Travel time between systems and interstellar communication in WC Universe

[Silent Hunter]

This is ultimately for the RP that I run, so I can get some mechanics clear in my head. Do we have anything firm in the canon about how long it takes to get from system to system?

Also, how easy is it to send messages between them?

 

[capi3101]

Had that very question myself when I got started with WCPRG; lemme look here......

Ah: https://www.wcnews.com/articles/jumpfaq.shtml covers pretty much everything that's been established in canon on the topic of FTL travel in the WC Universe.

Comms are a bit fuzzier. My assumption has been that if there are nav buoys near jump points, they'd open up long enough to transmit a message from one end to the other. The transmissions would still be limited by the speed of light but there's no reason why they couldn't be close to instantaneous. The movie might be your best bet here for anything canonical.

 

[Dundradal]

The novels introduce "burst communications." They aren't exactly explained in technical terms except that it's an almost instantaneous point-to-point system. Action Stations and Fleet Action have the best descriptions of the system.

 

[Ijuin]

While passage through jump points is very quick (often nearly instantaneous), travel between the jump point where you enter a system and the one where you exit the system is under normal sublight drive. If the two points are on opposite edges of the system (10 billion km or more apart), then it can take a couple of days to cross the entire system to reach your next jump. I don't know the exact maximum sublight speed/acceleration for spacecraft in the WC universe, but in "End Run", the Tarawa was described as flying past Kilrah at something like 10 thousand km/s when they were slinging past it, and the Tarawa started accelerating from Kilrah's outer moon, so that's maybe 1-2 million km of distance to accelerate to that speed. I doubt however that ships go above around 100 thousand km/s (one third the speed of light) because there is nothing in any of the games or novels about having to deal with time dilation issues.

 

[AD]

I doubt however that ships go above around 100 thousand km/s (one third the speed of light) because there is nothing in any of the games or novels about having to deal with time dilation issues.

Interestingly, Chris Roberts actually cited The Forever War as an influence on the early Wing Commanders... And time dilation is something they decided to incorporate into the first draft of the movie. Most of the references to time dilation were removed in subsequent drafts but there's some shards of it left over in the finished film... Notably Rosie and Maniac's talk about "everyone you know will be dead and buried". Essentially the early drafts had Paladin being technically very old compared to everyone else because of all the time he's spent flying around in space... which also factors into him having supposedly been on the Iason. It was also part of why the Charybdis jump point and the Scylla short cut were such big factors in the plot since I wasn't just saving hours of travel time.

 

[Wojo]

It was my thought that jump buoys were also comm relays. Privateer would have you believe you can cross a system in 20 mins, but thats just silly!

I would bring up quantum entanglement etc. etc. So, to answer your question, I would treat comms as near-instantaneous, given all the combined examples from games, literature & the movie. A movie example - Tolwyn is able to track the position of the Diligent across several systems, and send a message directly to Blair on board.

We also see some kind of message buoy fired from Pegasus station when under attack - arguably to then go rocketing through a jump point.

Hmmm. That just brings up more questions. Forget I mentioned that...

 

[Ijuin]

The message buoy from Pegasis station might be due to the Kilrathi jamming communications during the attack (or perhaps they hit the main comm hardware already, and the buoy was a backup system).

Anyway, in the games at least, the time to cross a system seems to range from several hours to a couple of days, so if we assume that jump points are not clustered in close to the star (i.e. either randomly distributed or else mostly on the edges of the system), then we are talking about speeds on the order of a few percent of the speed of light (i.e. low tens of thousands of km/s). While this is a good one hundred or so times faster than the cruising speeds shown in the games (hundreds of km/s), said cruising speeds are explicitly "with ramscoops open", running a fuel surplus. For quick transit between planets or jump points within a system, it seems that spacecraft will close their scoops and accelerate to much higher speeds.

 

[Dundradal]

I'm trying to remember, but I think some jump buoys are capable of relaying burst communications (or their lower-speed versions).

The comm station in WC4 was a burst relay station. The thing about a burst transmission is that the more power you have the farther you can directly send it. So a flagship level ship might be able to burst from the front back to Sol, whereas the Tarawa during FA can't directly burst back home. (I'm spacing the exact details, but I don't think it was just due to Kilrathi jamming in that scene)

 

[Whistler]

Thanks to a youtube playthrough, I can post this in regards to the duration between system jumps.

At 11:36 is where you want to be viewing, the jump sequence from the CIC of the Intrepid jumping from Pasqual to Pelius, in realtime. Overall it appears that the jump lasts about 4 - 5 seconds between entering the wormhole and shooting out the other end. Think that's about as canon as you can get.

