Re: Technobabblers...

Quoth Buddy:
>I'm creating a science fiction setting.
>
> You're probably asking, "A setting for what?	A game?  A book? A
>movie?"

No, we're not.	A story is a story, and can be presented in any medium.

>It is in the far future, in the same galaxy as Earth.

Well, that's something.  Quite a few "science fiction" wannabes haven't
the
vaguest feeling for how huge a galaxy is, nor for how far away the next
one
is.

>am, it would make no difference).  Then something happened, and they
lost
>FTL.  I know, it sounds crazy, but that's what I need to happen for my
>setting to work.

Er, that was my fault, I'm afraid.  You know, of course, that an
antimatter
explosion in a jump node creates a hyperspatial wave front that
temporarily
disrupts jump travel in that area.  It turns out that the effect does
not
dimish as the cube of the volume, which means a big explosion scrambles
FTL
nodes for a long ways in space and time.  It follows that, when you sell
a
bulk shipment of antimatter, you really ought to bid it as "FOB
destination"
instead of "FOB ship point", and send your own engineers to watch it
until
delivery.
(muttered: "I _told_ them they needed to be careful with that shipment.
Morons probably had their instruments calibrated in Roman numerals or
something.")

>(both according to the jump-lines and real-space), and in the center,
at
the
>very center of the galaxy, is a dead planet.  A ball of condensed metal
and
>minerals.

(Alarishi survey teams are slavering at the thought.  Air?  Who wants
air?)

>Ok, now you probably think I'm a nut,

Yes, it seems you'll fit in well.