On Jan 21, 2011, at 2:29 PM, Clinton N. Fell wrote: > Much smaller deep space gates may be the way to go - capable of sending > 10KTon ships would "only" cost about 170 billion each and take about > 1/30th of a Morethan jumpgate of materials. 8 small gates could be > constructed (allowing the 18 ly gap to be bridged in both directions) or > even just 2 if long delays are acceptable. I would be tempted to go even > smaller but the Morethan's do like their big intimidating spacecraft.
Judging by this, the smaller the size of the object sent through the smaller a gate required. Given that and the need to send some starting materials through, I think nearly-immediate confirmation is possible. You aren't going to be able to send an expedition force and expect them to create all the tools needed for specialized materials. It is reasonable to have them mine for raw materials and create the frame and structure that is the large return gate. It most likely isn't reasonable to expect them to be able to create the type of complicated fabrication tools that are required for building the electronics, control systems, etc of the gate. So, you need a pre-fab gate core and expedition you initially send through. Since the size of gate depends on mass sent, you take your pre-fab gate pieces and put just enough frame around them to send back a small data probe. The probe is only big enough to get through the gate with the data and transmit a tracing beacon so it can be picked up. Meanwhile, assuming they didn't explode on entry the expedition starts working on the structure for the full-sized return gate. If the gate core gets destroyed, they are at best stranded and at worst dead since they don't have the tools and manufacturing capability to create a new one. It also means a pony-express style communication system could be set up with gates just big enough for the probes to go through. If this is done, you make the probes be a robot capable of propelling itself from one gate to the next and finally to a destination station / spaceship. -Bret_______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
