Re: Spelljamming speed, and invisibility

>From: Alessandro La Vekkia Damiani <LaVecchiacciaSulWeb@??????.it>
>Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Spelljamming speed, and invisibility
>Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 13:08:28 +0100
>
>[CUT]
>
>>I love to design a helm that would use the concept of
>>the Star Wars  hyperspace jumps. It would think it
>>would be at least twice the normal spelljamming speed
>>to reflect why the background move faster than the
>>Star Trek system. Yes, dang it, I have too much time
>>on my hand. =)
>
>Well some days ago someone posted the specs of a jump helm that let the 
>ship travel instantaneously between two fire bodies ( you enter into one 
>and escape from the other if things go right, if they don't..... well i 
>hope your protection from fire is good :-D )

Hyperspace jumps??? You seem to be mixing up two seperate sci-fi concepts 
here: hyperspace and wormholes.

Hyperspace is a separate dimension, often described as being above our 
normal three dimensional space where the speed of light is not a factor 
limiting speed. Every author has their own pseudo-science to describe 
hyperspace, but a frequent idea is that the speed of light is the *slowest* 
speed in hyperspace - everything that normally travels slower than the speed 
of light travels faster in hyperspace.

(Subspace is the opposite of hyperspace, being below normal space instead of 
above it. Some authors use one, some use the other and some use both for 
different things. Star Trek, for example, uses subspace for faster than 
light communication.)

Wormholes are immobile objects in space that link two distant points (like 
the jump helm you mention). They allow instantaneous (or almost 
insantaneous) jumps between two points in space by sending anything that 
goes into one wormhole to the other wormhole. I've heard some people 
theorise that you spinning black holes create wormholes and that you can fly 
into a black hole (in the correct direction) to use the wormhole. This is 
very similar to the fire body hopping helm you mentioned.

Warpspace in Star Trek is almost identical to Hyperspace. I've heard sci-fi 
fans complain that it is scientifically unsound in some way, but I can't see 
any real difference between it and any other version of hyperspace. Both 
Star Trek's Warpspace and Star Wars's Hyperspace require a ship to be in the 
vacuum of space before it can jump. Some authors requre ships to be far away 
from planets (as this allows for space combat to occur in the time it takes 
a ship to get away from a world! LOL).

Stargate is an example of a sci-fi show that uses wormholes to move things 
from one planet to another. Although they also use faster than light travel 
that like Star Trek and Star Wars.

Babylon 5 was a sci-fi show that seemed to mix both concepts, having gates 
that put ships into some other dimension.

I *really* don't like to mix sci-fi stuff with SJ because SJ is a *fantas*y 
setting and is not really designed for sci-fi concepts (which usually rely 
on real scientific concepts that are not compatible with the SJ universe). 
If you really like the concept of hyperspace, then you should use helms that 
take you to the fantasy version - an alternate plane. The best plane to use 
(IMO) would be the astral plane. The astral plane already has the Pirarates 
of Gith inside it, so SJ can cope with the concept of an Planejamming ship 
flying through the astral plane without falling over.

The astral plane has different rules to the prime material plane, in a 
similar way to hyperspace having different rules to normal space in sci-fi 
settings. I suggest you look at the Planewalker website and talk to 
Planescape fans to see what these rules are. The obvious differences are:

There only one prime material plane - wildspace is the part of the prime 
material plane where you can move in and out of the astral plane (or other 
planes) - the phlogiston is the part of the prime material plane where it is 
not possible to move in and out of the astral plane.

I believe that in the astral plane people move by "thinking" of moving. So a 
helmsman would need to think their ship was flying through the astral plane 
in order to make it move.

For astral travel to be useful, but not make SJ fall apart, I would suggest 
that it should be faster than spelljamming speed (*not* light) but slower 
than the speed of the flow. This would give ships in the astral plane a 
local advantage without making spelljamming obsolite.

You also need something to control the number of ships that can get into the 
astral plane (or other planes). I belive that Planewalkers need to use some 
sort of key to travel to individual planes (where the key can be anything of 
anysize that the GM desires). Pirates of Giff seem to like stealing the 
ships of the IEN, so that could be the key for successful travel into the 
astral plane. (IEN ships are alive so ships like smalljammers could be 
useful as well.)

If living energy was the key to moving faster than spelljamming speed then 
perhaps the number of crew on a ship could be used to calculate a ship. 
Imagine if the helmsman could (mentally) push the ship along at spelljammer 
speed and every crewman (that concentrates) could (mentally) push the ship 
along even faster. How about this for an equasion:

astraljamming speed = spelljamming speed x (helmsman+crew)

Where crew is the number of crewmen concentrating on moving the ship and 
astraljamming speed is a variable speed rather than a fixed one. Obviously 
crewmen can not do this while they are sleeping, so they would have to work 
in shifts.

A similar concept could be used for tactical speed in the astral plane:

astraltactical speed = SR+crew

Where SR is the normal ships raiting generated by the helmsman, and any 
crewmen concentrating on moving the ship can add an extra point of SR. While 
you might imagine that ships would zip along at astraltactical speed, don't 
forget that crewmen that can not concentrate on adding SR if they are 
manning weapons, fighting or concentrating on anything else.

I haven't got my books with me, but I think I read somewhere that Pirates of 
Gith do not need to sleep. This would give them a big advantage over other 
crews, because they could fly rings around everyone. *If* this is true they 
would be a major threat to any ships that you allowed into the astral plane.

David Shepheard