Thoughts taken from a post on "Mommy where does the Hydrogen go when we jump?"
The three irreducible bits of handwavium that are required to create the Traveller universe may have gone away. I have a theory that if other people agree replaces the handwavium drastically and removes unobtainium entirely.
[FONT="]Maybe there is no J-space at all, and the release of such an intense plasma field rips normal space apart and tunnels you through to your destination, with a half life of 168 hours give or take before it is cool enough for normal space to reabsorb it. Lets go a bit further. The j-drive and the fusion plant do not use the Hydrogen AT ALL. There is no giant super-heated fusion reaction within the ship at all.
The hydrogen is expelled in a controlled pattern around the ship, and when it is ignited, the lanthanum grid catalyses the hydrogen magnifying the temperature within the plasma to some insane temperature that nature can only archive only in the very core of black holes.
Stutter warp, and early less efficient J-drives that did not use a lanthanum grid, either doped the plasma with lanthanum, or another impurity, so that it took more hydrogen to create a plasma a few kazillion degrees. The ONLY handwavium involved is accepting that the lanthanum provides the catylist nessisary to work.
No super high temperatures and unobtainium vessels to contain it, sudden conversion from a normal fusion reaction to this sudden flash of energy. The drive itself is just the mechanism to release and control the hydrogen and ignite it. Since lanthanum is an element we already know exists.[/FONT]
[FONT="]From the Wikipedia on Lanthanum:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Uses-[/FONT]
Lanthanum oxide and the boride are used in electronic vacuum tubes as hot cathode materials with strong emissivity of electrons. Crystals of LaB6 are used in high brightness, extended life, thermionic electron emission sources for scanning electron microscopes.
In Gas tungsten arc welding electrodes, as a substitute for radioactivethorium.
Hydrogen sponge alloys can contain lanthanum. These alloys are capable of storing up to 400 times their own volume of hydrogen gas in a reversible adsorption process.
Petroleum cracking catalysts.
The article also lists it as a catalyst or a reactive agent in a number of processes.
[FONT="]
The second great bit of handwavium is artificial gravity:[/FONT]
[FONT="]There are already theories that artificially generating and controlling gravity might be a possibility,[/FONT]
[FONT="]Since gravity is a property of mass, and inertia is also a property of mass, they are likely interrelated enough that if you can manipulate one, developing the other will be easier.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Inertial dampers, grave plate drives, and similar devices would be developed from the base technology.[/FONT]
[FONT="]There are already theories on the net that claim a drive could be made that pushes against the whole universe, and don’t require a nearby gravity well. Those theories have all been discredited, but they probably developed from a misunderstanding, or bad math, and not from completely whole cloth.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Finally, fusion.[/FONT]
[FONT="]We have already made gains in fusion research. We will certainly be able to create working plants on a large scale within decades, if not sooner. Making them smaller over time will occur, we just have no idea yet what the theoretical limits of power to weight ratio might be.[/FONT]
[FONT="]While a reporting error discredited the initial cold fusion results, it is getting possible again to pursue that line. Last I heard was that some labs could reproduce the results and some could not. The original experimental data, did suggest a net energy gain, and the helium isotopes detected that match the isotopes fusion theory expects.[/FONT]
[FONT="]These are the big three. The handwaves that people find hardest to accept that are required to make a Traveller universe function.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The other techs that are used, autonomous robots, anagathics, meson beam and particle beam weapons and others are readily accepted as abstraction from current tech.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Frankly, the scanners that can pick up the heat of a candle a parsec away are a MUCH bigger problem for me.[/FONT]
[FONT="]And there has not been a single economic theory presented that is anything more than pulled out of somebody’s butt. Come on, trickle down economics and the laffler curve are still held up as valid theories after being so thoroughly discredited. Current economics is far less well understood than people pretend it is.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Political systems are the same. No single political system has ever remained as stable as the third imperium. We can not even fathom a political system that could unite spate star systems in the first place, let alone keep them stable for any length of time.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Just my thoughts. [/FONT]
Many of these ideas have appeared separately, but as I was discussing the hydrogen cloud from jump, they suddenly seemed to all come to me at once.
