Mneme jump drives and, of course, our rocketry mechanics are there to help adapt Cepheus Engine and Traveller to remove Gravitics - for a different method of enjoying sci-fi. When you start using reaction drives, the distances of 100 Diameters and traveling multiple Astronomical Units will take months to years unless large amounts of Delta-V are used. We will set the Apolo Program's Saturn-V as a baseline of performance.
Mneme Jump Drive Technology
In the Mneme universe, Jump Drives harness the peculiar properties of the quantum vacuum, where fleeting virtual particles pop in and out of existence. This technology manipulates these virtual particles to create a "null field"—a unique region in space where not even virtual particles exist. By engineering this null field, the Mneme Jump Drive distorts the fabric of space-time, effectively eliminating the distance between two points in space.
Operation of the Mneme Jump Drive:
Creation of Null Field: The Jump Drive generates a null field by manipulating the quantum vacuum. This field temporarily negates the existence of space itself between two designated points, allowing for instantaneous travel without traversing the intervening space.
Navigation and Prediction: Given the challenges of space travel over vast distances, where destinations are observed as they appeared years in the past due to the speed of light, Mneme Jump Drives incorporate advanced predictive algorithms. These algorithms are crucial for aligning the null field with the destination point, particularly focusing on Lagrange points—regions of relative gravitational stability influenced by the two largest celestial bodies in a star system. These points provide predictable locations that minimize navigational errors and perturbations from cosmic variables.
Energy and Computation Requirements: The energy required to create and maintain the null field increases with the distance to be traveled, subjecting the drive to significant computational and energetic demands. These factors limit the operational range of a single jump, introducing a practical constraint on the frequency and distance of jumps based on the ship's power capabilities.
Maintenance and Wear: Unlike traditional Jump Drive systems that consume fuel, the Mneme Jump Drive's main expenditure is not fuel but the integrity of its components. Each jump incurs significant wear and tear on the drive, necessitating regular maintenance and replacement of parts to keep the system operational. Ships equipped with multiple Jump Drives can perform successive jumps without immediate maintenance, offering strategic flexibility in deep-space operations.
Travel Within Star Systems: As the Mneme setting does not incorporate reactionless maneuver drives, all intra-system movement relies on conventional reaction mass-driven propulsion. Ships at TL9 will default with Fusion Thermal Rockets with a typical 0.5 km/s per minute of burn /acceleration per 0.75% of HULL-DT of metallic-hydrogen enriched fuel. Ships like the 100DT courier would have around 21.95 km/s, 200DT Merchant Trader 9.4 km/s, 300DT Frontier Trader 10.98 km/s. We wont go into detailed orbital mechanics - we will use the simple Delta-V budget system and simply create delat-V budgets for worlds and positions (this will be automated in Mneme World Generator as I'm having it commissioned to become a Static web page people can save on their phone or desktop to make calculations and can export and import json/csv files for persistent storage.
According to quantum field theory, even the vacuum of space isn't completely empty. It's filled with quantum fields that are constantly fluctuating in and out of existence. These fluctuations manifest as particle-antiparticle pairs that appear and then annihilate each other almost instantaneously. These pairs are also known as "virtual particles." This phenomenon is a direct consequence of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which suggests that there is a fundamental limit to how precisely we can simultaneously know the properties (like position and momentum) of a particle.
Regarding particles gathering at the edge of a singularity, this refers to the theoretical prediction of Hawking Radiation around black holes. According to Stephen Hawking's groundbreaking theory, black holes are not completely black but emit radiation due to quantum effects near their event horizons (the boundary around a black hole from which nothing can escape). The intense gravitational fields at the event horizon can cause these virtual particle-antiparticle pairs to split, with one particle falling into the black hole and the other escaping as radiation. This process leads to the gradual evaporation of black holes over astronomical timescales.
This is the basis of the null field, that forces can act on Virtual particles. There is "Something" that allows Virtual Particles to exist, and the concept of eliminating or avoiding that "Something" that makes up the distance between objects.
Quantum entanglement is another fascinating aspect of quantum mechanics where pairs or groups of particles interact in ways that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the state of the others, even when the particles are separated by large distances. This phenomenon was termed "spooky action at a distance" by Einstein, who was skeptical of its implications. Entanglement challenges our classical ideas of locality and causality because changes to one entangled particle's state can instantaneously affect its partner's state, regardless of the distance separating them.
This is the basis of distance being removed between two points. Can distance be removed? That there exist gaps in the universe, places that we cannot exist in, and when matter or particles ignore when passing through it - making them appear on the other side.
All these ideas combined together, like the Alcubierre drive and the curvature of spacetime, make one wonder - we are not violating the speed of light, but we are finding ways around distances and space. When you realize that - galaxies traveling away from each other near the speed of light are relatively faster than the speed of light, it is a matter of nuance and detail that allows us to discover powerful workarounds and laws of the universe.
Reflections on my Isekai writing and Mneme Scifi.
My Isekai writing is me writing a story that will remove someone's boredom. What is so interesting about it is that I know with so many manga recaps or manga or manhua stories retold on YouTube, I don't need to be good. It could even be trash, and people will still listen to it because it is better than being bored. You can look at the worst one and still see hundreds of people listening to it. But because the bar is so low, I have the freedom to make it the way I want to make it.
Then there is Mneme, which me trying to make Hard-Scifi more accessible hoping that this niche would develop. It's not making the most amazing TRPG material, it's supposed to make the science in sci-fi interesting and accessible. You don't need a whole lot of math, and with AI being around to test our understanding (I compare the outputs of Gemini plus, GPT4turbo, Worlfram Alpha, and soon Llama3m Mystral with H2Ogpt ). It's not trying to compete to be the best, it's trying to be more accessible - by making all the tools as easy to modify and edit as possible. The referee/game master can prepare it in a few minutes - hence the software tools, 3d Models, and Production workflow, and taking advantage of my costs being from the Philippines.
There is no BEST. There are goals, and they are based on my values. They just happen to align with other people's interests.
