Inertialess Drive

Although the Nevians had managed to achieve partial inertia with their allotropic iron-based drives, the true inertialess drive was invented by three Tellurian scientists: Rodebush, Cleveland and Bergenholm, in the time of Virgil Samms. Rodebush and Cleveland were at a dead end on the device, when Nels Bergenholm - actually a form of flesh 'energised' by various Arisians - came in, asked if they had tried inverting the waveform, and left: the other two promptly achieved a breakthrough and named the drive the 'Bergenholm Drive' in honour of the enigmatic Scandinavian scientist.

The inertialess drive also offers considerably protection for most ships: whilst active, no weapon will harm them as the kinetic energy of the weapon will simply push them away. Only by using tractor beams could you lock a ship in place and then attack it, though Primary Beams were also powerful enough to do damage whilst pushing the enemy warships back.

The main problem is conservation of energy: upon becoming inertialess, a ship loses its 'intrinsic velocity' and can accelerate to tremendous speeds. Once it becomes inert however, it regains its intrinsic velocity. For example, if the ship was heading north and 1000m/s, and turned on its inertialess drive, upon becoming inert again it would immediately return to its 1000m/s northerly heading. Naturally, it is not good to think about happens when people forget this...

Record 1178 - technology - Last update 28 Mar 2007, 23:10:31

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