As to burst communications, we do know that relay stations, starbases, and other comm stations (I.E. Orestes) will route communications based on intended destination, if protocol allows. Who's to say the Jump Buoys don't also act as relay points for communications between systems but in either case there does appear to be a networking system in place for high-powered burst comms between, if nothing else, other stations and satellites.

 

[Ijuin]

While in-game the transition is definitely nearly instantaneous, we also saw some scenes in the Wing Commander Academy show where traveling through a jump point could take minutes to hours. I particularly remember an episode where they were scouting a jump point and it explicitly took hours to make the round trip due to the long jump transition time. It may be that the length of time for a jump varies depending on the particular jump points.

 

[Dundradal]

The novels all have jumps being instantaneous. "Jump shock" gets a fair amount of explanation in End Run and there's a short scene in False Colors about it as well.

 

[capi3101]

While in-game the transition is definitely nearly instantaneous, we also saw some scenes in the Wing Commander Academy show where traveling through a jump point could take minutes to hours. I particularly remember an episode where they were scouting a jump point and it explicitly took hours to make the round trip due to the long jump transition time. It may be that the length of time for a jump varies depending on the particular jump points.

That was the episode "Expendable", and it took a while because it was a "supernode" pulsar jump (another continuity glitch of course; they have no issues with being in proximity to a pulsar whereas in the Movie the Claw almost buys it when they attempt to jump a pulsar).

 

[ChrisReid]

That was the episode "Expendable", and it took a while because it was a "supernode" pulsar jump (another continuity glitch of course; they have no issues with being in proximity to a pulsar whereas in the Movie the Claw almost buys it when they attempt to jump a pulsar).

It's not the same thing. They jump the Charybdis Quasar in the Wing Commander Movie.

 

[RogueBanshee]

It's not the same thing. They jump the Charybdis Quasar in the Wing Commander Movie.

I'm pretty sure that they jump a pulsar as well because when Paladin suggusts doing so the XO protests because no one has jumped a pulsar in 40 years, and those that did before were Pilgrims.

 

[ChrisReid]

I'm pretty sure that they jump a pulsar as well because when Paladin suggusts doing so the XO protests because no one has jumped a pulsar in 40 years, and those that did before were Pilgrims.

Quite right, they do hop a pulsar on the way to the quasar! However, the whole thing is deliciously consistent - not a continuity problem at all!

The conversation in the movie that you mention happens on March 16, 2654. And Gerald appears to be somewhat facetious, because Paladin makes numerous comments that suggest he's very familiar with doing this.

"Expendable" takes place on June 24, 2654, so whether Paladin actually does this all the time or not, there's no direct contradiction there. And when the Tiger's Claw arrives at the pulsar, Tolwyn's briefing states that the pulsar is too dangerous to casually risk sending the carrier through. So instead he sends a jump-capable Broadsword lead by the Pilgrim navigator Blair!

 

[Ijuin]

Apparently "quasar" means something different in Wing Commander than in our world, because what we call a quasar is an object that puts out more radiation than the combined total of all objects in the average galaxy, and is suspected to be powered by a supermassive black hole (like those in the centers of nearly all spiral galaxies) gobbling up lots of matter.

 

[Wojo]

Apparently "quasar" means something different in Wing Commander than in our world, because what we call a quasar is an object that puts out more radiation than the combined total of all objects in the average galaxy, and is suspected to be powered by a supermassive black hole (like those in the centers of nearly all spiral galaxies) gobbling up lots of matter.

I don't see how that's a problem... quasars (and pulsars) apparently spin at fantastic rates & are super dense (compared to solar masses). This would make them ideal for jumping/bending space in accordance with the canon WC physics of jump drives. For any civilisation routinely dealing with long-range spaceflight, the radiation issue (solar wind is lethal!) would have to be dealt with far sooner than any jump technology, therefore we must assume that shielding (electromagnetic or otherwise) is strong enough to withstand being near any sort of gravic anomaly, at least for the short time it takes to jump it.

Maybe I wouldn't go parking up next to one for a smoko break, is all. But I get your point - the revelation that the centre of most galaxies is home to a supermassive black hole is fairly recent, so kinda shoots down a few technical theories huh. Funny.

 

[Ijuin]

We're talking about an entirely different scale of radiation here. A Quasar has radiation equivalent to a supernova, only instead of exploding once and then fading, it maintains that level for millions of years without a break. Getting within ten light years of it would melt any substance that our present science knows how to produce. Also, the nearest Quasar that we know of is several hundred MILLION light years from us--if there were one in our galaxy, not only would we know it, but it would drown out every other source in its general direction, just like how looking at the sun drowns out other stars near it in the sky.