Inertialess Drive

Inertialess Drives are a class of hypothetical future Starship Drive systems that eliminate virtually all inertial mass, allowing almost instantaneous acceleration and deceleration without changing momentum.

• Because this drive does not alter momentum but rather accelerates thru the conservation of momentum as the inertia decreases, this drive is not considered to be an Impulse Drive.

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Description (Specifications)

As a rumored product of precursor technology, it is not entirely certain how Inertialess Drives worked, other than an ability to decouple matter from its inertial mass to a very high (> ~ 99%) degree of efficiency and with very fine control. A vessel equipped with such a propulsion system could "accelerate" to virtual lightspeed almost instantaneously via Conservation of Momentum in principle, without any perceived "feeling" of acceleration, since the momentum does not in fact change. Change of attitude and course would be trivial matters using the tiniest forces under such conditions. Since the drive is not perfectly inertialess (i.e. m ≠ 0) when active, more problematic for such a vessel at such high velocities would be friction with interstellar or intergalactic media or collisions with microscopic micrometeoroids. Otherwise harmless visible or radio wave electromagnetic radiation and particle radiation would be extremely blue-shifted and strike the vessel as extremely hard gamma radiation or high intensity particle accelerator / Cosmic Ray hits, respectively, whereas micrometeoroids could potentially be an instant vaporization event. Thus, it is unclear (if such a drive ever existed) how navigation and screening could protect such a ship from almost certain annihilation.

A few archaeological sites have yielded clues that suggests to some researchers that there may have been a more advanced or perhaps different form of Inertialess Drive they may or may not have been related to the one described above that crossed interstellar or even perhaps intergalactic distances in relatively short periods of time. If these speculations are in fact correct and not mere misinterpretations of data, it would imply that the corresponding technology was far more sophisticated than simple elimination of inertia could accomplish alone. If such engines did exist, they would be far beyond the understanding of any current Imperial Science.

FTL Drive Specifications

FTL Drive Specifications (Starship Propulsion)

Category	Specifications	Remarks
Name	TBD	TBD
Drive Type	TBD	TBD
Velocity	TBD	TBD
Duration	TBD	TBD
Hazards	TBD	TBD
Physical Constraints	TBD	TBD
Geometry	TBD	TBD
Levels	TBD	TBD
Entry	TBD	TBD
Exit	TBD	TBD
Fuel	TBD	TBD
Resource Requirements	TBD	TBD
Inventor	TBD	TBD
Characteristics	TBD	TBD

History & Background (Dossier)

Most futurists conjecture that the drive is:

• The Inertialess Drive is TL-25.
• Other believe that the technology will come of age in the TL:25-27 tech epoch and possibly later..

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Library Data Referral Tree

Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information:

Starships:

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Speed-of-Travel

• Speed of Travel

• NAFAL (STL) - (Not As Fast As Light) / (Slower Than Light)
• Light Speed (c)
• FTL - (Faster Than Light) - "Superluminal"

• Astronomical Unit (AU)

» Imperial Standard Astronomical Unit

• Light-second (ls)
• Light-minute (lm)
• Light-hour (lh)
• Light-day (ld)
• Light-week (lw)
• Light-year (ly)
• Parsec (pc)

» Solomani Parsec

» Vilani Parsec ("Deshi")

» Imperial Standard Parsec

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Impulse-Drives

• Spacecraft Drives (Interplanetary Drives)

• Reaction Drives:

• Reaction Rockets:

• R-Drive (Rocket Drive)
• O-Drive (Orion Drive)
• H/P-Drive (HEPlaR Drive)

• Impulse Drives:

(Field Drives / Propellantless Drives)

• Z-Drive (Lifter / <1.0 D)
• G-Drive (Gravity Drive / <10.0 D)
• M-Drive (Maneuver Drive or Thruster Plate / <1000.0 D)
• N-Drive (NAFAL Drive / <¹/₈ ly)

• Reactionless Drives:

• T-Drive (Reactionless Thruster: Gyroscopic Inertial Thruster (GIT) or Dean Space-Thruster Drive)

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Interstellar-Drives (Advanced)

• Starship Drives (Interstellar Drives)

• N-Drive (NAFAL Drive / < ¹/₈ ly)
• Jump Space Drives

• Jump Space
• Jump Drive History

• Jump Governor
• Nexus Linkage Device
• Nth Order Jump Space Drives

• J-Drive - Jump Drive ("0th" Order Jump Space Drive / > 100 D)
• H-Drive - Hop Drive (1st Order Jump Space Drive / > 1000 D)
• S-Drive - Skip Drive (2nd Order Jump Space Drive / > 10,000 D)
• L-Drive - Leap Drive (3rd Order Jump Space Drive / > 100,000 D)
• B-Drive - Bound Drive (4th Order Jump Space Drive / > 1,000,000 D)
• V-Drive - Vault Drive (5th Order Jump Space Drive / > 10,000,000 D)

• 6-Drive - Six Drive (6th Order Jump Space Drive / > 100,000,000 D)
• 7-Drive - Seven Drive (7th Order Jump Space Drive / > 1,000,000,000 D)
• 8-Drive - Eight Drive (8th Order Jump Space Drive / > 10,000,000,000 D)
• 9-Drive - Nine Drive (9th Order Jump Space Drive / > 100,000,000,000 D)

• Hieronymous Device ("Jump Potentiator" / "Jump Exponentiator")

• Conjectural Drives

• "Inertialess Drives":

» Inertialess Drive ("I_M -Drive")

» Triplanetary Drive ("I_T -Drive")

• Improbable Drive
• Hieronymous Drive
• Alcubierre Drive ("Albuquerque Drive")
• Reality Drive

• Alternative Interstellar Drive Technologies

• Alternative FTL Drive

» Hyperspace Drive

» Keyhole Drive

» Singularity Drive

» Space Folding Drive

» Stutterdrive

» Teleport Drive

» Warp Drive

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References & Contributors (Sources)

This article is missing content for one or more detailed sections. Additional details are required to complete the article. You can help the Traveller Wiki by expanding it.

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Traveller 5 (T5.09), p.494, 507, 509
• Marc Miller, Robert Eaglestone, Don McKinney. Starships (Far Future Enterprises, 2019), 56, 222, 237.
• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science