Alien Wars: Before hyperdrive, there was...

[Basil]

...what? IOW, what FTL existed before "hyperdrive", in the 'official' Terran Empire/Alien Wars timeline?

Alien Wars, page 125, boxed text, gives the introduction of the Class Alpha Hypredrive as happening in 2203. Yet on page 7 it says The Colony Act was passed by the Senate on 2104. Obviously, something preceded Hyperdrive.

OK, I'll bet 2104 is a typo for 2204. Still, with Alpha Centauri 4.4 ly away, and Class Alpha going 1.2 ly per year, it would take 3.7 years for a spaceship to get to Alpha Centauri. Obviously, there is no way hyperdrive was the first FTL.

So, what is the ***OFFICIAL*** answer to "what FTL came before Class Alpha Hyperdrive?"
Or is this a lack of continuity to the TE/AW timeline?

[DrTemp]

If I remember correctly, the class Alpha was the first mass-produced hyperdrive, but prototypes were certainly available much earlier. As much as you cannot buy an ion drive for your personal space probe today at "Old Neil's used spaceship parts", the early hyperdrives were purely gouvernmental experimening drives not available to the public in a way that a "class" of drives could be called existing.

I also vaguely remember reading about slower-than-light-hyperdrives as being the first uses of that technology. If they did some 0.5 c, they were still usefull for exploration.

[Metaphysician]

IIRC, the Colony Act was passed *before* FTL was readily available. Early colonization used long-term sleeper ships.

[DrTemp]

IIRC, the Colony Act was passed *before* FTL was readily available. Early colonization used long-term sleeper ships.

Just looked it up- you are correct. The Colony Act pased the UE Senate in 2104, (no typo, the year is repeated in the text), "nearly a hundred years before the invention of Hyperdrive technology".

[Metaphysician]

Which, btw, was the main reason there were problems with the Colony Act in the context of FTL expansion. Problems that would have consequences out to a full 600 years after it was first created.

[Basil]

Just looked it up- you are correct. The Colony Act pased the UE Senate in 2104, (no typo, the year is repeated in the text), "nearly a hundred years before the invention of Hyperdrive technology".

Yes, it does. That still does not answer the question: "What FTL, if any, existed before 'Hyperdrive' in the **OFFICIAL** time-line."

IIRC, the Colony Act was passed *before* FTL was readily available. Early colonization used long-term sleeper ships.

Could you tell me where you got that from? I can't find anything in either "Alien Wars" nor "Terran Empire" regarding pre-'Hyperdrive' propulsion, other than admitting rockets existed "way back when" (BTW, why only chemical and nuclear? Ion, solar-sails, beamed energy, Bussard & catalytic ramjets, etc. are all currently-known possibilities).

As for "0.5 g" rockets, I've treated the problem of propellent mass in another thread. Any craft with a reasonable propellent mass fraction will either take *centuries* to reach the *nearest* stars, or require an energy source of staggering power *and mass*. And if you have a gigaton power source (plus support for it and the people to run it, and the people to take care of them, etc.), having a propellent *fraction* below 0.0001 will not help, and the propellent *mass* becomes ludicrous (along with the mass of the craft). So, no matter how fast your exhaust velocity is, you'll spend 95%+ of the time coasting.

Frankly, without a rubber-science STL, colonizing even handful of star systems is a 4-5 century project. *At* *best*.

So the question remains, what is Herogames' OFFICIAL explanation?

Mr. Long? Mr. Thomas? Are you listening?

[DrTemp]

Frankly, without a rubber-science STL, colonizing even handful of star systems is a 4-5 century project. *At* *best*.

Well, give them some kind of Russard ramjet, the'd have some 10% of lightspeed. Colonizing a new system would thus come down to a matter of decades.

So the question remains, what is Herogames' OFFICIAL explanation?

Mr. Long? Mr. Thomas? Are you listening?

I'd really love to read that, too. I know that Star Hero is currently not as profitable as it needs to be, but still, the settings are cool (minor difficulties aside) and I'd love to learn more about them.

[Reneshat]

Isn't it obvious? Before Hyperdrive there was really-really-really-fast drive.

[DrTemp]

Isn't it obvious? Before Hyperdrive there was really-really-really-fast drive.

There is, indeed, a tendency among some people to see it that way, but I personally find this... uhm, silly. I can have that kind of "I don't care how that works" attitude in any regular fantasy campaign. SF is, by definition, different. Especially military SF, which usually wants to be hard SF as well.

[allen]

So the question remains, what is Herogames' OFFICIAL explanation?

Mr. Long? Mr. Thomas? Are you listening?

Yeah, I'm here, but I'm not the person to give you an official explanation... however, when working on ALIEN WARS, I based the past on the Hero Universe document (that you can find here: http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/f...roUniverse.pdf)

To quote from the section on Solar Hero: "Solar Hero is a hard SF/low SF setting limited to our solar system, with perhaps tentative, slower-than-light (sleeper ship, generation ships, and the like) journeys to nearby systems...."

From the same document, FTL-drives first come into use in the first few years of the Interstellar Era (starting in 2200 and described in the same document linked above), and that's the Alpha Class Hyperdrive.

