A Jump Space Question

[brass]

What does Jump space feel like or look like? Just musing on starting a game and wondered if someone could tell me.

[sn0wball]

Originally Posted by brass

What does Jump space feel like or look like? Just musing on starting a game and wondered if someone could tell me.

You can´t see anything. If you get to touch jump space - that is, leave the ship during jump, you´ll at least go temporarily if not permanently insane. Just don´t bother what´s behind the wall during jump.

[knuddel]

yes ... staring to much in jumpspace makes you insane ... just close the window and make you comfortable ;)
you don't want to look out of the window ...

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by knuddel

yes ... staring to much in jumpspace makes you insane ... just close the window and make you comfortable ;)
you don't want to look out of the window ...

you dont want to see the Stage Ninja's changing the set after all ;)

[enpeze]

yes ... staring to much in jumpspace makes you insane ... just close the window and make you comfortable ;)
you don't want to look out of the window


Well, thanks for the good tip. :) But this does not well explain the stuff which is "out there". Is in GT no physical or at least visual concept for this important question?

Just to say "dont "look out of the window and make yourself comfortable" does not do it for me.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by enpeze

yes ... staring to much in jumpspace makes you insane ... just close the window and make you comfortable ;)
you don't want to look out of the window


Well, thanks for the good tip. :) But this does not well explain the stuff which is "out there". Is in GT no physical or at least visual concept for this important question?

Just to say "dont "look out of the window and make yourself comfortable" does not do it for me.

I think the idea is that you really, truely cannot see anything. It is not just an absense of light, that's just black. Rather, it simply does not register on your field of vision, kind of like a giant blind spot, or trying to see out the back of your head. You know you have a blind spot on each retina, yet you cannot see them? Your brain compensates for this lack of information by "filling in" with what is around it - but sometimes you can deduce the blind spot's presence. In a dark room, if there is one small softly lit object (a red LED display on a clock or something) and you look a bit off center to it with one eye (close the other one), the object will just dissapear. Look directly at it, it reappears, shift your eyes so it lies on your blind spot, and it disappears again. People with damaged retinas sometimes experience the same effect when trying to look at something whose image falls on the damaged part of the retina - this leads to cases where people have had tiny holes burned out of their retina by multiple exposures to high powered lasers loosing about 60% of their visual field and still thinking they can see just fine.

Now imagine this trying to happen with an entire window. You would rationally know it was there, you could see the sill, the drapes, the blinds, but ... no window. There should be something to fill in that missing space, but your brain cannot interpret it, so it blocks it out of your visual field.

Anyway, that's my guess about it. Take it or leave it as you see fit.

Luke

[daryen]

Originally Posted by enpeze

Well, thanks for the good tip. :) But this does not well explain the stuff which is "out there". Is in GT no physical or at least visual concept for this important question?

Just to say "dont "look out of the window and make yourself comfortable" does not do it for me.

Well, what Jump Space exactly is has always been skirted by Traveller. All that we really know canonically is that looking at "Jump Space" has been known to cause some people to become unstable. (Of course, this has always been told in such a way that you have to question whether they were unstable in the first place.) It's not guaranteed to make someone crazy, it just seems to affect some people that way.

The only other thing we know is that there was one person, sometime around 1111, who exitted a ship, touched Jump Space, and lived to tell about it. Last we heard of the fellow, he was recovering nicely and was apparently not insane.

Everything else you have ever heard about Jump Space is purely "legend".

And, IMO, that is a good thing. Jump Space should be unknown and unknowable. It should remain a mystery. It should remain undefined in "game terms".

So, for all practical purposes, Jump Space is whatever you as a referee make of it. Are there Lovecraftian creatures lurking out there? Is there a psionic component to jumpspace? Can watching the ebbs and flows of jumpspace unhinge some? Can it provide enlightenment? Is this all just a bunch of hooey? I don't know; you decide.

[sn0wball]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

I think the idea is that you really, truely cannot see anything. It is not just an absense of light, that's just black. Rather, it simply does not register on your field of vision, kind of like a giant blind spot, or trying to see out the back of your head. You know you have a blind spot on each retina, yet you cannot see them?

Now imagine this trying to happen with an entire window. You would rationally know it was there, you could see the sill, the drapes, the blinds, but ... no window. There should be something to fill in that missing space, but your brain cannot interpret it, so it blocks it out of your visual field.

Anyway, that's my guess about it. Take it or leave it as you see fit.

Luke

A great description. Sounds a bit like Cthulhu, if you ask me. Your mind just can´t comprehend reality. If you stare into the abyss, it stares back at you. There is this one tale from Lovecraft, where they looked into another dimention, until something loooked back from there.

Perhaps just nobody knows for sure in the traveller universe. There are tales, you know. That guy from Regina, I met last year on the rim run, his aunt served on a cruiser whose captain had this accident and looked out of the window at the wrong time. He didn´t know his name any longer, but he babbled many strange a tale ...

If you throw in something like that from time to time and then there comes this accident, where someone HAS to fix the hull from outside during the jump ... just cling tightly to the hull and DONT TURN AROUND !

Perhaps if he does, nothing would happen. ;) But if it doesn´t scare the hell out of the players, nothing will.

[LKW]

I get asked this question a fair amount. One time served as the inspiration for a fan to create a filk in my honor.

I have several answers to the question (the one I gave to the guy who called me at 3:00 AM to ask it consisted mostly of obscenities), but here's the one I use these days:

"The only person to survive direct exposure to jumpspace went totally insane . . . or at least that's what everybody says"

[enpeze]

Originally Posted by LKW

"The only person to survive direct exposure to jumpspace went totally insane . . . or at least that's what everybody says"

Sounds like a cheesy SF-Horror plot ala Warhammer 40k... Well I suggest if you are totally insane in the GT universe, swallow some wonder drugs from Intergalactic Kmart and you are cured. :)

What I want to say with it, is that in GT, imperial science should be able to treat most mental illnesses without much problem. I mean even at TL7-8 we can treat some illnesses with good drugs.

Of course another idea would be if there is a mysterious mental illness like "Jumpspace Fever" or so, which cannot be healed even with TL 12 knowledge.