Babylon 5 question
- Thread starter Miss Chicken
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Explorer ships.
Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space...
And so on.
That does seem sensible?
It's the same process as how they explored the world in sail boats.
It's the same process as how you find the convenience store after you move house.
However?
When we actually saw one of these monster ships, they assumed all was lost after the explorer had drifted off the beacon for a few minutes and they needed a chain of Star furies to rescue Doctor Jacobi.
Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. take a look. Lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space. Blind jump. Take a look. lay a beacon. Redefine the rim of known space...
And so on.
That does seem sensible?
It's the same process as how they explored the world in sail boats.
It's the same process as how you find the convenience store after you move house.
However?
When we actually saw one of these monster ships, they assumed all was lost after the explorer had drifted off the beacon for a few minutes and they needed a chain of Star furies to rescue Doctor Jacobi.
Yeah, the Cortez's engine were hit and they could neither keep themselves on the beacon or jump to normal space. The danger of drifting too far off the beacon in this case was that no rescue ship would even be able to locate them. Even if they got the sublight engines going again but were still off the beacon they'd likely never find the beacon network again, or not for a few hundred thousand or million years and would be stranded in hyperspace.
If you did manage to fix the jump drive and get back to normal space then you're still in the middle on nowhere. Your options are to make a dash for the nearest jumpgate at near relativistic speeds and hope your grandchilden can learn how to fly the ship once the current crew has died of old age or start doing random jump until you come across a system with a jumpgate beacon. The former option is more likely to work since, well...space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space...ahem. Sorry I came over all Peter Jones for a moment there.
Anyway, while you're in hyperspace, navigating without a beacon is (for most races) impossible. You may think you're going the normal space equivalent of 30ly on a heading straight for Orion but when you jump you'll probably find yourself 70ly in the opposite direction, facing the way you think you just came. It really would be random. At least in normal space you have a clue where you're going and will get there eventually.
Plus of course random jumping means you run the slight risk of jumping right into a star, a planet, black hole or other equally dangerous stellar object.
As for the beacons, I think we've had this discussion before and I still think the most sensible way for explorers to work is to send out probes via normal space at near relativistic speeds with their own tachyon beacons that a ship can follow is the probe finds anything interesting.
If you did manage to fix the jump drive and get back to normal space then you're still in the middle on nowhere. Your options are to make a dash for the nearest jumpgate at near relativistic speeds and hope your grandchilden can learn how to fly the ship once the current crew has died of old age or start doing random jump until you come across a system with a jumpgate beacon. The former option is more likely to work since, well...space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space...ahem. Sorry I came over all Peter Jones for a moment there.
Anyway, while you're in hyperspace, navigating without a beacon is (for most races) impossible. You may think you're going the normal space equivalent of 30ly on a heading straight for Orion but when you jump you'll probably find yourself 70ly in the opposite direction, facing the way you think you just came. It really would be random. At least in normal space you have a clue where you're going and will get there eventually.
Plus of course random jumping means you run the slight risk of jumping right into a star, a planet, black hole or other equally dangerous stellar object.
As for the beacons, I think we've had this discussion before and I still think the most sensible way for explorers to work is to send out probes via normal space at near relativistic speeds with their own tachyon beacons that a ship can follow is the probe finds anything interesting.
This was probably covered in an episode that I'm not recalling, but is it possible to open a jump point without going through it? If so then the Explorer concept makes more sense, since if they see a hazard on the other side of the jump point they can just say, "Right, we won't be going there then. Close it up!"
Actually I imagine this isn't possible, since I seem to recall ships jumping into ambushes, and surely scanning before exiting a jump point would be standard procedure. Though maybe that's a difference between ships with jump engines and ships that rely on jump gates?
Pardon me while I ramble...
Actually I imagine this isn't possible, since I seem to recall ships jumping into ambushes, and surely scanning before exiting a jump point would be standard procedure. Though maybe that's a difference between ships with jump engines and ships that rely on jump gates?
Pardon me while I ramble...
You could certainly open a jumppoint without going through it. The White Star did it when they blew up the Markab jumpgate in the season 3 premiere. You might even be able to open a reverse jumppoint (like, opening a blue one from normal space) but we've never seen anyone do it. Ship-mounted jump engines are more finicky than gates, so its safest to go through them as quickly as possible with only the ship that opened them. That's part of the reasons ships usually wait to launch fighters until after the jump.
You can't seem to scan through a jumppoint, but it should be possible to send a probe through and communicate with that through the point. Or maybe even after it closes. Normal space to hyperspace communication was usually pretty SOP, unless they were opening the jumpgate every time they placed a call and it just happened off-screen.
You can't seem to scan through a jumppoint, but it should be possible to send a probe through and communicate with that through the point. Or maybe even after it closes. Normal space to hyperspace communication was usually pretty SOP, unless they were opening the jumpgate every time they placed a call and it just happened off-screen.
Keep in mind that opening a jump point isn't like switching on a lightbulb, it takes a HUGE amount of power. When a ship opens a point there's a significant drain that they're effectively blind for a few seconds and all the time a point is still open it takes a continuous flow of power so the usual thing to do is to open it and get the hell out ASAP.
We have seen a Narn ship hold a point open longer than it should to allow a transport to escape. The cruiser itself was destroyed but I forget if the power drain was a contributing factor or they were just out gunned and outmanoeuvred. We've also seen a severely damaged ship (another Narn cruiser) attempt to open a jump point while critically damaged and it ended up causing an overload that blew up the ship.
There are some aspects that have never been explored like if matter and/or energy can transition through a jump point against the flow of the vortex. So for instance if they randomly manage to open a point from hyperspace into the event horizon of a black hole or the corona of a star with they get a face full of stellar matter/crushing gravity waves, will they simply transition blindly to get obliterated on the other side or will the jump point itself even form under those conditions. I think it's probably a case of "nobody's been stupid enough to try it yet." JMS did mention jump points were used to cause Sol to go nova, but that would have to have been a very precise, carefully planned operation with a First One level of technology.
As far as communications go, I think in the B5 universe tachyons exist simultaneously in hyperspace and normal space so there's no need to open a point so long as both side have tachyon transmitters and receivers. Direct point-to-point communications on the other hand, like the laser delivery system we saw in 'Points of Departure' does require an open jump point as it uses a laser, not tachyons.
We have seen a Narn ship hold a point open longer than it should to allow a transport to escape. The cruiser itself was destroyed but I forget if the power drain was a contributing factor or they were just out gunned and outmanoeuvred. We've also seen a severely damaged ship (another Narn cruiser) attempt to open a jump point while critically damaged and it ended up causing an overload that blew up the ship.
There are some aspects that have never been explored like if matter and/or energy can transition through a jump point against the flow of the vortex. So for instance if they randomly manage to open a point from hyperspace into the event horizon of a black hole or the corona of a star with they get a face full of stellar matter/crushing gravity waves, will they simply transition blindly to get obliterated on the other side or will the jump point itself even form under those conditions. I think it's probably a case of "nobody's been stupid enough to try it yet." JMS did mention jump points were used to cause Sol to go nova, but that would have to have been a very precise, carefully planned operation with a First One level of technology.
As far as communications go, I think in the B5 universe tachyons exist simultaneously in hyperspace and normal space so there's no need to open a point so long as both side have tachyon transmitters and receivers. Direct point-to-point communications on the other hand, like the laser delivery system we saw in 'Points of Departure' does require an open jump point as it uses a laser, not tachyons.
In "Revelations," the Narn ship that arrived at Z'ha'dum tried to reverse into it's own jump point, but they didn't last long enough for us to see if that entailed opening a new one or not.
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