Yes, you could. But this is what we do now to avoid that, and the basis of something to consider when figuring out "what would they do then to achieve that purpose". Too often, sci-fi just says "it happened, because the plot requires it. And reasons." So I don't just accept plot points like that without trying to poke some holes. I know players will, so I want to find them first and plug them before they ask.

From: Craig Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2016 10:39 PM
Subject: Re: [TML] Instant city

Oh, absolutely! Moving through friendly space, warships would be tracked in a dozen different redundant ways. Even in unfriendly space, tricks like leaving stealth buoys, using couriers intelligently, and so forth will minimize the odds of a ship going entirely missing. My only point is that there are lots of wartime scenarios in which you could lose a ship (or a whole fleet) and have no clear idea of its fate for many years, if ever.

On Sat, Feb 13, 2016 at 10:26 PM, William Ewing (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

This email was sent from yahoo.com which does not allow forwarding of emails via email lists. Therefore the sender's email address (xxxxxx@yahoo.com) has been replaced with a dummy one.
They can and would implement something as close to that as possible. I gave current, real-world terms. In Traveller, they would naturally have to modify the idea some. For example, whenever in a system with xboat service, transmit, prior to jump, your movement report. If you don't show up, it helps narrow down where and when you went missing. If there's no xboat, is there a Scout base? An IN base? Or a military data drop on planet?
Yes, it won't work *as well* as it does today, but that's no excuse for throwing up hands and declining to even try to apply some risk mitigation.
From: "Bruce Johnson" <xxxxxx@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2016 6:06:59 PM
Subject: Re: [TML] Instant city

The Imperium CANNOT DO THIS. The most recent information the IN can possibly have of a ship that is not in a particular system is 7 days old. That increases by 7 days for every two parsecs (presuming the use of J2 Scouts/Couriers for comms) farther away the ship is. And they cannot get something *back* to where the ship was supposed to be except in the same time.

The existence of jump lag prevents this kind of close command and control; HQ might be *months* behind the front lines.

The absolute worst case of a misjump is 36 parsecs, which is 107 days away from where a ship is supposed to be at J2.

That’s roughly 4 months.

The IN operates like Admiral Nelson’s Navy, not Admiral Halsey’s.
--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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Craig Berry (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
"Eternity is in love with the productions of time." - William Blake

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