Travellermap and OTU

[wellis]

There are definitely polities of higher TL than the Imperium out beyond the borders of charted space - canonical fact.

The Vilani encountered them
the original owners of the Annic Nova encountered them
they pop up in Agent of the Imperium as the potential source of some of the threats
Fall of Tinath (best thing to happen in the OTU for a long time IMHO)
The first starfarers sidebar in MT

I personally have been working a lot on the Abyssals...

Regarding the Fall of Tinath, the Essaray don't strike me as higher tech than the Imperium. The biggest thing is that they were facing off against a bunch of small, rather isolated polities. Their tech appeared to be TL12 and all their troops and machines are so stupid.

In addition, the danger jump space has on the uploaded minds of the directing Essaray leaders slows the danger because it seems like they have to get to places via sublight travel.

And who were the original owners of the Annic Nova?

 

[whulorigan]

And who were the original owners of the Annic Nova?

Apparently Old Vilani from the Ziru Sirka era, but the ship was built for them by a very high-TL alien race that reverse-engineered the Vilani Jump-1 Drive.

Apparently a Vilani ship mis-jumped and was damaged and stranded at the Very High-TL world (whose inhabitants did not have Jump technology). They looked at the Vilani Jump-ship, figured out how the Jump-tech worked, and used their own technology and methods to construct a new vessel (and actually improved upon the crude Vilani Jump Drive). The ship remained a Vilani family/clan heirloom (and its superior Jump capability was kept as a closely guarded secret).

At some point it obviously changed hands in terms of ownership one or more times before first being encountered in Imperial Space in 1103.

 

[wellis]

What advantage was there in having 2 jump drives, one jump-2 & the other jump-3, for it?

And where was the info revealed?

 

[aramis]

What advantage was there in having 2 jump drives, one jump-2 & the other jump-3, for it?

And where was the info revealed?

note that the tonnages work out as 1 J3 drive, plus "fuel" for 1J3 and 1J2. The big advantage is that, with the two collectors, you can charge up both, and if you arrive in hostile space, jump out immediately upon noting the hostilities.

 

[mike wightman]

What advantage was there in having 2 jump drives, one jump-2 & the other jump-3, for it?

And where was the info revealed?

The Hieronymus nexus that joined the jump drives allowed them to do something special.

One jump drive has its performance raised to the power of the other, so the jump 3-2 drive of the Annic Nova can function as a jump 9.

This info was revealed during a podcast interview with MWM, I'll post the link when I track it down.

 

[whulorigan]

GameholeCon 2016 Podcast w/ Marc W. Miller

Link:GameholeCon 2016 Podcast

Ok the podcast has been up for a long time now.

Time to discuss stuff.

The Annic Nova, oh my...

(it's at 34m20s if you want to get there quick)

the Vilani invented a not so good jump 1 drive, the Annic Nova was built/rebuilt for a group of lost Vilani explorers by an alien race of very high TL, or rather they repaired and improved upon the ship's broken jump drive since they had not discovered jump themselves but being TL28+...
the Vilani gained jump 2 technology thanks to the people that came back with the Annic Nova (they didn't hand over the secret of jump 3 though)
the Annic Nova is 7000 years old...
the Annic Nova can actually use both jump engines and raise the jump rating of one engine to the exponent of the other, i.e. jump 3^2 for a 9 parsec jump, or 2^3 for an 8 parsec jump. This is achieved by a Hieronymus linkage nexus thingy...

there is a TL28+ race out there somewhere nearby that has had access to jump drives and Hieronymus drive couples for 7000 years

See Link and Commentary above.

 

[Grav_Moped]

note that the tonnages work out as 1 J3 drive, plus "fuel" for 1J3 and 1J2. The big advantage is that, with the two collectors, you can charge up both, and if you arrive in hostile space, jump out immediately upon noting the hostilities.

And it was designed under the first-edition rules, which required burning all Jump fuel regardless of the actual Jump range (a J3 drive doing only J-1 still used 30% of the ship's tonnage in fuel). Using two Jump Drives was a way to get around needing 6 parsecs of "fuel" capacity for a 5-parsec range.

"Jump Governors" that let you burn only 10% MJn fuel rather than all of the Jump fuel allocation showed up later, and later still they were just assumed into the rules.

Decades later, Marc retconned the Hieronymus Nexus business onto ANNIC NOVA. But the original reason for the dual drives was to work around a limitation in an obsolete rule set.

 

[Timerover51]

Decades later, Marc retconned the Hieronymus Nexus business onto ANNIC NOVA. But the original reason for the dual drives was to work around a limitation in an obsolete rule set.

Where does this "Hieronymus Nexus" business show up?

 

[mike wightman]

Read back about three posts. There is a quote of my post with the link to the podcast MWM did that mentioned this stuff.