Plotbunny for sale - cheap

[firvulag]

And a short little glossary I was working on. I think it's still correct.:
Acceleration Drive: A drive based on the concept of maximum acceleration, not speed.
Fairly rare among the Fen. All Hard Tech spacecraft drives
are acceleration drives by necessity.
Cochrane Limit: The distance from a star, or other massive object where FTL
travel becomes possible. For Sol the radius is about 40AU.
More commonly called the C Limit, or just the Limit.
Divot, The: Fen name for the hole in the ground where the Island used to be.
It seems to annoy the 'danes for some reason.
Grey Goo: Industrial nanomachines. Any nanomachines used for manufacture
building, or otherwise constructive activities. There are other
kinds of goo, also named by colour:

Blue goo, police nanomachines that keep other nanomachines in
line. Also applied to medical nanites which help biological
systems (people) in good health and repair.
Black goo, weaponized nanomachines.

Grey Goo Disaster: The ISO standard nightmare about nanotechnology. Essentially
a kind of sorcerors apprentice mode failure where industrial
nanomachines escape control and convert the entire world into
more of themselves, a big blob of grey goo.

One of the reasons Handwavium is illegal in 'Danelaw is fear
of this sort of disaster.
Handwavium: What lets everything interesting happen. A strange substance
of indeterminate origin that when mixed with mundane technology
can give it strange and usefull properties.

Pure samples are capable of self replicating, albiet rather
slowly and with some odd limits. There does not appear to
be much if any danger of a Grey Goo disaster. The exact methods
by which it works remain unknown.

Illegal to manufacture and use in the 'Danelaw.

Has any number of names, including: Handwavium, Plot Tech,
Plotdevicite, Protoculture, etc.

See also 'Wavetech.
Hard Tech: Techonology that does not require Handwavium to work. Also
called Solid State Tech. What the 'danes insist on using.
Speed Drive: A ship's drive that works based the concept of absolute speed.
Most ships in SF and space opera on TV and in movies use
speed drives.
'Wavetech: Technology made with, or improved by the application of
handwavium. It works, but is notoriously quirky. Used mostly
by people who don't mind if their toaster starts conspiring
with their microwave to get them to eat better.

[CattyNebulart]

---

Early '07 - First appearance of handwavium, samples sent to universities and secure labs for study.
Mid '07 - Particularly reckless college student mistakes Handwavium powder for some better known chemical that'd be entertaining in spiked punch, and swipes it for use at an upcoming con.

---

I'd prefer it if Handwavium would still exsist 'in the wild' so to speak and that the goverment is never able to get containment of the damn stuff.
Though the spiked punch story is fun, so I see no reason not to use it.
So sure where it is noticed it's confiscated and sent to a lab, but it's spreading among the fen like wildfire anyway and no goverment has the reach to stop it. (not that they could if they had it but that's the excuse the agents tell the beurocrats and the beurocrats tell the politicians.)
Plus Handwavium has shown a remarkable ability to be found by fen.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[drakensis]

---

I don't, however, think that the frenetic pace being advocated is plausible; even for fen, it takes time to adapt to things, not to mention establishing the Con system that Haruhi's stomping all over with bells on.

---

The key thing, as far as I'm concerned, is that we're in the interval between the new frontier opening up and 'civilisation' taking hold. Thus, things are still wild and woolly and no one really knows where the limits are.
If I had to tie this to anything, Handwavium turns up more or less now, but is mostly presumed to be a joke, albeit a good one, floating around Fendom. However, as more and more Fens get some (handed around mostly at conventions (note the lower case 'c')) the scepticism begins to fade. Then several Fen bring flying cars to the 2007 Worldcon in Japan and give free (or near as) rides to anyone who wants, plus show records of actually going into space. A few people go up into space but time limits keep this to a small number. Handwavium is taken home by pretty much anyone who wants some, which is better than 90% of the attendees.
2008
With handwavium in so many hands, hundreds and then thousands of Fens head off into space to do their stuff. These are generally relatively short trips though - roadtrips writ large. Lots of exploration and 'first-man to X' stuff but very little business (except for Hermes). The first stations and bases are set up. A lot of research is going on on Earth as well, by Fens as well as 'Dane govts. Biomods first appear, but the 'Danes are already twitchy when the Professor makes his mark on the Paris skyline. Restrictions on Handwavium are enacted and since the proliferation is traced to Worldcon, this year's Worldcon's bookings are all cancelled. On short notice, the organizers relocate the entire Worldcon to the Moon without noticably reducing attendance (those who won't go to the Moon are more than made up for those who wouldn't have been able to afford the 'Dane travel). While most of the attendees go home, for a significant number it is only in order to pack their kibble. By the end of the year the first major settlements are emerging on Luna and the seeds of an economy are being hauled desperately together.
2009
Per agreement at the Worldcon, a mid-year Convention is held at one of the new Luna settlements. The Convention emerges as the primary (and only) government. The Mars Terraforming Project is proposed and begins drawing a substantial number of Fens to Mars. The numbers of Fen turning their back on the 'Danelaw and the increasingly strict bars on Handwavium continue to rise. By the time of the annual Convention on Mars, the Village of Hidden Asteroid and the Venus Terraforming Project are both going concerns and Mars and Luna are very nearly self-sustaining.
I don't have any particular preferences over whether the SOS-dan convention happens in 2010 or 2011. 2011 gives more time for some of the larger scale developments, while 2010 would imply things were still moving at breakneck pace. Let's assume 2011, for the sake of argument.
2010
The major factions of the Earth's LaGrange points are moving outsystem. The first instances of Boskonian piracy in the Belt. The discovery of thionite. A motion to have a Conventions happen twice yearly is raised at the Convention, but is narrowly voted down.
2011
The SOS-dan call their convention.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[drakensis]

SC Jamie Retief
Base Hull: Vauxhall Cavalier
Drive Type: Speed
Main Use: Shuttle
Known Crew: Mr. Morden
SS Saint Bernard
Base Hull: C-97 Stratofreighter
Drive Type: Speed
Main Use: Mobile Home/Office
Known Crew: Mr. Morden
I suggest a general convention of dividing vessels into SpaceCraft (SC prefix) and SpaceShips (SS prefix) with more or less car-sized vessels classed as the former. Not that all Fen use the prefix, but it might be a handy means for organising parking spaces for example.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Feinan]

*grin* I THOUGHT he'd have liked those clips. Very useful for anyone dealing with plant mods. Just the sort of thing to make you go 'Argh!' when you read it on the net.
For the Table of ships - and I like the SC/SS distinction.
SS Fateful Lightning
Creator: Feinan
Base Hull: Semi cab and 36 semi trailers welded together, various bits and pieces, small dome.
Drive Type: Speed
Main Use: Biomod laboratory, home, some asteroid mining (well...farming)
Known crew: Kevin (aka the Jason) (Capt.) Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, and Fate (AIs). Various non-sentient drones.
SC Merlin
Creator: Feinan
Base Hull: 1996 Toyota Tercel
Drive Type: Speed
Main Use: Shuttle for the Fateful Lightning
Known Crew: Kevin (aka the Jason)

[Valles]

SS Moondance
Creator: Valles
Base Hull: Scratch
Drive Type: Acceleration
Main Use: Heavy cargo
Known Crew: Natalie Baker, Stacy King, Anderson Kramer

The Dancer's current form is a metallic sphere about a hundred meters across, with five retractable landing legs and a dark blue paint job and white stripes at 65 and 70 degrees north and south latitude.
Incidentally, the name is in honor of the Nightwish song, not the Van Morrison one.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[drakensis]

Biomod: Anyone who has ingested enough Handwavium to trigger a one-time mutagenic reaction. Quite indeterminant in outcome but not typically fatal or crippling.
Boskonian: Pirates who don't display the general ethics expected of Fens.
'Danelaw: short for Mundane Law. Refers to regions subject to the laws of terrestrial governments. Usually means the Earth and all regions within the bounds of the Van Allen radiation belts although there are enclaves on either side.
Thionite: A drug derived from Venusian broadleaf and including microscopic quantities of Handwavium (not enough for a biomod effect without lethal doses). Rare and extraordinarily expensive due to the risks inherent in harvesting on Venus.
Zwilnik: Dealers in narcotics, particularly thionite.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[CattyNebulart]

