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

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Pseudovelocity is always a problem. Even if you are able to neutralize the threat of relativistic weapons, there is still a lot of stuff that weapon can do. For example, ship A turns off its velocity two hundred kilometers from planet B along its orbital route, ship A detonates explosive bolts to release a 100 gigaton fusion device (a 20,000 metric ton cargo by our technology [minimum possible size is probably around 4,000 metric tons]), and then ship A turns on its velocity before anyone on the planet can figure out what is going on. In less than a space turn (20-seconds) the bomb could be detonated over any city on the planet. The bomb would have a thermal radiation radius of around 1,300 kilometers (5,380,000 square kilometers), which would create a firestorm powerful enough to kill everything within that radius. The amount of "free" energy gained by the bomb is insignificant compared to the energy released by the bomb when it explodes.

Uh, nuclear planetary bombardment doesn't seem to be in any way a specifically pseudovelocity problem.

The supposition that pseudovelocity allows you to freely place things at rest relative to the sun is pretty hard on planets, though.