On what basis does WC 'jumping' work?

T

Toefur

Spaceman
I know (duh) none of this stuff is real, but usually with this sort of fiction there is some form of explanation as to how all the technological aspects work within the fictional universe.

So in Wing Commander game long distance travel between star systems (I am assuming this is the equivalent of faster than light speeds, ie warp speed, hyperdrive, jump gates) is (if I remember correctly) done via 'jumping'.

There are jump buoys or something at the places where ships jump from (and only ships equipped with these abilities can do so - cap ships, special fighters? (like the dragon); so how does it supposedly work? Are the buoys for some form of guidance system? Jumping from one to the other? How does the actual faster-than-light speed work within the wing commander universe?

I'm also curious about the sort used in Privateer 2... seems a lot different. You have the small jumps from nav point to nav point... which I assume is just like normal flight? THen you have the jump-gate things (whatever they're called) where you fly through the round things and the zip you off to the other end of them.
 
Tis slightly baffling...

I used to always think they were man made wormholes and I would imagine that the buoys were some sort of gravitational space bending devices. But I guess that wouldn't be good because then it'd be to easy to close off a jump point by just destroying the buoy. Then I read on the WCP poster that they are naturally occuring wormholes in space. Seems incredibly inconvenient doesn't it? But it's not like hyper space made a lot of sense or even warp speed for that matter. My favorite method of space travel in science fiction is fold space. It actually seems the most logical to me. In WC, the space chart would just show the jump points on the map to the next nearest jump point. But I wonder if some of the jump points are in completely different galaxies of if it is all inter-galaxy traveling.
 
Warp speed is folding space.. just not as effeciently as in Dune.. in Trek when "warping" you are folding space to decrease travel time/distance.. whereas in Dune the folding results in almost instantateous travel..

I like the way star travel is handled in some of Niven/Pournelle's books.. like The Mote in Gods Eye.. ships jump along gravitational "tram lines" between stars.. similar to jump points.. but operating on a differnt theory..

anyway.. blah.. blah.. blah..
 
I rather like the idea Robert Heilein came up with in "Methusela's Children." basically this super brilliant mathematictian made a star drive that was just a little box about a foot across. (Made for some funny lines when he brought it out) Anyway, he just hooks it up to the ship and suddenly they're moving at almost light speed. The system he worked out removed the inertia from the ship (bs i know, but a neat idea) and the solar rays litteraly pushed the ship away.

I also like the descirption i the Halo books about thier slipstream space where the jump engines rip a hole in space. Sounds wonderfully barbaric.

Just my .02

Edit, Oh, and i think that wing Commander uses something similar to a wormhole effect, just with out the intervening travel time
 
There is a really good explanation of the Jump Theory in the WC Bible. I'm sure LOAF is on the ball in getting that info out.
 
Aw, but clicking on links and having to read is so dang TOUGH... ;)

At least, that's how I'm interpreting this thread.
 
Hmm...

But if fold space takes you there instantaneously, isn't that more efficient? The only downside to foldspace was that you needed navigators to plot the courses which gave them the monopoly on space travel. That was true up until Dune 5 when the Ixians finally made computers capable of computing the foldspace trajectory making most navigators and the Spacing Guild obsolete. It seems with warp speed there are always too many problems involving it. Remember when warp speed was creating rifts in the fabric of space time? And then at the end of the episode there was a new speed limit until a way was found to remedy the problem and it was like warp 5 or something. Did they ever resolve that issue in a later episode? I think they just never brought it up again.
 
However...

I don't think the jumpoints led to new realities or dimensions. And I have a feeling it was all within the same galaxy. I don't know that for sure, but I'm going to assume it was. I know in Dune they knew for sure that some foldspace destinations were in completely seperate galaxies. Do they ever talk about it in the Wing Commander books?
 
Crap!

I'm sorry I just have to say this one more thing. I was reading my first post today and I said that it seemed inconvenient. I really meant that the jump points seemed really convenient. Just wanted to clear that up.
 
Shipgate said:
I'm sorry I just have to say this one more thing. I was reading my first post today and I said that it seemed inconvenient. I really meant that the jump points seemed really convenient. Just wanted to clear that up.
Click to expand...

Three words for you - Edit Post button. :D

Beyond which, as far as we know, all the Dune systems were in the same galaxy, and ships crossed folded space. Star Trek warp drive has ships drop into subspace where distances are shorter, while WC uses the natural congruencies of space-time to allow a ship to punch through the small natural wormholes that already exist on points that are 'touching' - aka jump points.
 
IIRC (and it's been a while), the systems in Dune all had 'real' equivalents in the actual night sky - Dune, for example, was Canopus... that'd seem to suggest that it doesn't span multiple galaxies since (AFAIK) no one has charted individual stars in other galaxies.
 
Really?

I just remember from reading the books and it wasn't that long ago that some who returned from the Scattering were from other galaxies. And not even the Scattering but just some regular planets of the Landsraad were also located in seperate galaxies.
 
The Bloater Drive (Harry Harrison) was a rather interesting notion.. as was the Infinite Improbability Drive..

<waits for the thread to spiral into another nerd dimension>
 
The engines don't move the ship at all! The ship stays where it is, and the engines move the universe around it!
 
psych said:
There is a really good explanation of the Jump Theory in the WC Bible. I'm sure LOAF is on the ball in getting that info out.
Click to expand...

As well as Page 50 of the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook.
 
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