Excelent idea, and as fars as I can tell the information is correct. Expanded with some more details.
SS Sol Bianca
OOC-Creator: Catty Nebulart
Base Hull: HDMY Dannebrog
Drive Type: Speed
Top Speed: 0.01c (used to be 0.002c)
Main Use: Laboratory
Secondary Use: Hospital, Home.
Crew: The Proffesor, Miyu, Ryoko Asakura, Catty Nebulart

This is a more general lits of notes and traits I was compiling:
The Professor: Manic, insane, think Maito Gai if he was opsessed with the power of Science instead of the power of youth. Throw in sterotypical mad scientist tropes and you're good. Has a flair for the dramatic, and likes explosions.
He is the tallest of the crew, more than a head taller than the other 3, he is an older man of indeterminate age, he could be anywhere between 20 and 50 years old. He always wears a pair of force-field glasses and a labcoat, when he feels the need to dress up he puts on a tie (badly askew, and in some garish color. Often with some sort of hazard symbol on it.)
Miyu: Polite, helpful, distant, a vague air of I am better than you. Takes the protection of the rest of the crew seriously. For an homocidal killer robot she is very reluctant to actually kill people and won't do it unless she feels she needs to do it (for the rest of the crew or the greater good). She misses Allysa and wishes the Professor had never brought her back (see episode 15 of Mai Hime). She wants to kill him, but she also loves him, she is deeply disturbed by this combination and tries not to think about it. She thinks like a human.
Her figure puts most models to shame, the most exagerated hourglass figure of the three. She often wears the 'Mythril Dress' (the color changing on from hime) when on duty around a large number of people (ie: at Conventions) and anytime a formal dress is called for, but ussualy she wears normal clothes.
From Mai-Hime, post epiode 15 before the others.
Ryoko Asakura: She is always friendly and smiling, but she doesn't understand people. She is alien, and it sometimes shows through. Hardworking, she takes care of most of the mundane chores on he Sol Bianca. She loves the professor and wants to kill him. She sees nothing wrong or inconsistent with this.
Her figure is the most sedate of the three, though she would have no problems finding work as a model. Always wears her old school uniform.
From The Melochany of Susumia Haruhi.
Catty Nebulart: Wierd, her behavior and speach patterns are inconsistent, but she is ussualy cheerfully eging the professor on. She is extremly alien her thoughts are less comprehensible than those of the things man wasn't meant to know.
She is the shortest of the bunch, and she always wears one of her two uniforms.
From Gall Force.
Sol Bianca: An impressive ship, even though it looks somewhat different each time because the Professor never stops tinkering with it. People are prone to getting lost inside, the inside looks like a combination between a royal yacht and a mad scientist laboratory.
Quirks:The navigational console will only do it's job when it has plenty of alckohol but it doesn't navigate well when drunk.
The new engine causes radioactive spiders to spawn all over the place.
The engine uses Mountain Dew Syrup as fuel.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[firvulag]

Well I've update the list and the glossary and put them on the web at:
kasmir.dyndns.org/~firvulag/fen.html
It should be easier for me to keep correcting them there, than continually reposting to the thread.
Next up: Dramatis Personae, in and around packing to move to Ottawa. I have no time, therefore I must add new projects to the list.
F
--
"He spent years researching it," said Didactylos. "Went out into the desert,
talked to the small gods. Talked to some of our gods, too. Brave man. He
says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at."
-- Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods"

[Norgarth]

A few varied comments...
RE: Jupiter/Venus/Earth trade route
The Earth to Jupiter leg could carry fresh food, entertainment (new movies/anime/music/ect), other consumable supplies for the 'mining' crews (toliet paper for instance),
re: asteroid racing
I'm sure UF fans would be interested in this idea.
re: Legrange points
part of the backstory I've been working on for may character(s) involves being part of a large group that got started as asteroid wranglers/miners. most are semi-retired now and living on a rock at Legrange 2.
From what I've picked up, L1, 2 and 3 are not quite stable, things placed at them tend to drift out of the Point after a while. I figure a Rock equipped with some basic thrusters could remain in place fairly well.
As it's between Earth and Luna and fairly stable, it's convinet for my characters to stop by at every once in a while to DL the newest fics, rotate the ship's library of movies/books/CDs/video games, provides a 'PO box' for delivery and so on.
__________________
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. - George Carlin.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[M Fnord]

