[Spaceships] Reactionless Drives, Pseudovelocity, and NOT breaking a setting (much)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

That's not how you'd do it. With the Bergenholm, what you'd do is take a brick or a rock or a ball of cotton, put on a ship, and let that ship accelerate inert until it's pressing against c, relative to Prime Base. That wouldn't be hard for ships like those of the later Lensman books. It doesn't matter if it takes a week to do it.

Then, when you've got a velocity of .99c or .999c relative to Prime Base, then you turn on the Bergenholm. Now you transport the thing to Prime Base, making very sure to keep it constantly inertialess. You take it to Earth and sneak it near whatever your target is.

Then you turn off the Bergenholm, either with a timer, a remote, or a suicide bomber, and watch the film of the multi-megaton fireball on the evening news.

Not sure that the use of the inertialess capability is contributing much to the relativistic bombardment problem. The ability to drive a payload to near-c speeds without using the Bergenholm is the foundation of what you're doing...