[TML] Soapy Jump Bubbles And Other Weirdness: was Re: Tech Level progression and regression

[Richard Aiken]

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 8:59 PM, Anthony Jackson <ajackson at iii.com> wrote:
> Jerry W Barrington wrote:
>
> > Of course, this yields an absurd situation:  If the normal variability of
> > jump time leaves your exit too far from the anchor mass, what happens?
>
> That's why you do velocity matching with the target before you jump.
> However, the obvious answer is a misjump.

I don't do math well.  But if you accept this limitation to jump
(which I'm intending to do), then it makes for more limited "jump
routes" between points.  Because there'd be an increased misjump risk
when jumping to a destination whose orbit was currently moving it from
side to side across your "field of vision," rather than either toward
or away from you.  That is, you'd have to be a little Lucky to make
it.

I've said for the past few months that I was planning to use jumpgates
or stargates when I next run a game.  But I've been reconsidering
that.  The longer it takes me to re-write these rules, the lazier and
lazier I'm getting.  So I'm thinking I'll just use the GT ship
construction rules - from GT: Starships (so I can have total
conversion fusion drives and perhaps a "contragrav" that really just
an invisible air cushion like Firefly/Serenity uses) - and regular
jump drives.  But I'm considering a particular explanation for the
practical aspects of how jump space works.

You see, I'm thinking to use regular 2d hex maps as accurate
representations of jump space - but not real space - positioning.
Within each hex, the various "jump space presences" of the
significant-mass bodies of each system circle about in the same 2d
plane, like a mass of soap bubbles swirling between two panes of
glass.  Because the soap bubbles all touch each other, they look like
a set of various sized hexes.  Charting a jump between destinations
thus involves riding the cracks between each bubble.  Sometimes these
soap bubbles shift unpredictably (maybe that mysterious small force
that acts on small real world satellites is a manifestation of strong
"currents" in jump space).  And then you get misjumps.

In other words, jump space is CROWDED.  I'm considering this model
because one of the threads in my planned new game will involve
intelligent jump space entities trying to get OUT of jump space and
into the much more hospitable real space universe.  This links back to
a thread here a while ago, where I and others were speculating about
jump drives actually being the real space extentions of biological
entities that are native to jump space.

IMReallyNewTU, I'm thinking that I will make all jump drives
*potentially* sentient.  But only the very oldest of them have
realized their potential.  Most of these Old Ones (yes, this is
deliberate . . .) are neutral toward the natives of real space, merely
wanting to exist alongside them in peace.  In fact, most of them don't
even bother to take over a host body, merely communing silently with
"that crazy engineer."  It was OO influence which created the Ancients
IMRNTU . . . and OO influence which killed them off, as well.

Inevitably, some Old Ones seek to dominate and control the natives.
They take over a host completely, submerging the host's identity into
their own.  Most such OOs merely want to make the physical existences
of the host body easier, usually by arranging to have very nice luxury
liners built around the jump drives that contain their essences.  The
host bodies of these OOs just happen to "the remittance passenger who
never gets off."  It can be argued that such a life isn't even all
that hard on the host . . . except that he never gets to leave the
ship or even realize he isn't human any longer.

A few - fortunately a VERY few - OOs want more, though.  They want to
escape the ties to their jump drive cores.  They want to be able to go
more than a few miles away without losing the mental powers they can
exercise through their host's bodies.  If they get too far away, their
control deteriorate to the point that they lose control of the host
itself.  These OOs are willing to go to ANY length to support their
desires.

Even more fortunately, most of these insane OOs are too insane to work
together effectively.  Still, even with this handicap, the insane OOs
were what brought down the Ancients.  And since OOs can't be actually
be "killed," they're still around.  But so are the sane OOs who
created the Ancients.  The sane OOs fought the insane OOs to a
standstill because they realized that "freeing" any OO would create a
permanent disjunction in reality.  This would be A Very Bad Thing, for
everyone, everywhere, both in jump space and in real space.

So in the wake of the Final War, the first ever OO "governmental body"
was created.  It was tasked with keeping the insane OOs in check,
henceforth.  But it prefers to work behind the scenes.  Which is where
PCs will come in . . .

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein