Jump Gates vs Jump Drives

[ThunderAeroI]

Lets assume for a moment that these things can be real.

What is the point of a Jump Gate anyway, because I fail to see how such a device is usefull for anyone who builds it. The plot device is always, some ancient civilization built them and now they are gone. They still work surprisingly though.

The amount of time it would take to build one working node of gates must be huge. You build two gates, and then move the second one to another spot which could take ages to do.

Where on the other hand, if you havea Jump drive, yoiu just jump where ever you want without the need fort gates.


Now in a game, gates are done to keep the world smaller; however, in reality i fail to see how a gate provides anything the jumpdrive can't.

 

[TEH BABA]

Wing Commander can mine a jump point. Essentially creating a choke point. Fleet blockades too.

 

[FordSVT]

Given the fact that there are many different types of fictional gate systems in sci-fi, and many different kinds of "jump drives", you're a bit all over the place trying to compare them all at the same time.

Some ftl drives are instantaneous, some are not. Some have a limited range, others are seemingly unlimited. Jump gates sometimes create the wormhole or field that propels the craft (think Stargate or the game Mass Effect), sometimes it effectively opens a door to some kind of different dimension one can travel through (like B5).

Jump gates have the advantage of being able to work with ships not capable of carrying their own FTL drive for one thing. In the Stargate universe, very fast FTL ships roamed the galaxies seeding planets with gates over a long period of time. In other universes, civilizations have to use the method you describe: take the long way to the destination over ages, set up the recieving gate, rinse and repeat.

But each has its advantages and disadvantages. Ships with their own FTL drives are certainly more flexible, but an instantaneous planetary gate, for example, would certainly make it easier to move people and cargo from one place to another than any spaceship would.

 

[hyzmarca]

Why build railroads?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Jump gates are supposed to be faster.

Also you're missing an important point. In these games and movies what if jump drives aren't possible and only jump gates are?
Perhaps when jump technology first comes out it's so huge and energy consuming they have to build enormous gates, only when the technology is progressed does it get small enough to create a jump drive.

 

[FrankR]

Assuming jump drives are super expensive to built or are very difficult to maintain (like nuclear reactors today); then you could use jump-gates to save money on ship construction and maintenance for non-military and non-exploration ships.

-frank

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Assuming jump drives are super expensive to built or are very difficult to maintain (like nuclear reactors today); then you could use jump-gates to save money on ship construction and maintenance for non-military and non-exploration ships.

-frank

Good point, why spend money on building 100 jump drives when you can build just a couple of Jump gates.

 

[ThunderAeroI]

All valid points, my only concern is that the process of building the gates and moving them into possition makes any such process very time consumming. We arn't talking about building a railroad from NY to LA, this is a gate from lets say Earth to Jupiter or farthure.

I suppose you could argu that when they built a railroad from New York to LA they thought is was a very long way.

 

[USS KG5]

All valid points, my only concern is that the process of building the gates and moving them into possition makes any such process very time consumming. We arn't talking about building a railroad from NY to LA, this is a gate from lets say Earth to Jupiter or farthure.

In B5 they built new gates by sending out massive explorer ships full of parts which were assembled into gates when a likely spot was found. Seemed to make a lot of sense, even if you only have a handful of explorer ships then you can build your fair share of gates.

I suppose you could argu that when they built a railroad from New York to LA they thought is was a very long way.

It still is a very long way, you would not want to walk it, driving or going by train still takes ages, flying takes several hours!

 

[JustAFriend]

The amount of time it would take to build one working node of gates must be huge. You build two gates, and then move the second one to another spot which could take ages to do.

Why would you assume that?

A truly advanced civilization would have fully automated gate-builders. Turn them loose on the galaxy, letting them mine the asteroids of each system to build not only a gate but another gate-building ship that goes off in another random direction before the first one moves on.... exponentially the numbers of gates across a galaxy would build without any more effort than your building the first ship.

 

[ThunderAeroI]

The amount of time it would take to build one working node of gates must be huge. You build two gates, and then move the second one to another spot which could take ages to do.

Why would you assume that?

A truly advanced civilization would have fully automated gate-builders. Turn them loose on the galaxy, letting them mine the asteroids of each system to build not only a gate but another gate-building ship that goes off in another random direction before the first one moves on.... exponentially the numbers of gates across a galaxy would build without any more effort than your building the first ship.

Which does nothing to cut the amount of time it takes to build the nodes. In the long run you get 2,4,8, etc increase, but their placed at the same rate. It would take ages before the automated system built its first node, and what if something went wrong.

 

[Brent]

I think I see the question

A ship with an FTL drive, or Jump Drive can get there instant

But if you are building a gate system, and the ship building the gates doesn't have FTL or jump drives, then it will take it thousands and thousands and thousands of years to get to the destination where the other gate should be placed. Even at the speed of light it would take 4 years to get to the next solar system, so unless you could go that fast in the first place getting a gate there is gonna take forever.

Cause with a gate system you actually have to travel to the point of where you want the gates to be deployed or built. So if your ships dont have FTL in the first place, ouch, gonna be a while.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I think I see the question

A ship with an FTL drive, or Jump Drive can get there instant

But if you are building a gate system, and the ship building the gates doesn't have FTL or jump drives, then it will take it thousands and thousands and thousands of years to get to the destination where the other gate should be placed. Even at the speed of light it would take 4 years to get to the next solar system, so unless you could go that fast in the first place getting a gate there is gonna take forever.

Cause with a gate system you actually have to travel to the point of where you want the gates to be deployed or built. So if your ships dont have FTL in the first place, ouch, gonna be a while.

Depends if you need anything on the other end. What if jump gates only need one to be able to travel? and the reason you need two is simply to get back. They could construct a jump gate and then send the materials to the other side at FTL speeds and construct one there in order to travel back.

 

[kitsune]

All jump drives have a USB interface, but I've never seen a USB jump gate...

 

[Robert Maxwell]

There's an interesting essay I read some years back on the notion of building a transit network on traversable wormholes: link

I think, in the end, "jump gates" built out of traversable wormholes are more physically likely than things like jump drives and warp drive. Wormholes "work," at least on paper.

 

[Lindley]

There's an interesting essay I read some years back on the notion of building a transit network on traversable wormholes: link

Well, that's rather mind-bending.

 

[bryce]

All jump drives have a USB interface, but I've never seen a USB jump gate...

*bryce downloads an MP3 of "All Along the Watchtower" to his USB jump drive...*


Eh, didn't work - I'm still on Earth!


Wait...

 

[Neopeius]

Lets assume for a moment that these things can be real.

What is the point of a Jump Gate anyway, because I fail to see how such a device is usefull for anyone who builds it. The plot device is always, some ancient civilization built them and now they are gone. They still work surprisingly though.

The amount of time it would take to build one working node of gates must be huge. You build two gates, and then move the second one to another spot which could take ages to do.

Where on the other hand, if you havea Jump drive, yoiu just jump where ever you want without the need fort gates.


Now in a game, gates are done to keep the world smaller; however, in reality i fail to see how a gate provides anything the jumpdrive can't.

1. If you don't have a jumpdrive, but you do have relativistic drives, jump gates are exceedingly useful on a realizable time frame. Even if you don't have relativistic drives, they are useful for interplanetary distances if not interstellar distances.

2. If you do have a jumpdrive but jumpgates are cheaper, you have the cars vs. rails analogy mentioned upthread.

Make sense?

 

[ThunderAeroI]

I like the idea that a Jump Gate dosn't need a gate on the other end to work, the other one is just for the return trip. The problem is we have never seen this in practice. You always need two.

I stand by the fact that they are useless.

- If you build one, and have to manually travel to the other end, everyone who would use it is dead already.

- if you build one, and travel close to c to build the next one, everyone else is still dead.

The jump gate is just too time consumming to be practical. The only way you could possibly even use one, would be to place engines on the gates, have them travel relavistic speeds and use the gate while its in motion. But that leaves you stranded where you end up because the gates gone.

 

[Neopeius]

I stand by the fact that they are useless.

Did you even read my post?

- If you build one, and have to manually travel to the other end, everyone who would use it is dead already.

- if you build one, and travel close to c to build the next one, everyone else is still dead.


The jump gate is just too time consumming to be practical.

It took Voyager 2 12 years to reach Neptune. It took 25 years to reach the heliosphere. I was alive when Voyager 2 took off and I'm still alive now. Was Voyager 2 too time consuming to bother with?

How about this one: The Space Program was launched in 1958 ('56, really). Apollo was initiated in 1961. We landed on the moon eight years later.

If you can go half the speed of light, you can be in Alpha Centauri in eight years.

Is that too time consuming to bother with?