HPG-like transporters ?

[Thunderbolt]

If HPGs can act in pairs to "send-and-actively-receive" EM signals at almost twice the range of a standard Jumpship jump...

Then could IS engineers construct pairs of KF-drive equipped "transporters", perhaps space stations positioned appropriately at the Jump-points in some suitable pair of star systems...

synchronized such that each pair would simultaneously erect KF-fields...

one to "send" the cargo and the other to "actively receive" the same?

"50 light year KF transporter system for hyperspace transmission of cargo items"?? ???

[monbvol]

Not really but sort of is the best answer.

Moving actual cargo does seem to be on a completely different scale of power and technical complication.  Add in that there already exists Jumpships and Warships capable of moving cargo at 30 light years and all attempts to extend that range have had some downside, pretty serious ones depending exactly on which method you're talking about, and I doubt we'll ever see such a technology.

[Frabby]

JumpShip drive cores work in low-frequency hyperspace. They can teleport matter but are averse to gravitational influences, i. e. require jump points.

HPG cores meanwhile work in high-frequency hyperspace. They can only teleport radio waves, but apparently aren't impaired nearly as much by gravity, and can send to a planet-side receiver room.

You don't need anything beyond a regular radio to receive HPG signals. There is no such thing as an active receiver HPG.

[Easy]

File: Operation Duncecap
Archive Date: circa 2763
Source: Unverified Department of Communications
Security Level: Omega Delta

During the dizzying heights of the golden age of the first Star League, a series of tests were conducted to examine the viability of what a team of ambitious scientists called 'The JumpGate'.

According to the theory, a set of eight JumpShips were set in a planar orbit around a specially selected set of jump points in two neighboring systems. Using planetery based HPG Stations to synchronize a highly complex and arcane 'hyperspace field matrix construct' a kind of controlled worm hole would be generated, allowing non-JumpDrive capable ships to traverse interstellar space without the need for individual JumpDrives.

The immediate implications of such a technology were not lost on the First Council. After a detailed and classified study, it was determined that only the core Hegemony would have the economic and industrial strength the put such a system into operation, owing to the need for eight JumpShips to be dedicated for every route, in every system.

Although there were many who said, "This is the ******* STAR LEAGUE! We can do it!" a number of detractors posited that once the Great Houses got wind of it, the only concluding strategy they could implement in response would be general war upon the Hegemony to prevent it from gaining such a crucial strategic advantage.

Positing that travel, by any space capable ship, across the breadth of the Hegemony in a matter of days, or even hours, would allow the Terrans to save drastically on the size of their fleets, and thus afford to build the system, Hegemony leaders decided it would not be worth the risk of diverting resources and thus arousing the suspicions of Great House military institutions.

Given that, potentially, any sixteen JumpShips or WarShips could still construct the JumpGate 'tunnel', it was determined that merely scrapping the project and research would not be enough, but that the data and anyone associated with the project would have to be eliminated.

Operation Duncecap is one of many of the dirty secrets of the first Star League that have since fallen into the black hole of history, but perhaps, one day, the data will be found, or reinvented, and the dream of the JumpGate will once again command the imaginations of the common people, the scientists...

...and the Generals.

[Daryk]

Do HPG cores really teleport photons, or merely generate new photons at the destination?  I always thought it was the latter...

[worktroll]

Someone light the Cray signal ... but it was my recollection too that it was the latter.

[Thunderbolt]

Not really but sort of is the best answer.

Moving actual cargo does seem to be on a completely different scale of power and technical complication.  Add in that there already exists Jumpships and Warships capable of moving cargo at 30 light years and all attempts to extend that range have had some downside, pretty serious ones depending exactly on which method you're talking about, and I doubt we'll ever see such a technology.

I guess that's "true" (for the BT universe) for all practical purposes.

The major advantage of JS is that they are each a self-contained system that can work "on the fly" between any pair of appropriate J-pts.

Whereas a "Jump Gate" would require an enormous, advanced & expensive specialized facility at each end of a single  route between a single pair of J-pts.  One JS could carry your cargo all the way from "here" to "there", whereas two much-larger and much-more-expensive JG's could only carry your cargo on the first leg of the journey.

