Re: Space Lanes? (was Re: [OT] Sea Lanes was: Liberals )

Aaron:
>However, tossing aside the economic argument for the moment...
>are there specific "space lanes" that could actually be
>blockaded in the GZGverse?  I don't remember the exact
>description of the FTL drive, but I remember it was more in
>jumps, with a rest/recharge/recalibrate period in between. 
>Could that be used to allow piracy on merchant ships?

Roger:
>Given the chains of jumps used for long distances, I think the only way
to make piracy practical would be to know where the target is going to
jump to, and wait there. It seems likely that civilian lines would have
standard rendezvous points (both to simplify navigation and to make it
easier to search for a ship that's missed arrival).
>Then it's a race between the civilian crew coming out of jump-shock and
the pirates fixing their position and attacking.

Something like:
"All ships departing Sirius, arriving Sol, must arrive within Traffic
Control Zone 14.  It is the responsibility of Sirius Traffic Control to
assign arrival points to each ship so as to avoid collisions.  Therefore
your arrival point is 14 J4K, and this point is reserved for you from
1100:00:00 8JUL93 to 1100:00:00 15JUL93.  Failure to adhere to these
instructions can result in loss of the shipmaster's license as well as
civil penalties and criminal prosecution."

Of course, you have a moving target (Earth isn't staying till, it's
orbiting) and not everyone departing from Sirius is going to the same
destination (I'm headed for Titan, which is on the other side of the
Solar
system from Earth at the moment).  And everyone will want to jump as
close
to the target as possible, which starts getting traffic control zones a
little crowded.

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