comments on Magic vs reality

I see several people arguing that "But you objected to the thruster
plates and now you object to the fusion drives..." or similar
arguments.

What the "realism" folks objected to about the MT thruster plates was
not *primarily* that they were reactionless. That's no worse than the
jump drive. It makes for some problems in trying to calculate what can
and can't be done, because you can't be sure *how* it suprcedes the
currently known laws of physics (note: it is an ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that
any "new laws of physics discovered will *include* the currently know
ones as "special cases" that apply UNDER THE CONDITIONS WE HAVE
CURRENTLY CHECKED. Just as Relativistic Physics *includes* Newtonian
Physics as a "special case for speeds below 1% of c)

Anyway, the problem with reactionless drives was that as described in
the rules, they used far less energy than they gave to the ship. That
plays hell with *any* sort of history of the Imperium, because anybody
who'd taken high school physics could see this, and use it to do things
that'd result in a far different universe than we see.

They *also* allowed anybody with a Scout ship to wreck entire *worlds*,
not just cities (check the archives for my posts on what a relativitic
missile does to a planet!)

Anybody who thinks I'm being silly here has never gamed with player who
will sit down with the rules and exploit them to the max. I'm not
talking about "rules lawyers as much as brilliant opportunists. "Hey
look! Nobody has noticed that you can do X! And it's even *legal*".
And if players can notice it, some bright boy in the Imperium would
have noticed it a thousand years ago.

Now they've solved both those problems. Though the drive is *still*
apparently about 5 times as good as the best figures I ever heard
claimed. :-)

Now we just have cities to worry about, not entire worlds. And there
may be ways of doing that. But any approach that amounts to introducing
*real* nagic, as opposed to unknown physics doesn't belong here.

I consider "real magic" to be anything that insists that the currently
known laws of physics don't apply under conditions that have already
beeen observed. Which means that fusion rockets will not and cannot be
harmless. But their effects may be more or less limited than has been
supposed.

BTW, the objection that it seems unreasonable for things that far in
the future to be based on principles that we can understand is rather
silly. A *Roman* engineer could understand much of the operating
principles of a car or truck. He'd not understand *why* the cylinders
moved up and down, or any of the electrical system. But everything else
would be quite clear. The worksmanship would be astounding, but the
principles of mechanics have been known for several thousand years...

Likewise we can't understand how they can get the fusion reaction to
occur, nor how they can confine it. But after that, things follow well
known principles. Give us a few numbers and we can tell you what that
fusion rocket will do.

We can't understand the jump drive. But we don't need to. And
Contragravity may be non-understandabler, but its *effects* are easily
figured.

Yes, it is just a game. But *any* game where the rules don't match
reality is going to get itself into tyrouble because this *will* set up
internal contradictions. We "realism freaks" would prefer to find and
correct these thiongs *before* they bite us.

Oh yes, please note that modern ships and planes are about as dangerous
as Traveller starships in reference to the culture. A 707 can make a
decent bomber. And the Soviet cargo and passenger planes up thru the
70s or 80s were *designed* with the equivalent odf "hard points"!
Likewise an average freighter has a powerplant comparable to that of a
small town! In the future, there is no reason not to expect things to
be similar.

Just for fun, figure out what a mach 2 airliner could do to an average
town if it made a *low* level pass at mach 2. (Answer, the shock wave
would *flatten* most frame houses and cause *major* structural damage to
everything else!) Yet we'd not consider having one of these in private
hands to be all that dangerous.

I maintain that IN PROPORTION TO THE CULTURE'S ENERGY USE AND SIZE, a
starship with a fusion rocket (if that's what they use) is no more
dangerous.

Think back over our history here on earth. We've had aircraft and
shipping disasters of a size that would *horrify* folks a few hundred
years ago. (like the jumbo jet that crashed into a residential
neighborhood  here about 15 years back. Wiped out 4 block, plus all the
passengers). Or the Texas City disaster where *one* freighter took out
most of a city. The idea of one man controlling something thast could
kill *thousand* of people, and having it accepted as commonplace WOULD
NOT HAVE BEEN BELIEVED. But we do.

So why is it so hard to believe thaty a culture with populations in the
*trillions* (or possibly qudrillions?) is not going to think much of a
vehicle that is relatively speaking, about as hard to get as a
freighter or jumbo jet, could destroy a few million people if the
operator chose to?
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