On 14 Feb 2016 at 18:22, Greg Chalik wrote:

> On 13 February 2016 at 14:26, Craig Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>     It's well established by canon that 100dt is the lower boundary on
>     what can enter Jump.
>
> Why?
>
> Its the start of 21st century and we can 3D-print a fully-functioning
> jet engine the size of a microwave oven.

Actually, clear back in the 1960s you could buy a pulse jet engine
that was about a foot long and a few inches in diameter. My local
hobby shop had one. and a turbo jet engine that was smaller than that
(they didn't have one, but I'd seen them in catalogs).

But sometimes *physics* sets size limits on things. One example is
"critical mass". You *can't* get a sustained fission reaction in a
smaller mass.

There are tricks, involving a lot of fancy engineering to get
subcritical masses to go "boom" but they require a lot of precision
and care. and even then there are limits.

For those who care about the details, they use shaped charges to
crush a sphere of fissionable material to a much smaller size (and
much higher density). That increase in density changes the critical
mass.

But it not only requires precision charges, it also requires
microsecond timing of them. Or the sphere doesn't get compressed
evenly and the bomb is a dud.

Likewise, there's a minimum size for the magnetron tube in a
microwave. And probably a minimum size for the cooking vo,ume inside.
Both set by the laws of physics (spacifically the wavelengths
involved).

> Why can't at TL15 the IN not produce some way of tracking their ships
> backwards in Jump space?

Basic premise of Traveller. The one it is *founded* on. Jump is the
only way to travel FTL, and therefore ships are the only way to carry
info between systems at FTL speeds.

If that's not true, then you don't have Traveller, you have something
else.

So the only wayy to "track" ships would be by sending ships. Which
quickly gets ridiculous.

Task forces and fleets can use couriers to try to keep in touch.
Single ships, no way.

> I'm having a real hard time accepting that in a TL15 world, travel
> works based on 17th century concepts (its not even Lord Nelson)

The basic idea is simkilar to what we'd have if telegraphs and radios
weren't possible. the only way to move messages would be by
physically carrying them.

And as I said above, that's one of the *fundamental* premises on
which the game is baseed. Without it, the game universe changes
*drastically*.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com