[Spaceships]If Hyperspace is a fluid medium

[Adina]

1) Drag from this medium explains why FTL drives have a top speed rather than an acceleration.

Originally Posted by Diomedes

Presumably drives would still have an acceleration, determining how fast you reach top speed.

True, but all I really need is how long it takes to travel from system A to system B.

2) "Reactionless" actually use this hyperspace fluid as reaction mass.

That's basically how the Hyperdynamic Field switch works in SS7.

Ah, yet another reason for me to acquire SS7.

Would reactionless drives be pseudovelocity?

Would their acceleration be felt by the occupants?

No and yes, respectively. With a normal drive the crew feels acceleration because the engines push on the ship, which pushes on the occupants.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Depends how they work. From that description, probably not (sublight warp drives are a standard type of PV drive, but don't seem to be what you're talking about).

Probably.

That's what I was thinking. So I need to consider how high a thrust a human crew can sustain because accelerations up to 6 g's are possible. And I need to consider near-c rocks as well. Perhaps there is a maximum mass that reactionless thrusters can propel above which the vehicles own gravity disrupts them. SM+13 is 300,000 tons, at near-c velocity is that a city-killer, an extinction event, or a planet-cracker?

If hyperspace + normal-space are a closed system could the various conservation laws remain valid?

Well, hyperspace fluid has properties that are problematic for relativity, and energy requirements for your drives would tend to be unreasonably high.

Any FTL is problematic for relativity, what particular problems does hyperspace fluid cause?

Would this require a transfer of energy/momentum between hyper and normal space?

That might be necessary.

Yes.

Ok, what if I postulate that black holes and quasars are transfer points between normal space and hyperspace. What problems and possibilities does that create?