Re: STL travel

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Jim 'Jiji' Foster wrote:
> <Extreme PSB Mode>

ha! that's in my .login file ...

> Say that 'cinematic' movement is some manner of grav drive that
'pushes'
> against the gravity field of nearby objects in much the same way that
a
> wing 'pushes' against an atmosphere. This would make swooping turns in
> space possible and logical within a sun's gravity well.

somewhat like the xeelee space drive from steven baxter's xeelee
sequence books. these chaps literally did have wings, but they were
really
planar discontinuities in spacetime. it was weapons-grade psb, but that
was the point of the xeelee - sufficiently advanced technology is 
indistinguishable from magic and all that. baxter always describes
xeelee
craft as having 'vast sweeping night-black wings', a line lifted
straight
out of homer's odyssey. well, almost.

also a teeny bit like larry niven's ubiquitous gravity polariser - now
there's a drive! i think the idea was you could flip the sign of the
force
between you and a big mass, and so use it to generate lift.

> However, in the fringes of a system or in deep space, there wouldn't
be a
> solar gravity field to react against, leaving only Newtonian thrusters
> for maneuver. 

interesting twist.

> This allows room for both systems in the same universe, and might
force
> 'compromise' ship designs depending on how far from a solar gravity
well
> operations were likely to occur at.

i can see an captain whose warp drive has been knocked out carefully
avoiding gravity wells to force a newtonian engagement, or a captain
with
the opposite problem being confined insystem where his drives work.

Tom