids, so I don't have to worry about that little can of worms.

 

[Hemdian]

Picture this: you are jumped by Pirates as you near your jump point... you take a couple of hits, and suffer some damage, but manage to make it into Jump.

Standard scenario, right? Well, your hull has been hit, and internal compartments damaged... but somehow that damaged grid (automatically damaged if the hull is on any unarmored ship) still works?

The grid repels jumpspace whilst in jump (this ship is in a bubble of normal space). Where there are damaged hull sections jumpspace may intrude into part of the ship. IIRC this was in SOM ... or one of the Digest Magazines.

I vaguely remember in CT (possibly Leviathan) mention that a misformed jump field could result in antenna and other protrubances being lost.

 

[jawillroy]

Backinnaday, when my gaming budget was ever so much smaller and I lived under a rock and I had but LBBs1-5 and a few adventures, I really didn't have any clue about any of this Jump Gridness. I recall getting MT's players manual (IIRC) and reading about the Jump Grid and feeling dismay: It was my first real introduction to the fact that an OTU had fully developed in my absence, and that it did not jibe with my own. (I honestly don't remember what my explanation for Jump was, just that there was discord when I read the official version.)

I haven't made any solid decisions about this for my current ProTU, but it will be informed by that discord, and I suspect it might not involve the official grid.

 

[Gadrin]

You might also work backwards on jumping:

what happens when you jump within a gravity well ? That's where most (not all) expirements take place...on a planet.

I'd also look back at the first finds for Ancient gear and/or Droyne contacts.

>

 

[jawillroy]

What happens when you jump in a gravity well?

Welp. 10 diameters in, chances are you blow up.
100 in, chances are you misjump. You might also blow up.

So jump research needs to be done in space, preferably far out of orbit.

 

[Gadrin]

What happens when you jump in a gravity well?

Welp. 10 diameters in, chances are you blow up.
100 in, chances are you misjump. You might also blow up.

So jump research needs to be done in space, preferably far out of orbit.

Correctomundo... of course getting to that point could be painful...

 

[mike wightman]

And yet the really long range jump portals are built on planetary/asteroid surfaces...

(sorry for bringing up T4 but it is canon )

so perhaps to open up the jump 6-36 in a controlled way requires a gravity well.

 

[Whipsnade]

I have a severe problem with the late canonization of the "hull grid"... which appeared nowhere in the early Traveller works, but did in 1985... just before the advent of Mega-Traveller.

BlackBat,

You aren't the only one.

The hull grid is something DGP spun out of a few word description found in the CT ship supplement. There was a jump tug which used a "jump net" to enclose it's cargo. From that little acorn a mighty piece of crap has grown.

First, as you note, hull damage doesn't effect jump performance at all. I can scrub every single turret and bay off your hull, pierce every fuel tank, and generally nibble a ship to death BUT if it can make the EPs and can find the fuel it can jump. Howzat again?!!?

Second, jump grids play merry hell with the canonical "rider & tenders". (Not to mention the equally canonical "dispersed structures".) Do riders ride "inside" or "outside"?(1) If "outside", do riders need a grid?(2) If they do, does damage to a riders grid effect the tender's jump rating? Can't answer any of those? Don't worry, DGP didn't bother to answer them either.

As LKW once put it, DGP never quit their day jobs. They added some wonderful things to Our Olde Game and they came up with some cringe-worthy whoppers too. Hull mounted jump grids are one of their better whoppers. Especially when you remember all the previous canonical references - including in the AHL deckplans - to lanthanum jump coils

The gird has lasted as long as it has for two major reasons; 1) People don't examine it logically and B) IT IS KEWL. Of those two reasons, the kewl-ness factor is the overriding one. People just love the mental picture of a glowing grid and will overlook the many problems associated with a glowing grid just as long as their Beowulf can light up like a Christmas ornament.

Go figure.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - We've a canonical illo of them riding outside on a dispersed structure tender. Ooops...

2 - Oddly enough, you needn't buy a grid when building a rider. Ooops...

 

[Gadrin]

Sounds alot like a framework on something that allows you to get around the basic framework of "normal" physics.

Sort of a cage within a cage...if you follow...


>

 

[Icosahedron]

And yet the really long range jump portals are built on planetary/asteroid surfaces...

(sorry for bringing up T4 but it is canon )

so perhaps to open up the jump 6-36 in a controlled way requires a gravity well.

Or, IMTU, Jump 1 to 6 is only possible in a zero grav field - which is created by...

(ok,ok, before the hair-splitters jump in, a near-zero grav field!) :nonono:

 

[Gadrin]

probably expand that to include "micro-jumps" as well.