Trinity RPG - The colonies

[BlueNinja]

Since I have nothing better to do right now ::happy , I sat down with a ruler to see if I could measure out about where the various Leviathans were sent off to. The distance between Earth and Alpha Centauri is about 4 light years, which corresponds almost exactly to 2/10s of an inch. So, using that scale to measure just the flat, lateral distance from Earth:

Qinshui is 22 light years away. Rather close by!

Far Nyumba is at least 23 light years away.

Karroo in the Crab Nebula is 16 light years away laterally. But the recorded distance of it is 6,000 light years. Which makes either the map wholly inaccurate, or it's waaay up/down from Earth. Since the most accurate maps place it in a separate arm of the galaxy I think I might be changing a few locations for my Trinity game.

So sadly, it's not accurate. But that was the best I could try and come up with.

this mapseems to be a bit more accurate to place the planets within close proximity.

[Blue Thunder]

Wait, wait...so how far away is the Crab Nebula?

[BlueNinja]

Wait, wait...so how far away is the Crab Nebula?

According to astronomical websites, the Crab Nebula is 6000 light-years away, in a different arm of the galaxy.

Going by the little map they put in the Extrasolar Colonies splat book, though, if you use a ruler and measure the distance between Earth and Alpha Centauri as being 4.3 light years, then the Crab Nebula on that map is only about 16 light-years away. So the map is inaccurate - not just for distance, but even in the shape of the Milky Way galaxy.

Say, here's a question on things that I don't remember seeing in the books: How long in real-time does it actually take a teleporter to go from Alpha Centauri's colony back to Earth, and how much longer does it take a Leviathan to do so?

[Goober]

The distance travelled has no relation to the time the journey takes. For a 'porter it takes a single non-zero but effectivley instantaneous moment to go from A to B.

For a Leviathan I think, IIRC, that the subjective period is between 8 and 24 hours, but to the outside observer it can be anything from one to 3 weeks.

My take on the map was that its a visual representation of a clears noetic co-ordinates, not the physical locations of the systems. Clears can look at the map and go "Ahh.... Its blue Aleph near the reverse constrictional flux gyre", as though those directions were the most obvious in the world, whilst everybody else looks at the clear and says "Huh?"

G.

[Blue Thunder]

Actually, teleportation isn't instantaneous for a teleporter. It matters on how familiar they are with an area. It may seem like an instant to them, but it can sometimes take a week just to complete the jump if they aren't familiar with an area. It can even go up to a month and more. Clairsentients change this. When a teleporter links up with a clear (via telepathy or a biotech device) they gain a much clearer perception of their destination, even if they've never been there before.

If a teleporter is familiar with a location, s/he can get there quicker than a Leviathon. And also consider that a Leviathon uses a clear to set it's coordinates and it still takes a while to jump, whereas a teleporter with a clear would take an hour (I think).

[Alistaire]

Going by the little map they put in the Extrasolar Colonies splat book, though, if you use a ruler and measure the distance between Earth and Alpha Centauri as being 4.3 light years, then the Crab Nebula on that map is only about 16 light-years away. So the map is inaccurate - not just for distance, but even in the shape of the Milky Way galaxy.

Given that most of the distances are in thousands of ly, the relative position of KLG to Earth is going to be so slight (on a scale of only inches) as to not even be perceptible, unless using very, very tiny dots. Since the designators they use (big fuzzy dots) are probably a good couple of ly themselves on this scale, it seems reasonable that they had to move KLG out a bit so that it wasn't overlapping with Earth.

So yeah, not that accurate, but not out by orders of magnitude as your calculations suggest.

[Rorx]

Ok, I know this is very old stuff, but just in case any one still thinks this map is totally wrong here is my view on it. Space is 3D and this map is 2D what's missing here is the z-axis, in the x-y plane as shown in the picture the systems could all be quite close together, while still being strung out thousands of LY in the z-axis.

Alternatively it could be as previously suggested a Clear's eye view that bears no relation to physical space.