USSR Explain Star (WTF-023H)
Creator: M Fnord
Base Hull: Buran airframe #1.02
Drive Type: Speed
Owner of Record: Sandwich.Net Interstellar Dungeon-Crawling Enterprises, LLC
Main Use: Scientific research, interplanetary tourism
Known Crew: Mal (Capt.), Calc, KJ, Elena---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[The Hunterminator]

Here's the modified version of my ship's profile.
SC Schrottplatz
Creator: The Hunterminator
Base Hull: Cargo freighter with the front half of a Toyota jutting out the front. (It serves as cockpit.)
Drive Type: Speed
Main Use: Cargo, Heavy manufacture
Known Crew: Laurent Veilleux, various drone 'lineages' including the Capitalists and Allcapsists

[KJ]

Hasn't appeared yet, and not really relevant to the Con, but it's sitting in my head and the format's useful. And see racing posts re: inclinations towards this sorta thing.
SC Kestrel Mk3
Creator: KJ
Base Hull: Scratch built
Drive Type: Speed / Acceleration
Main Use: Drive testbed / race vehicle
Known Crew: KJ
A hobby project started by the Explain Star's chief engineer, the Kestrel series is an attempt to find a balance between minimum mass for best speeddrive performance and maximum possible acceleration drive thrust. Looks like nothing so much as an elongated ovoid for the central hull, two stubby wings at the front end, leading to two quite large engine pods. Powerplant and drive specs change whenever he has a chance to work on it, but the hull is a hard/wave hybrid. Diamond fiber being easy to handwave, but composites being a well understood science.
And of course it's painted red. Even though the central hull is barely big enough for a person, there's not really room on the 'Star for it, so it's in storage... somewhere.

[Black Aeronaut]

Firvulag, here's a correction for you.
SC Bullet Boy Express
Creator: Blackareonaut
Base Hull: 1986 Volkswagon Jetta
Drive Type: Speed
Owner of Record: Benjamin M. Rhodes
Main Use: Courier
Known Crew: Benjamin (Capt.), Gina (AI)

---

Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

---

[Rieverre]

SS Uncertainty
Base Hull: Pocket Cruiser(sailboat)
Drive Type: Acceleration (energy sails)/ Speed
Owner of Record: SEBureau, formerly Hermes Universal Delivery
Main Use: Personal Yacht, mobile office
Known Crew: Katz Schrdinger (Capt.), Trigon (AI)
---
The Uncertainty started off with a Speed Drive, which is basically still there, though it's mostly used for landings, dockings, and precision work at the end of a zero-zero intercept these days. The energy sails were added as a way to tweak extra speed - since the ship did do courier and delivery work, initially - but finally matured enough to take over the main drive role. They're pretty much a constant work in progress, though, since Katz still fiddles with them when he gets bored. Registration was changed from HUD to the SEBureau after the first day of the Con was out.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Sirrocco]

First - Valles. I was always under the impression that the Moondance was speed-based (quite possibly a gravitophilic speed-based). In particular, you seem to have built it for quick and easy ground-to-orbit trips with heavy loads. Escaping out of gravity wells is one of the things that speed systems are *best* at. (Not having to spend energy keeping the thing up while you lift it off is a huge benefit all by itself - as is the fact that they don't have to speed up/slow down anywhere near as gradually. These are really *very* short hops, from a fenspace point of view.) Then, of course, you've plated it in some nice, heavy armor shielding, so it lifts and lands like a polite meteor, but masses too much to go all that fast in the outer void.
Second, for those who *are* running with accel systems (or significantly nonstandard speed systems) could we have some description of same?
Third, for the racing thing... I like the idea of the freaky souped-up all-gauges-redlined hybrid racing *thing*. Given that you've basically gutted it in order to provide two almost-but-not-entirely independant drive systems (and crossing over between them, in both directions, might well be... entertaining... when done at any velocity too far from local grav-nuetral) it's totally reasonable to be playing wacky games where the accel system lets you break the ordinary top-speed rules on the straightaways while the speed system gives you maneuverability that no accel system can match. (One question to answer, though... what happens if you swap to the speed system when you're *already* moving faster than it can sustain?) I'm a little concerned about the idea of it being a reaction drive, though. I've not the background to run the numbers, but the speeds we're dealing with are expressed as percentages of c. Having the sort of kludge you're thinking of make sense from a racing perspective would require that your accel drive be able to make a significant difference in top speed above that, over the course of however long your straightaways are. That requires some downright scary numbers with respect to exhaust velocity and ship mass percentage per time unit thrown out backwards - and then you have to figure out how much of the ship *is* reaction mass, and work out how long your accel drive can actually go for. On the other hand, once you *did* work that out, well, if and when the boskonians come knocking, he'll have one hell of an improvised plasma lance.