Just musing about game-hypothetical hyperspace theory  ???

Maybe you could imagine a far-futuristic-even-for-the-BT-universe (??) array of JGs that could "hot potato" cargo from JG to JG to JG... clear across the IS in days, hours or even minutes  :o

[Thunderbolt]

 ;D Guess I thought that HPGs had to operate in pairs, one to "open a path to Hyperspace" into which to send the photons and the other to "open a path out of Hyperspace" from which to receive the photons.  I pictured ComStar operating their HPGs according to a complex & arcane schedule ("morning mail from Sirius every third monthly Monday" , "evening packets from Aldebaran every fourth Friday") such that their HPGs would periodically power up alternatively to "transmit" or "receive" HS signals at various strange hours & odd times with a mysterious but effectual IS wide synchrony.

Given general mass-energy equivalence, it seems reasonable that what could be accomplished with light could theoretically be accomplished with matter, also.

Course this is all speculation about the fiction side of sci-fi  [blank]

File: Operation Duncecap
Archive Date: circa 2763
Source: Unverified Department of Communications
Security Level: Omega Delta

During the dizzying heights of the golden age of the first Star League, a series of tests were conducted to examine the viability of what a team of ambitious scientists called 'The JumpGate'.

According to the theory, a set of eight JumpShips were set in a planar orbit around a specially selected set of jump points in two neighboring systems. Using planetery based HPG Stations to synchronize a highly complex and arcane 'hyperspace field matrix construct' a kind of controlled worm hole would be generated, allowing non-JumpDrive capable ships to traverse interstellar space without the need for individual JumpDrives.

The immediate implications of such a technology were not lost on the First Council. After a detailed and classified study, it was determined that only the core Hegemony would have the economic and industrial strength the put such a system into operation, owing to the need for eight JumpShips to be dedicated for every route, in every system.

Although there were many who said, "This is the ******* STAR LEAGUE! We can do it!" a number of detractors posited that once the Great Houses got wind of it, the only concluding strategy they could implement in response would be general war upon the Hegemony to prevent it from gaining such a crucial strategic advantage.

Positing that travel, by any space capable ship, across the breadth of the Hegemony in a matter of days, or even hours, would allow the Terrans to save drastically on the size of their fleets, and thus afford to build the system, Hegemony leaders decided it would not be worth the risk of diverting resources and thus arousing the suspicions of Great House military institutions.

Given that, potentially, any sixteen JumpShips or WarShips could still construct the JumpGate 'tunnel', it was determined that merely scrapping the project and research would not be enough, but that the data and anyone associated with the project would have to be eliminated.

Operation Duncecap is one of many of the dirty secrets of the first Star League that have since fallen into the black hole of history, but perhaps, one day, the data will be found, or reinvented, and the dream of the JumpGate will once again command the imaginations of the common people, the scientists...

...and the Generals.

[Red Pins]

You might be thinking of the fiction stories with two-way conversations.

IIRC, the HPG opens a ‘pinhole’ jump point that it beams a highly condensed data stream.  Check Sarna battletechwiki or ask the writers if you’re curious.

[monbvol]

I guess that's "true" (for the BT universe) for all practical purposes.

The major advantage of JS is that they are each a self-contained system that can work "on the fly" between any pair of appropriate J-pts.

Whereas a "Jump Gate" would require an enormous, advanced & expensive specialized facility at each end of a single  route between a single pair of J-pts.  One JS could carry your cargo all the way from "here" to "there", whereas two much-larger and much-more-expensive JG's could only carry your cargo on the first leg of the journey.

Just musing about game-hypothetical hyperspace theory  ???

Maybe you could imagine a far-futuristic-even-for-the-BT-universe (??) array of JGs that could "hot potato" cargo from JG to JG to JG... clear across the IS in days, hours or even minutes  :o

With how Battletech is presented it is tough to see things going that way.

But doing up an AU where things are a bit different?  I'm actually not against adding some super science to spice things up a bit.

So if you can figure out a way to make it interesting for your games/stories, go for it.

[Daryk]

I'd think the emergence wave of the "pinhole" jump point would be enough to signal with, hence my thought that HPGs simply generate "new" photons at the destination.