Re: Blacker than Black

On 14/11/2011 04:05, John Tailby wrote:
> Presumably ripping a hole in the material universe to jump in would
cause some kind of detectable emmission?
 From the introduction to the FT2 rules, "[...] one of our far-orbit 
sensors detected emergence diffusion effects characteristic of a large 
task force of naval units dropping out of FTL drive [...]", so yes, FTL 
arrival can be detected at a distance, presumably by STL methods (so 
they're not where you see them, but they used to be).
> I'm not sure I remember how GZG canon describes warp space jumps. Is
it like star trek or starwars where ship travel takes time and ships
therefore have sensors that can detect other objects in the hyperspace
environment and possible in real space while in hyperspace? Or is it
some kind of instant blind jump where it's a pop in and out maybe like
BSG and it's all down to really complicated maths to predict the
location of every known object in the target system and there's no
detection?
More like the latter, if I read other background stuff correctly, 
notably the description of a Jump from FB1. It's effectively 
instantaenous, with a significant margin of error on the arrival end. 
Not sure that anything has been stated one way or the other about any 
limits to where you can arrive or depart from, so no Traveller-style 
100-diameter rule that I am aware of. Against that, various background 
pieces seem to have incoming ships arriving at the edges of a system, so

it may be there but not stated explicitly.
> Is it possible for a ship in real space to detect an object in
hyperspace? If so does this create a submarine warfare kind of effect?
If so it makes all the discussions about real space detection rather
moot.
They can't do it because the ship is only in "hyperspace" for an 
infinitesimal instant, so you can't see it coming, but you do know when 
it arrives -- eventually.
> Unless ships can jump relatively close to their destination it will
take them months or years to get to an inner planet in a way that
matches velocity with the target planet. Vast amounts of reaction mass
would be needed to accelerate a ship and then decelerate it at the other
end of the journey.
Only if you use a reaction drive. IIRC, normal space drives in the 
GZGverse are some kind of field drive (effectively anti-gravity), so the

reaction mass isn't needed, just a big energy source. And we've 
discussed the kind of accelerations that GZG ships can produce with 
their normal space drives. It's all speculation, but if, as one 
suggestion was, 1 thrust = 1g, ships have more than enough delta-V to 
move freely around a star system without trouble and in reasonable time.

ISTR Heinlein writing that 1 g was enough to get from Earth to Pluto in 
a week, so 8 g would allow ships to zip anywhere in a star system the 
size of Sol in about 2.5 days. Of course, the trick is to be able to 
sustain that thrust, but if you can, intra-system travel becomes 
straight-forward and no more time-consuming than, say, a 
transcontinental coach or train trip.

Phil