Hello Jim,
On 06/26/2020 6:53 PM Jim Catchpole - jlcatchpole at googlemail.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
Hi Tom,
If you take that excerpt on it's own, then you could draw that conclusion, however I would make the following points:-
Firstly, that is part of the descriptive text for a typical jump, not the technical section (and it says '...a large store of fuel...' not '... a large store of the fuel...'). The following text in that section also describes the process of starting the jump, which is all in terms of the charged up jump drive. No mention of using fuel for anything.
Thank you for catching the unintended insertion of "the" into the text. Unfortunately, I was having issues with the ISP's in browser email restarting the email.
Without the power plant being fed a large amount of fuel a typical jump drive can not be charged under the details from CT LBB 5 HG 2e 1980 and/or CT LBB 2 1977/1981.
Secondly, the previous section carefully itemises all the requirements for a jump (power source, energy storage nodes, strong hull, computer and jump coils), and does not mention fuel anywhere. All it says is that fusion power plants are the usual power source.
Taken together, I read it that MM did not regard fuel as being used for any part of the actual jump process, whatever earlier books may have stated or implied.
The first step of the jump process is charging the jump drive's capacitors from a power source. CT LBB 5 HG 2e and CT LBB 2 1977/1981 the power source is a fusion power plant which converts fuel into energy that is needed to charge the capacitors. Additionally, the two books require that both the jump drive and power plant to have separate fuel tankage.
In many science and technical documentation I've noticed that they more often not skip basics assuming the reader will know the basics.
My impression of CT is that the contradictions are mostly due to an evolving picture of jump drive through the books. Along with all the other rule changes (of which there are many), they changed things in a steady progression, finishing with JTAS #24 - before MT changed everything again. Trying to reconcile them into one viewpoint is not going to work because they contradict each other, let alone trying to reconcile the later versions as well.
I agree that there was an evolving picture of the jump drive starting with Traveller 1e LBB 2 1977 which did not link the jump drive to the ship's power plant. With the release of CT LBB 5 HG 1979 and 1980 the jump drive became linked with the power plant which was repeated in the release of CT LBB 2 1977/1981.
In 1977 the jump drive consumed all its fuel during a single jump regardless of the distance actually jump.
CT LBB 5 HG 1979 changed jump drive fuel consumption to using only the fuel to make a specific jump distance. The jump governor was introduce to so that CT LBB 2 1977 jump drives would not use all of their fuel when used in an HG 1979 design and linked the drive to the power plant.
CT LBB 5 HG 2e 1980 omitted the jump governor but kept the link between the jump drive and power plant which resulted in the release of CT LBB 2 1977/1981 that revised jump fuel consumption to match.
GDW JTAS 25's article in 1985 attempted to put details into the jump drive which from a certain point of view was accomplished.
MT reverted back to CT LBB 2 1977 by separating the jump drive from the power plant.
Tom Rux