[UT & Space] Gravity Control

[nmoody]

Okay, I want to allow, in my setting, contragravity, tractor beams, grav beams, pretty much every grav tech EXCEPT artificial gravity.

In other words, I want flying cars, floating cities, force beams, etc, but I want space ships to need to be thrusting or spinning to generate gravity.

It's a flavor thing, cause I want space travel to be different than flying in a 747, but I still want it to be fairly common. My idea is that screening is easy (using forcefields or some such), but generating is hard (thrusting, spinning or the old fashioned way: with a massive object under your feet).

So, any technobabble I can use to explain this lacking tech in an otherwise superscience setting?

[Langy]

Sure - just say generating grav beams is too expensive to be used everywhere on a spaceship. You can stick them in tractor beams or grav beams, but only because they just need a small amount of the Unobtanium Element in order to work since they're close to point-beams. Make them wider, so they cover a large area (like a 1m square floor), and the cost becomes way too much.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by nmoody

So, any technobabble I can use to explain this lacking tech in an otherwise superscience setting?

Sure. There's no reason 'force' technology needs to allow for artificial gravity, so just say it doesn't work. This probably implies that force beams are a surface effect (i.e. you probably shouldn't have gravity beams that ignore DR), but CG the rest of the technology doesn't really need to be gravity-based.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Langy

Sure - just say generating grav beams is too expensive to be used everywhere on a spaceship.

This is probably best, If you could cover the floor with tractor beam emitters with an 8 foot range and a 9.8 meter per second per second force it'd act a lot like artificial gravity.

[Rendu]

Gravity control implies manipulation of an existing gravitational field, so it doesn't work in micro-gravity/free-fall environments, just as airplanes don't work in a vacuum.

[Brett]

Originally Posted by Rendu

Gravity control implies manipulation of an existing gravitational field, so it doesn't work in micro-gravity/free-fall environments, just as airplanes don't work in a vacuum.

Yeah, like the "gravity polariser" in Larry Niven's Protector.

Thing is that I think the OP wants to have grav beams and tractor beams on spacecraft.

[OneSeventeen]

Originally Posted by Langy

Sure - just say generating grav beams is too expensive to be used everywhere on a spaceship. You can stick them in tractor beams or grav beams, but only because they just need a small amount of the Unobtanium Element in order to work since they're close to point-beams. Make them wider, so they cover a large area (like a 1m square floor), and the cost becomes way too much.

This is the best one. Say that the fuel required (whether electricity, unobtanium, string fluctuations, whatever) is really high and thus it's very expensive to run a really big one. Or many small ones. If you'd rather not limit the length of time a really big grav cannon can be on, maybe they're expensive as hell to build: so building one giant one would be cheaper than many little ones, maybe, but still insanely expensive.


Ben

[SuedodeuS]

In addition to Langy's suggestion (which is a good one), you can also say that contragravity is a very precise technology, whereas gravity generation (tractor beams, grav guns, etc) have a highly-variable and barely-controllable output. A tractor beam that spikes at the wrong time pulls the targetted ship in a bit more quickly - an artificial gravity system damages organs or (at extreme levels) turns the crew into jelly. So, you can still use the system for weaponry, but using it for artificial gravity generation is a bit... dangerous.

[Stormcrow]

Another idea: maybe the graviton beams or whatever are toxic at close ranges to the emitters. Not a problem for thrust or tractor beams, but you don't want to live on top of one.

[nmoody]

You guys are awesome. Thanks. By no means stop, I love all your ideas.