[Spaceships] Actually GMing a world with Pseudovelocity drives?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Smith himself considered the Skylark stories to be fantasy rather than SF because he simply ignored relativity entirely .

What I read in his own words In the article "The Epic of Space" was that Skylark was pseudo-science. Even when he was writing it he (and alledgedly even his uncredited co-author Mrs. Garby) knew that the gimmick in Skylark of the X-metal induced total conversion wouldn't let the ships go faster than light if for no other reason than it wasn't enough energy.

He also spoke abbout knowing that real accelerations necessary to do what his ships did in Skylark would "flatten steel springs..... into a mono-molecular layer".

In the first book, Duquesnses copy-ship exceeded light by a _large_ margin in only a day or two. Even without relativity it would take a ship pulling 10 Gs a month to hit c and Doc most definitety knew this.

All this is what even though it is what we call "superscience" the Bergenholm is a much more robust gimmick.

Mr Kaz is probably remembering something else.

Even though it wasn't FTL there was a Venus Equilateral story where the only truly practical way to hit a spaceship was a targetseeking missile. The missile diodn't really have much of an AI but it did have a superscience seeker that made up for the lack of radar (and it was the lack of radar and computers that made aiming beams inpracitcal at long distances).

I really don't have many candidates from other authors of the period. They tended to be fond of their energy beams and real "guided missiles" are a post WWII thing..