robkelk Wrote:Good stuff all around... except for the flight rings. I know that's what they are in the source material, but handwavium doesn't quite work that way.The design was developed by Braniac 5 from the more cumbersome flight belts. Reading carefully they are miniaturised circuitry, maybe totally solid state embedded in a protective matrix, which somehow uses the properties of an alien metal to achieve flight, probably using some sort of gravitic trick. Maybe interacting with the aura around living beings, also so the living metabolism provides the power? So, the rings are a sort of catalyst in making the wearer fly?
Although...
Maybe...
If the rings themselves can fly, but can't lift anything more than their own weight, that might work. We'd have to show how they weren't just solid metal or plastic before they were waved to make this work, too. (They'd still be useful in zero-G as maneuver engines, but wouldn't do much in a gravity well.)
More recent DC Comics stuff has simplified them to an alien metal (very rare?) which can be worked into will-controlled flight rings (like specialised Green Lantern rings?), but I regard that as far more dubious.
As an electronics engineer I think Arthur would be a lot happier about something which had circuitry in it, even if he was having a Blue Hair day when he inscribed and etched them, laying down circuitry layers and components, using an ex-school plastic toy microscope. Then put the ring faces on top.
If you think they can only be used for zero-G maneuvering, I'll go with that.
Arthur has certainly not got the genius of Braniac 5.
I'd prefer it if they could be used to at least perform a controlled crash into a gravity field, even if you can't use them to take-off - maybe some sort of gravitic dissipation/defocussing trick?
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"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind