Re: (TFT) Gates and linear accelerators.

[Thorn <edt@dopey.ne.mediaone.net>]

Pasha and or Rick Smith wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
>         The whole gate / linear accelerator wouldn't
> work in my campaign.  I would say that any and all
> gates will slow what ever comes out of a gate pair to
> within a few meters per second of the second gate's
> speed.

The whole gate / linear accelerator thing wouldn't work in your game
because you've increased the failure rate and included an instant
failure during the minute of grace the canon (not a typo) spell gives.

One nice thing about your gates as described by you above is that
they'll function as parachutes.  Some cliff somewhere must have a gate
at the bottom that goes back to the top, just near a turnstyle with a
sign that says:

You must be THIS TALL  >
To jump from the cliff >


>         This way if you have gates between two
> worlds that are moving in opposite directions, you
> get a bit of a 'kick' stepping between worlds but no
> worse than that.  The fact that the worlds are moving
> towards each other at (say) 32,000 km/s does not
> make anything that steps between them an atom
> bomb waiting to happen.

That kick might make trade difficult.  Fragile stuff is suddenly
accelerated as though by a pulse of gravity.  Sure, you can protect the
eggshells, but all the yolks are broken...  :)  Wrap those gemstones
individually, or they'll scratch against each other.  Hmmm...  Explosive
Gems could be set off using this feature.

A hostile could use that 'kick' to trigger some other effect, too.  And
you wouldn't need to go to another world, the difference in velocity
pole-to-equator is enough that you'd need to invoke this feature.  (Old
Traveller had a great discussion of this, in Psionics, under Teleport)

I always figured the speed of the transportee relative to the arrival
gate was the same as the speed they had entering the departure gate.  IF
you're running, you come out running; if you're walking, you come out
walking.  No unexpected acceleration/deceleration.  Otherwise, it's
possible to build a gate pair situated so that the 'kick' pushes you
back through the gate, where the 'kick' pushes you back through the
gate, where the 'kick' pushes you...

And with gates failing instantly on a failure while destabilized...
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