Sunday September 18, 2005


Note: Legs' comment about not having to compensate for tides is inaccurate. The layout of the ship DOES allow for a simpler artificial gravity system, with one result being more available power for maneuvering and shielding, but during any sort of maneuvers the gravitic drive will produce tides that must be compensated for.

This is what the Drivetide Compensation Inertiics (DCI) are for. It's a tightly-networked system of small gravitic generators in the decks and walls that compensates for the tides generated by the gravitic drive of the ship. The DCI is a critical component -- without it, the incredible accelerations of combat maneuvers would exceed the Roche limit of the crew.

Addendum to Note: 21st-century astrophysicists understand the Roche limit to be the orbital distance at which a satellite with no tensile strength will begin to be tidally torn apart by the body it is orbiting. 31st-century DCI engineers understand it to be the point at which drive tides will exceed the tensile strength of individual crew members.

Book 7: Emperor Pius Dei
 Part I: Big Schlock, Little Schlock, What Begins With Schlock?
Sunday September 18, 2005

Transcript

Narrator:Aboard the grounded warship Integrity, towards the stern.
Legs:You okay, Andy?
Andy:Oh, I'm fine. Just dandy.
Legs:It looks like you're doing better with the flight systems in your uniform.
Andy:Yup. I just needed to start thinking more like a bird.
Andy:Do birds eat so often because of all the vomiting?
Legs:Hey, I saw what came out of you, and there's no way I'd feed that to my young.
Legs:Elf, do you want to explain to us why everything down here has gone sideways?
Elf:What do you mean? Sideways drunk, sideways screwed up?
Legs:Noooo. . . Sideways sideways. everything is on its side.
Kevyn:Legs, this is Kevyn. You're on a starship that was never meant to land. I'm looking at deck plans and "down" where you are would be towards the aft annie plant.
Kevyn:Oriented for planetary gravity, however, the aft galley will be down and two floors to the south.
Legs:You know, that actually makes a lot of sense. We spent too much time living on a glorified troop transport, Andy.
Andy:Just get us to the galley, Legs.
Legs:Sure, artificial gravity can point wherever you want it, but oriented this way the don't have to compensate for the tides from the annie plant.
Legs:Recreation areas like the galley will be further "down" than other stuff.
Andy:There's room "down" there for a huge rec-deck. I wonder what Pranger's crew liked to do?