What if, all of the sudden, the OTU had no FTL?

[Werner]

This is a big "what if" let's say some time in 1103 the Jump Drive suddenly stopped working, the reason is unknown. Nobody knows why, and it's not really important either, but what happens to the Third Imperium and all the other Interstellar nations of Charted Space? Everything else continues to work but the Jump Drive, when the Jump Drive is activated, nothing happens. Ships that were in Jump Space at the time of this happening continue on their journeys until they exit jump space and then those jump drives never work again.

Maneuver drives work as before. Gravity vehicles work as usual, the only thing that doesn't work is the Jump Drive. How would society adapt in the various inhabited systems? There would still be starships, except they go slower than light, but most can achieve rather high percentages of light speed. Low berths would become popular because trips would now take years to decades. Some low population worlds would have serious problems and might have to be abandoned. Anything else you can think of?

 

[mike wightman]

In the Traveller board-games Imperium and Dark Nebula ships can travel between systems at 0.8 to 0.9c so you are looking at journey times of 3.5 to 4 years per hex.

 

[Werner]

The economy would basically collapse in most systems, the higher the tech level, the worse the effect. Worlds would have to become more self-sufficient. Banks that underwrite Starship loans would go bankrupt, and Starship owners would find themselves unable to make payments even if they wanted to. Starships would continue to arrive over the next week after the event, and then they would stop, they would have to find in-system work, there would be alot of people laid off, people would lose their life savings and become desperate, revolutions would start to happen. I would hate to be a member of the Imperial Nobility when this started to happen, they would make a nice convenient scapegoat, and a large segment of the population would likely turn on them, many would have to go into hiding. If there are Imperial Navy ships, especially big ones such as fleet carriers, they might become the new government in the system, or they might decide to be subordinate to whatever government manages to hold onto power, depends of the officers I suppose. Pirates might have a hard time, the sudden drop off in interstellar commerce will tend to deprive them of a living as well. They can't jump out of system, and may have to develop a new line of work.

 

[Werner]

In the Traveller boardgames Imperium and Dark nebula ships can travel between systems at 0.8 to 0.9c so you are looking at journey times of 3.5 to 4 years per hex.

Yep, that is what I would figure, the jump fuel tanks would still be quite useful in holding the fuel to reach high sublight velocities, and of course with artificial gravity, they can reach those velocities rather quickly about a year at 1g, 6 months at 2g, 4 months at 3g, 3 months at 4g, and at 6g relativistic velocities could be reached in only two months. Interstellar commerce would continue at some level, the places reached would be quite different by the time new starships reached their destinations, economic collapse would cause revolutions, and it is not clear what would be used as currency, likely gold and silver coins, fiat currency would likely not be trusted for a while due to the collapse of the banking system. Getting the ship overhauled will likely be difficult, and a ship will likely need an overhaul after every trip, or else bring a long a team of engineers and mechanics that can fix the ship enroute, for that reason, starships will get larger and require larger crews.

 

[whartung]

We already have this documented, actually.

In TNE it's the "Collapse Effect" from the Virus.

For many, the Virus essentially destroyed space travel, which is pretty much what you're talking about here.

Consider that most of the planets that's aren't "T-shirt" worlds will likely just outright die off. There may be a few that were actually self-sufficient, but I'm guessing it's not many. A minor tech failure could be the loss of an entire dome, for example.

I would think any high tech world with less than a Pop 8 would start to collapse in term of TL simply because there's not enough people to maintain the high TL, that the TL they were at was as much augmented and sustained by interstellar trade as not.

I don't think they would have collapsed as hard as the TNE rules say, but I can see a TL15 dropping down to TL 11 or 12. It's tough -- the higher the TL, the more dependent on the TL you become, thus the harder you fall when it fails.

 

[Werner]

We already have this documented, actually.

In TNE it's the "Collapse Effect" from the Virus.

For many, the Virus essentially destroyed space travel, which is pretty much what you're talking about here.

Consider that most of the planets that's aren't "T-shirt" worlds will likely just outright die off. There may be a few that were actually self-sufficient, but I'm guessing it's not many. A minor tech failure could be the loss of an entire dome, for example.

I would think any high tech world with less than a Pop 8 would start to collapse in term of TL simply because there's not enough people to maintain the high TL, that the TL they were at was as much augmented and sustained by interstellar trade as not.

I don't think they would have collapsed as hard as the TNE rules say, but I can see a TL15 dropping down to TL 11 or 12. It's tough -- the higher the TL, the more dependent on the TL you become, thus the harder you fall when it fails.

I think the Terran System with its population of A might do relatively well with this, after a recession, Terra would recover quickly, the elements of the Imperium Navy might decide to throw in with the Terrans, there would be calls for elections and the establishment of a republic. The Imperium Navy is not getting support from the Third Imperium any more, so it might be in their interests to be on better terms with the inhabitants of the system than as an occupying force. There would be renewed interest in settling Mars and Venus, perhaps terraforming those two planets would finally get under way. Some researchers might do some digging in the historical archives and find ancient research papers on the Alcubierre Warp Drive, they might find that there was research on this warp drive in the 21st century until it was upstaged by the jump drive breakthrough, and it was never picked up again because the energy intensity requirements required the harnessing of antimatter to power the creation of warp fields, and of course intense artificial gravity and antigravity were required to create the warp bubble around the Starship. Some scientists will take a look at this document and say, "can we do this?"

The government of the Terran Republic starts funding reseach on mass antimatter production and the generation of intense artificial gravity fields required to create such a warp bubble, this will take many decades to accomplish, but they realize there are other governments in other systems conducting similar research and whoever reestablished FTL travel will have a significant advantage over those that don't.