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From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Teleportation and the olde fisicks
Message-ID: <1427@shark.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Jun-85 03:29:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.1427
Posted: Wed Jun 12 03:29:27 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Jun-85 01:15:32 EDT
References: <2979@drutx.UUCP>
Reply-To: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 95
Summary: 

In article <2979@drutx.UUCP> slb@drutx.UUCP (Sue Brezden) writes:
>> 
>>        Also,  If you are falling at a velocity of say 15m/sec and you 
>>     teleport back to your castle are you going to be mashed into the 
>>     floor??  If so & if you teleported so you "landed" up-side-down 
>>     would you go flying up into the air??

This breaks down into several questions, depending on the method by
which teleporting is accomplished.  If it is "word of recall" the
wording guarantees you a safe arrival.  "Word of recall" does depend
on the benificence of a deity, though.
If teleporting via magic, (under the system I run, which is a mongrel
many years in the making) the spell may not have the fine control
necessary to make it all work nicely.  We also have several ways
to cast this magic spell.  Obviously a tport via a teleportal will
normalize motion relative to the frame of reference of the reciever.
So, if you are bashed through an active portal, you are still flying
through the air when you get to the "other" side.  But a tport via
a self-cast spell may not work at all under such circumstances; the
distractions of falling/being knocked about would prevent the complex
gesticulations and so on...  If the spell is cast via a focus, an
amulet, a sword, a ring, or some other "instant-on" device, it might
work, but depending on the skill of the spellcaster who BUILT the
article, I would adjust success chances for the more complex conversion
between frames of reference.
Now, if the teleportation is via some variation on psionic power, it
can be trained to a reflex, in which case, the teleporter can use a
little more effort and correct for the extra velocity, which she will
already have basically learned to do anyway, if your world is round
and rotating.  (NO assumptions about FRP worlds!)
On the other hand, something pretending to be teleportation can be
done by snapping onto the etherial or astral plane, a transition
which allows the pretender to bleed or steal relative motion from
the Gate effect.
Yet another variation of teleportation has it being movement in some
very non-4space direction.  This means that unless the DM decides
that you can "lose" inertia by friction or some such process, the
return to 4-space will mean exactly what you described: the victim
ends up with a velocity vector in some direction which will probably
not match the velocity vector of the surroundings, and *splat*.

>>	... If you were visiting a
>>     planet that was revolving faster then good old Greyhawlk and 
>>     then teleported back would you go skipping along the ground at 
>>     a few hundred km/hr??

How did you get there?  (wrong question!)
Well, I suspect that any long-distance teleportation spells would
HAVE to correct for all of angular momentum, or they wouldn't have
been passed on since the developers would have died.

>>	...What happens to the air that is displaced 
>>     then you teleport in?? Would you make a small thunder-clap when
>>     you teleport away?? 
>> 
>>                                            Brad Harrington
>>                                      {ihnp4,sun,ucbvax}!dual!brad
>>                                 {ihnp4,sun,ucbvax}!dual!vanguard!brad
>
>I suppose I personally would ignore the conservation laws in some cases,
>such as travels between planets.  (As Niven mentions, there are problems
>even between different longitudes on the same planet.)  However, if the
>character were falling when s/he teleported, I would assume s/he is
>falling at arrival, also.  (They can't get out of it that easily!)

Why not?  Teleporting isn't that easy, and it has a pretty nasty set of
failure penalties associated with it.  If one is falling, then it is
difficult to exactly state the origin, relative to a "safe" landing
point, so I would (under the simplest conditions) just restore those
penalty chances.

>A thunderclap sounds good.  Any magic user would love to create an effect
>like that.  How about a pulsating fushia light about the teleporter before
>the big event?
>-- 
>
>                                     Sue Brezden
>                                     
>Real World: Room 1B17                Net World: ihnp4!drutx!slb
>            AT&T Information Systems
>            11900 North Pecos
>            Westminster, Co. 80234
>            (303)538-3829 

If teleportation is instantaneous, I would expect that a thunderclap,
or at least a pistol crack, would be likely, even if the same volume of air
were exchanged with the teleportee, just because of differences in the
density of the atmosphere.  If it isn't instantaneous then of course the
more gradual fade would just create a faint breeze.

Fuscia lights are garish and a sign of incomplete mastery of the spell,
and furthermore tend to be ominous of an impending illness afflicting
anyone nearby (hard radiation poisoning!).

Hutch