Transhuman Space/Avatar

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Cyclone

(with much more conservative laser intensities/max accelerations so it doesn't cost a billion dollars each time you fire it)

To clarify, the only reason it costs a billion dollars to fly to AC is because even at high efficiencies lots of antimatter is really expensive, and that's your favoured braking system. A kilo of antimatter generated at 10% efficiency takes 900 PJ, which at 1 cent a kwh is 2.5 billion dollars. Sure, you could push it higher, but it gets progressively goofier.

Originally Posted by Cyclone

A) It wouldn't affect the balance of power in the Solar system that much, since, again, people in THS do not try to wipe all life off the planet

I'd honestly be more concerned that cheap antimatter would make Helium-3 madness irrelevant and negate the high ground advantage that the Duncanites rely on. Good lasers don't help either (i.e. build orbital solar power plants for Earth, shove objects around the solar system).