Quote:There's a couple of partial limitations on this.
As for using ships themselves as weapons, I think someone at some point came up with a suitable handwave for why that wouldn't work with speed drives. (At least, it made as much sense as the rest of the setting...)
First, the speed drive slows greatly in atmosphere. Thus, the practical limitations of using a speed-drive ship to hit any place on Earth, Mars, or Venus are at the least difficult to surmount. Especially after 9/11, when many governments are willing to order a fighter jet to ram a passenger jet if that saves the lives of more people on the ground than it takes in the two aircraft.
Second, there's the Slapstick Effect - the 'wave "doesn't like" being used as a weapon. While nobody's tried as far as we know, there's the nagging question as to whether this effect would prevent a 'waved ship from doing damage to something filled with people.
Third, there's the goodwill of the Fen. Both Rockhounds and Stellvia have taken measures to ensure asteroids don't hit Earth; there's no reason to believe they'd do any differently if the impactor was a fenship instead of a rock.
-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012