Inertialess Drive

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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.

Description (Specifications)[edit]

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[edit]

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)[edit]

Most futurists conjecture that the drive is:


Library Data Referral Tree[edit]

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


Starships:

Speed-of-Travel
Impulse-Drives
Interstellar-Drives (Advanced)

References & Contributors (Sources)[edit]

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