[Norgarth]

a thought as to a 3rd catagory, SP (SpacePort/Space Station), for example The Island.__________________
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. - George Carlin.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[KJ]

On the specific setup of the Kestrel, I'm seeing something up there on the volatility scale with antimatter thermal rockets as the secondary motive source; by that point the 'wavetech speed drives will have diverted their power to inertial dampening and (more importantly) structural integrity fields to keep the motors from just grenading. Although, if this specific technobabble form is okay, it's liable to be heinously expensive to fuel, and easily explains where the Mk1 and Mk2 Kestrel went (lost in remote-controlled testing)
Or one of several other types of technobabble.
As for what happens when you turn on the speed drives above their maximum velocity... well, as I'm seeing it, they sorta work in the sense that it's a black box where you put energy in and velocity goes up, and energy comes out when the converse is true. So, again, as I see it, if you turn the suckers on above their speed limit, they start glowing funny incandescent colors (unless you do a lot of modification from the basic design for sake of cooling) and need to dump a lot of energy as the thing they're bolted to jolts down to the speed drive top speed. Failure to take care of both issues may well result in the things melting, with hilarious results!
Racing specific stuff... well, I'm deliberately trying to avoid working the math, because getting too much into hard science sorta takes away the point, y'know? But how much use acceleration drives are would depend on courses... you might have interplanetary runs where biasing towards acceldrives gets you a *lot* of benefit, or particularily messy asteroid belt runs where you're better off going for minimal mass and biasing towards speed drives.
Reaction drives as improvised beam weapons? Well... could be. But there've already been several instances in the thread where wavetech has been used as improvised weaponry. This might be another case where racing technology is eventually applied to war stuffle (ala Schnieder Cup races of the '30s) but at the point in history we're writing in, it's probably too volatile and fiddly.

[CattyNebulart]

---

As for what happens when you turn on the speed drives above their maximum velocity... well, as I'm seeing it, they sorta work in the sense that it's a black box where you put energy in and velocity goes up, and energy comes out when the converse is true. So, again, as I see it, if you turn the suckers on above their speed limit, they start glowing funny incandescent colors (unless you do a lot of modification from the basic design for sake of cooling) and need to dump a lot of energy as the thing they're bolted to jolts down to the speed drive top speed. Failure to take care of both issues may well result in the things melting, with hilarious results!

---

Unfortunatly deceleration is a form of acceleration and physics (to which we are supposed to pay lip service) therefore says that you need to pay energy.
My suggestion would be that the speed drive doesn't engage until you managed to pay the energy difference, and then it suddenly bumps you down to max speed and you go from there as ussual.
That would lead to courses where you want to carefully calculate out gravity slingshots when they are at all possible to preserve speed. Kinda like in the old time races where you had a navigator with a map trying to find shortcuts, ie more of a rally type event than formula1, though only if there are large enough masses along the course.
It would thus allow for a broader types of races, and skill is as important as the specs of the actual craft.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Valles]

---

First - Valles. I was always under the impression that the Moondance was speed-based (quite possibly a gravitophilic speed-based). In particular, you seem to have built it for quick and easy ground-to-orbit trips with heavy loads. Escaping out of gravity wells is one of the things that speed systems are *best* at. (Not having to spend energy keeping the thing up while you lift it off is a huge benefit all by itself - as is the fact that they don't have to speed up/slow down anywhere near as gradually. These are really *very* short hops, from a fenspace point of view.) Then, of course, you've plated it in some nice, heavy armor shielding, so it lifts and lands like a polite meteor, but masses too much to go all that fast in the outer void.

