Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
The trick with inertialessness is that collision with a particle never inflicts damage. You just stop dead in space.
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Not if your drives are firing, then it's a contest of the power of the drive vs. the friction with the medium. Ditto the influence of gravity or other forces.
(Though Smith did screw up his own imaginary physics
badly on this very point in
Vortex Blaster.)
Quote:
So what you have to be doing with those fields is not blocking out damage, but shoving the particles to the side so that you can move forward.
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Exactly how that works is not clear. The ship has no momentum, so it has to be the structural strength of the ship transmitting the force of the drive to the particles.