posted
But they could put the jump gate anywhere... right? Shouldn't there be another gate in orbit of Earth, too? I don't think there can only be one gate per system... after all, in "Endgame," there were separate beacons (implying gates) for Earth and Mars.
quote:...but we stray off topic.
This is Flare. It's unusual when we DON'T go off-topic.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I would think you would want to put the gate at a point that's a good compromise between not being too close to your main inhabited areas (because who knows who might come through?) and not being too far away from same (because who wants a travel farther than they have to to get to it?).
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I think placing the jumpgate in the Jovian system is a way of creating a bottleneck, for both economic and defensive purposes. (Think Panama or Suez) It'd make it easier to manage the small fry traffic that has to use the gates to get around, while the beacons are for the larger military ships to jump around wherever want since they don't need the gate.
Indeed the reason for putting the gate over Io could be precisely because it's uninhabitable, so it can't be used by smugglers, raiders etc as a staging area near the jumpgate but still provide a stable gravity well to orbit around.
posted
But how fast are B5's sublight engines? We know it only takes a matter of minutes to jump from Mars to Earth, and likely the same for Jupiter. Somehow I'd think that it would be just as sensible to have bigger defenses around an Earth-orbit gate as make every single commercial transport truck out at a small percentage of sublight out to Jupiter before getting out of the system. Especially because it would never stop any military from attacking, because they'd be able to form their own jump points anyway.
I think there's got to be an (unseen) gate near Earth, that just wasn't used in "Endgame" because of strategic necessity.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I agree that a Jumpgate, or lack there of would have the slightest effect on an enemy fleet (that's what the ODP's and the early warning system is for.)
However, your assumption that all the commercial traffic is going to be slowed down significantly by the distance to Earth may be misplaced. I mean, do we think Earth actually produces anything (other than red tape) anymore? My feeling is that Mars and the Jovian moons are the industrial centers of the Earth Alliance; why else oppress Mars so much and how else could they hope to be independent unless they had an established economic infrastructure?
If that is the case then Io is indeed the ideal place to route the system's comercial traffic through.
As for how fast their sublight engines are; good point, no idea, it was never really addressed. Having said that we've seen a Whitestar (admittedly the fastest ship around) get from Ganymede to Jupiter in about 2 minutes. *dose some quick and quite possibly inaccurate calculations* That's about 1.32 AU per hour, or 0.18 C. Assuming an Omega-Class is about half as fast (once it's had time to accelerate), it could make the trip from Earth to the Transfer Point in as little as....oh bugger it, I never was very good that this stuff. Suffice to say that I doubt most in system freighters have to travel for much more than a few days, a week at the outside (depending on it's course) to get from TP to Earth. For most people and goods that's an acceptable amount of time and for the rich and important, I'm sure jump point capable ship are available for a price.
posted
Round it to 1 AU per hour for a fast ship, and it would take between roughly 4 and 6 hours (depending on which side of the Sun each planet is) to make the run. Multiply depending on how much slower an average transport is. (i.e. an Omega could be 8 to 12 hours, a barge 16 to 24 hours...)
I suppose it's not as bad as I originally thought (I was thinking a few days, honestly). However, when that trip can be cut to a few minutes, I think that there would be plenty of people willing to build a jumpgate right on Earth's doorstep. Especially considering that the people owning the gate would get to charge for it.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I think what were really disagreeing on is if Earth is the hub of the Solar system or is it the Jovian System.
For me the proof is simply that we know Jupiter has a jumpgate and we've never seen even a hint of one near Earth (or more logically, Luna.)
Of course it is possible that there is one, I just don't think it's needed. To me the only evidence that there should be on there is the presence of a jumpgate over some of the other race's homeworlds'. I'm pretty sure Drazi had one and the Markab homeworld, Centauri prime I'm not sure about, neither do I think we saw one over Mimbar or Narn.
Getting back to sublight speeds, think how difficult it would be to track and intercept a fast shuttle or fighter wing if they jumped from a gate in Earth orbit before they could do some significant damage. With the gate over by Jupiter, such hit and run attack (military & criminal) are more managable. There's also safety to consider, just what kind of damage would it do if someone blew the gate in orbit of an inhabited planet? Bare in mind, when we saw the "bonehead manoeuvre", the whitestar barely cleared the blast radius and it took about 30 seconds.
posted
Yeah, that's a lot of energy going through the gate.
As for sublight speed, anyone remember how far Sector 14 (where B4 was located) was from B5? For some reason, I seem to remember Sinclair and Garibaldi saying that the trip would take 5 hours.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
It was three hours, but they were using shuttles and Starfuries. I'm sure other ships would have been able to get there faster, but at that time they didn't have the Whitestar or any capital ships floating aroudn to be used.
posted
Some actual info (some reliable, some not):
(Hmmm, HTML brackets not allowed?) Google "wikipedia Io Babylon 5" and hit the first result.
From JMS, it looks like Io is indeed a space station (with accompanying moon-side base). The distance is due to security.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I liked the bit about taking down the Centauri bought gate from Earth orbit due to security concerns. Makes you wonder if Earthdome thought the sneeky, pointy haired buggers might have rigged it somehow.
posted
Earth originally purchased hyperspace technology from the Centauri ages ago, which supposedly included Earth's first jumpgates. Earth has since figured out how to build their own, of course, and most of the gates we see are Earth or Centauri gates (which look pretty much the same). The Narn use gates with three "limbs", and the Minbari and Vorlons tend to use ships that make their own jump points when they're not using other species' gates.
The only Vorlon "gate" we've seen was that ridiculous sarcophagus we saw in that ridiculous Thirdspace movie...
posted
nonono... I knew that Earth at first bought from the Centauri, and later built their own based on the Centauri gates. I was asking about the "taking down the Centauri bought gate from Earth orbit" bit - I don't remember hearing that.
Registered: Jul 2002
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