---

I don't think I'd decided what sort of drive it used in my earlier draft, but I've been revising the design based on things decided since that first description was posted. Essentially, the polite meteor version had been presupposing that it was the actual atmosphere that was causing problems with terran planetfall.
The current version of the drive could be described as having the following traits:
Unsteerable: Axis of thrust is through the axis of the ship. Period. Wanna change it, turn the ship.
Flat Power Curve: Unaffected by gravity wells. IE, has the same amount of power on Jupiter or beyond the Limit.
Vector Movement: Acceleration type drive, Max ~30mps^2.
Scale by Radius: Power consumption is determined by the distance between the drive generator and the edge of the drive field.
Quirky Fuel: Runs on orgone. No, Natty doesn't talk about this part.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[M Fnord]

---

Quirky Fuel: Runs on orgone. No, Natty doesn't talk about this part.

---

... You owe me a new keyboard, man.
--Mr. F, who's never gonna get this thing clean.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[KJ]

Unfortunatly deceleration is a form of acceleration and physics (to which we are supposed to pay lip service) therefore says that you need to pay energy.
My suggestion would be that the speed drive doesn't engage until you managed to pay the energy difference, and then it suddenly bumps you down to max speed and you go from there as ussual.

Well, the speed drives pretty much are discarding physics-as-we-know-it anyway, y'know? I mean, we're dealing with a drive that, AFAICT, has damned near instantaneous acceleration up to its top speed, and then jack squat. How's that work? What's the mechanism imposing the top speed?
I'm coming at this from the point of view where "oops, the damned thing melted!" is a kinda neat thing to have happen if you're pushing the envelope too far with acceleration drives and then want to stop really suddenly.
... which really works out the same (well, unless you're being unsafe, or overengineered things) as the thing just not engaging above its speed limit, come to think of it. And grav slingshots as race strategy makes me cackle with barely suppressed glee.
But hey, I'm just sorta in a brainstorming phase here.

[CattyNebulart]

as I said, we are swupposed to pay lip service to Physics, though how speed drives work is completly baffeling the mundane scientist, but they think it might have something to do with the local curvature of space-time.
The Professor has of course explained how it works, multiple times even, all of them inconsistent with each other. But the experiments to test those theories worked each time which is really driving the mundane scientist nuts.
Use whatever you want, I am probably not going to be writing about races anyway. Though getting energy out of an deceleration just rubs me the wrong way.
Plus speed drives have significant backing from space opera and common sense.
We want the righthand column, not the left one
www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/j...ro.html#s3
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[KJ]

Though getting energy out of an deceleration just rubs me the wrong way.

Hrm, I can grok that. It holds to the general "spaceflight simulating airplanes" thing though.
Of course, in an energy-input form, something on the order of "it's sucking in waaaaaay more power than it's supposed to and thus glowing incandescent as it tries to slow things down" works too, except with the risk of screwing powerplants. Which is even more amusing.
... oh, and that's a great link.

[Valles]

So, yeah. Dunno if it's 'cause of the song or 'cause my mind was already looking in the right direction, but when I heard this on the radio I though, 'Damn, that really fits.'
Smash Mouth - So Insane
Have you looked at the stop watch lately?
When was the last time you clocked-in?
There is a race to be run and a song to be sung
There is a fine line wearin' thin
So don't look back the past has past
The future is comin' fast
You better make room, we're comin' through
Loud and clear
We got the hands to turn this around
We got the plan to make it go down
We got the voice fillin' this room
We got the minds, the minds that go boom
Get up get out get on that train
It's becoming so insane
This tiny blue marble is rollin' away
Have ya checked out the temperature lately
There's a fever that's about to break
There is a game to be won and a song to be sung
This is our battle cry, make no mistake
So don't look back the past has past
The future is comin' fast
You better make room, we're comin' through
Loud and clear
We got the hands to turn this around
We got the plan to make it go down
We got the voice fillin' this room
We got the minds, the minds that go boom
Get up get out get on that train
It's becoming so insane
This tiny blue marble is rollin' away
So don't look back the past has past
The future is comin' fast
You better make room, we're comin' through
Loud and clear
We got the hands to turn this around
We got the plan to make it go down
We got the voice fillin' this room
We got the minds, the minds that go boom
Get up get out get on that train
It's becoming so insane
This tiny blue marble is rollin' away
We got the hands to turn this around
We got the plan to make it go down
We got the voice fillin' this room
We got the minds, the minds that go boom
Get up get out get on that train
It's becoming so insane
This tiny blue marble is rollin' away

Large page, but it has a copy of the song inlined... or whatever. Not my area of technical literacy.
Ja, -n

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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"