Physics and an apology

First, sorry about that last attempt.  That's what comes of having a
mailer which sends off a message when you hit "return", and using it
first thing on Monday morning.  Wipe egg off face, try again. :-)

PAVEWAY [email removed] writes:
>					MT is an SF game and as such it has
> some of the standard props of Sci-Fi eg. FTL in the form of the jump drive
> and a reactionless drive, your friend and mine the Thruster plate drive.
> Now from my days as a failed A-level physics student I recall that these
> devices are in  the light of most accepted theory Utter Tosh.  The thing is
> that there seems to be a lot of time and energy going into trying to come
> up with ideas for said props that conform to our current view of reality.

The problem is that some of them can't be made to conform to our current view
of reality, but something equally useful can.  FTL travel apparently causes
trouble with the Theory of Relativity, but Traveller won't travel far without
it, so people generally accept that one.  Reactionless drives definitely
cause problems with Relativity and Conservation of Energy, and even I who
never took physics beyond high school can prove it on paper.  (Or on a VDU,
if you want.)  Reactionless drives are also completely unnecessary.  What
upset a lot of people is that there is no reason for using them, when a
good old reaction drive will do just as well.  It's sort of like trying to
use an alien which eats a modest amount, never excretes, and outruns
an antelope.

>			This is all well and fine but I have never had
> that much trouble with the technology in MT needing over much explaination,
> You have a jump drive that you put fuel in and push a button.... fine
> The M-drive takes fuel in one end and pushes you along..... Why gild the lily?

A lot of us started with the original Traveller, which tried to keep magic
boxes like that to a minimum.  It still had a few (jump drive, for a start)
because they were necessary for an interstellar SF game.  But MT is full
of them, and some (e.g. the reactionless drive) are not necessary.

>			The Physics in SF deal with acheiving either the
> impossible or doing stuff we can't manage Yet.

That's just it.  Traveller tried to keep the impossible bits to a minimum.
MT doesn't care what is possible.

>   I shall start throwing the odd alien into the TML for people to peruse
>  as well as a few more whinges on what I don't like about the MT universe.

Good.  That will make a change from all the vehicle designs.  :-)  Do you
fancy writing some alien design rules?  :-) :-)

- --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!uknet!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian   |  ARPA:   [email removed]