Re: [GZG] How fast is FTL in GZGverse?

At 9:46 PM +0100 5/13/08, Phillip Atcliffe wrote:
>
>Actually, it all sounds rather reminiscent of the scenes in the book
Dorsai (aka The Genetic General) in which the hero simulates an attack
on a enemy planet by continually "phase-shifting" a small detachment of
ships into an attack position and then popping out again, over and over
again until the crews can't stand it any more -- only more so, since
there's a much greater jump delay and effect on the crew and AIs in the
GZGverse. Or Asimov-style hyperspace jumping with added Jump shock a la
Pournelle. Either way, or just on its own merits, the speed of Jump-type
travel is commonly limited by two things-- or possibly three if you
consider the extra one to be a separate issue: how far a single jump can
take you, how long it takes to recycle the engines and crew, and how
long it takes to work out where you are at the end of each jump.

So any system needs to factor in:

Grade of drive
Technology level of the force
Skill of the Navigator/computer system/officers
Abilities of the crew to handle the jumps
random errors

This seems to work out to portions of the Lt Leary Series (crew skill
and morale help in enduring longer trips through bubble space) as well
as bits of Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series where it
concerns space travel time/distance issues.

FTL communications would work well by having couriers at various
spacings able to jump between known and possible points to transmit and
receive bursts of data that is encrypted. REALLY critical information
which cannot be transmitted must be handed off from ship to ship.
Needless to say, this would be expensive.
-- 
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