As always, YMMV, use at you own risk, do not pass go or collect 200cr.
The three irreducible bits of handwavium that are required to create the Traveller universe may have gone away. I have a theory that if other people agree replaces the handwavium drastically and removes unobtainium entirely.
[FONT="]Maybe there is no J-space at all, and the release of such an intense plasma field rips normal space apart and tunnels you through to your destination, with a half life of 168 hours give or take before it is cool enough for normal space to reabsorb it. Lets go a bit further. The j-drive and the fusion plant do not use the Hydrogen AT ALL. There is no giant super-heated fusion reaction within the ship at all.
The hydrogen is expelled in a controlled pattern around the ship, and when it is ignited, the lanthanum grid catalyses the hydrogen magnifying the temperature within the plasma to some insane temperature that nature can only archive only in the very core of black holes.
Stutter warp, and early less efficient J-drives that did not use a lanthanum grid, either doped the plasma with lanthanum, or another impurity, so that it took more hydrogen to create a plasma a few kazillion degrees. The ONLY handwavium involved is accepting that the lanthanum provides the catylist nessisary to work.
No super high temperatures and unobtainium vessels to contain it, sudden conversion from a normal fusion reaction to this sudden flash of energy. The drive itself is just the mechanism to release and control the hydrogen and ignite it. Since lanthanum is an element we already know exists.[/FONT]
[FONT="]From the Wikipedia on Lanthanum:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Uses-[/FONT]
Lanthanum oxide and the boride are used in electronic vacuum tubes as hot cathode materials with strong emissivity of electrons. Crystals of LaB6 are used in high brightness, extended life, thermionic electron emission sources for scanning electron microscopes.
In Gas tungsten arc welding electrodes, as a substitute for radioactivethorium.
Hydrogen sponge alloys can contain lanthanum. These alloys are capable of storing up to 400 times their own volume of hydrogen gas in a reversible adsorption process.
Petroleum cracking catalysts.
The article also lists it as a catalyst or a reactive agent in a number of processes.
[FONT="]
The second great bit of handwavium is artificial gravity:[/FONT]
[FONT="]There are already theories that artificially generating and controlling gravity might be a possibility,[/FONT]
[FONT="]Since gravity is a property of mass, and inertia is also a property of mass, they are likely interrelated enough that if you can manipulate one, developing the other will be easier.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Inertial dampers, grave plate drives, and similar devices would be developed from the base technology.[/FONT]
[FONT="]There are already theories on the net that claim a drive could be made that pushes against the whole universe, and don’t require a nearby gravity well. Those theories have all been discredited, but they probably developed from a misunderstanding, or bad math, and not from completely whole cloth.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Finally, fusion.[/FONT]
[FONT="]We have already made gains in fusion research. We will certainly be able to create working plants on a large scale within decades, if not sooner. Making them smaller over time will occur, we just have no idea yet what the theoretical limits of power to weight ratio might be.[/FONT]
[FONT="]While a reporting error discredited the initial cold fusion results, it is getting possible again to pursue that line. Last I heard was that some labs could reproduce the results and some could not. The original experimental data, did suggest a net energy gain, and the helium isotopes detected that match the isotopes fusion theory expects.[/FONT]
[FONT="]These are the big three. The handwaves that people find hardest to accept that are required to make a Traveller universe function.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The other techs that are used, autonomous robots, anagathics, meson beam and particle beam weapons and others are readily accepted as abstraction from current tech.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Frankly, the scanners that can pick up the heat of a candle a parsec away are a MUCH bigger problem for me.[/FONT]
[FONT="]And there has not been a single economic theory presented that is anything more than pulled out of somebody’s butt. Come on, trickle down economics and the laffler curve are still held up as valid theories after being so thoroughly discredited. Current economics is far less well understood than people pretend it is.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Political systems are the same. No single political system has ever remained as stable as the third imperium. We can not even fathom a political system that could unite spate star systems in the first place, let alone keep them stable for any length of time.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Just my thoughts. [/FONT]
Many of these ideas have appeared separately, but as I was discussing the hydrogen cloud from jump, they suddenly seemed to all come to me at once.
As always, YMMV, use at you own risk, do not pass go or collect 200cr.