[Jhamin]

Or to take a refrence directly from a Hero Book

Galactic Champions by Darren Watts, P.25
"In the year 2149, Humanity developed true portable fusion energy sources, allowing ships to travel between planets at previously unthinkable speeds."

Apparently the first human colony was founded on Mars on 2093.

It goes on to say that hyperdrive was invented in 2203, which allowed travel at 20% faster than the speed of light. It was not until 11 years later (in 2214) that the first human colony outside the Sol system was founded on Alpha Centauri IV.

So it sounds to me like the earliest colonies were probably created using very slow chemical or Ion drives. These drives were replaced by (i'm guessing) much more powerful particle drives powered by fusion reactions.

Fusion power plants allowed STL travel for about 60 years before hyperdrive was invented, but that there was no permanent human presence outside of our solar system during that time.

[Steve Long]

So the question remains, what is Herogames' OFFICIAL explanation?

Mr. Long? Mr. Thomas? Are you listening?

We are. My official explanation is I don't want to say anything now that would tie my hands later. It may take a while, but I do want to get around to publishing those other settings at some point. Even if I wanted to delve back into it right now and come up with a quickie quasi-plausible answer I could back off of later, I don't have the time right now -- gotta finish up HC. But I'll see if I can find the time after that.

[Basil]

Well, give them some kind of Russard ramjet, the'd have some 10% of lightspeed. Colonizing a new system would thus come down to a matter of decades.

There are problems with Bussard ramjets. The Starflight Handbook gives that 0.1c figure, but it's copyright 1989, and I believe it is now thought Bussard ramjets could not achieve above circa 0.05c, if they're possible at all (which many now doubt). Also, they would need to get up to circa 0.01-0.02 c before they'd "kick over", and that would have to be achieved by rockets, solar sails, or what-have-you.

Even at 0.1c, it would take 44 years to get to Alpha Centauri (or 43 for Proxima, but I don't see that being settled until Alpha A/B settles it). If "The Colony Act" is in 2104, the colonizing ship heading to Alpha Centauri must leave by 2056 (to account for one way signal from Alpha Centauri to Earth). Actually, if Alpha Centauri has a representative in the Senate, he/she will be a native of the Solar System (rather like Uganda, say, sending a Canadian to the UN--a Canadian who can never get to Uganda). Add in the problem of 8.8 year round-trip time for communication, and the whole thing looks curiouser and curiouser.

Note, that if Bussard (and catalytic) ramjets are not possible, you throw in the whole propellent mass problem.

Frankly, IMO, what Alien Wars and Terran Empire needs is to take the Reactionless Drive from Terran Empire (p.158ff) and have them invented 5 centuries earlier. With a propellent-less drive in the mid 21st century, there's no need to worry about how a real-world STL works.

You still have decades between star systems, but that's cool for certain sorts of settings.
EDIT: Of course, you also have to treat "Flight" as acceleration, not velocity. At 600"/Turn (100 m/s), it takes 47.4 years to go 1 AU, which is useless even inside the Solar System (and way slower than what we can already do).

[DrTemp]

Frankly, IMO, what Alien Wars and Terran Empire needs is to take the Reactionless Drive from Terran Empire (p.158ff) and have them invented 5 centuries earlier. With a propellent-less drive in the mid 21st century, there's no need to worry about how a real-word STL works.

Another option might be giving Earth an actual Antimatter infrastructure and letting starships use antimatter photon drives. Those would have an exhaust speed of near c (light speed), and that'd significantly reduce the amount of propellant needed.

That kind of fuel would not be "easy to obtain", though.

[Basil]

Yeah, I'm here, but I'm not the person to give you an official explanation... however, when working on ALIEN WARS, I based the past on the Hero Universe document (that you can find here: http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/f...roUniverse.pdf)

I have that on my hard-drive, but never thought to look at it. Thanks for the reminder.
Still, it brings up the question: What "Senate Worlds" are there in 2104? If we accept a speed of 0.2c, a ship starting TODAY would reach only 10 ly by 2104 (the date of The Colony Act). That gives a choice of 7 star systems: Alpha Centauri A/B/C, Barnard's Star, Wolf 359, LP 263-64, UV Ceti A/B, Procyon A/B, and Gl 729. Note that the last of those is 9.56 ly away. It would take 95.6 years to get there, *and* 9.56 years for a message to get back to Earth, for a total "trip time" of 105.16 years. A ship leaving TODAY would not be known (for sure) to have colonized until 2109, 5 years after The Colony Act.

To quote from the section on Solar Hero: "Solar Hero is a hard SF/low SF setting limited to our solar system, with perhaps tentative, slower-than-light (sleeper ship, generation ships, and the like) journeys to nearby systems...."

I hope that some more attention will be paid to the laws of physics in Solar Hero. There are some ways to fudge things without getting too far from reality-as-we-know it, but there's lots and lots of ways to really drop the ball on realism. :|

From the same document, FTL-drives first come into use in the first few years of the Interstellar Era (starting in 2200 and described in the same document linked above), and that's the Alpha Class Hyperdrive.

OK, guess I've been answered. Frankly, I like AW and TE, but the whole chemical/nuclear-rockets-don't-need-propellent fluff just gets under my skin.