 | *WHUMP* |
 | "Ah!" |
| "Oh my- are you alright? I'm so sorry, I didn't see you coming in when
I launched!" |
| "No, I'm sorry, I should have looked before I barged in here. Um, did you
just fly into me?" |
| "Yes! The Engine Room is equipped with lower gravity than the rest of the
ship to aid with maintenance, and also to provide a place for the crew to
exercise. Flying in low gravity is great exercise!" |
 | "I'll take your word for it. I know I wouldn't want to fly around
with all these spikes on the wall." |
| "They make excellent perches, but I can see your point. I think I heard Mitali
outlining a Zero-G Yoga regimen for your exercise requirements." |
 | *ding!* "Taggart to Engineering. Are you ready down there?" |
| "Aye, Captain, anytime you're ready!" |
| "Stand by. We'll make the Jump soon." |
| "So how exactly does that... thing work?" |
| "I'm glad you asked! In many ways it is a typical gravity drive; compressed
neutronium is converted into energy which is used to redistribute the gravity
field in and around the engine, while also providing power for our ship systems.
This allows us to have artificial gravity in the habitable spaces of the ship, and
also maneuvers the ship on a local scale." |
| "Okay, but I don't understand how the Astral Drive is supposed to work.
How can the whole ship fit inside a singularity? Isn't that just a dot?" |
| "Very good! That is but one of the many "simplifications" Sigmund accused me
of making. An engine of the size you see before you could not possibly create
a singularity of any kind; instead, a miniature, unstable black hole was
generated at the manufacturing site, and the rest of the Astral Drive was built
around that." |
 | "An unstable black hole? That sounds... terrifying." |
| "Oh, it's not so bad as all that. It just means that the black hole would collapse
if not maintained by this ship's regular engines, the same engines that contain
any harmful effects of the Astral Drive. The important bit is the reason the
singularity is unstable; it's ring shaped." |
| "Ring shaped?" |
| "Yes! Genius, isn't it? Essentially, the singularity is spinning such that the
distribution of mass shows an equatorial bulge. Because a point cannot
support the angular momentum of the body, the singularity instead assumes
the shape of a ring with zero thickness and nonzero radius. From there, it's
merely a matter of using our gravitics to induce the size of the singularity to
expand to be larger than the ship. We fall through, and emerge in Astral Space!" |
| "You expand the singularity ring... from inside the ship?" |
| "Well, yes and no. It's hard for me to explain without showing you the
math, and-" |
| *ding!* "Attention, attention. This is the Captain speaking. In one minute, at
0815 exactly, the UAS Hatoful will make the first Astral Jump to another star
system ever attempted by... Earthlings. Some of the test pilots reported
feelings of disorientation, so be sure to secure yourself until you know how
you'll react." |
| "Disorientation?" |
| "Our minds can't properly handle being in Astral Space; there really isn't
any time there. I hypothesize that the mind can play tricks on you in
that state." |
| "How can the mind play tricks on you if no time is passing?" |
| "Well... I don't know. Theoretically, the Jump shouldn't feel like anything.
That's one of the mysteries I'm hoping to solve by attending this flight
in person." |
| "I wish this had been mentioned at the briefing so I could get psyched
up for it. Maybe I'll feel better if I distract myself by watching the engine
closely. I'm not sure I-" |
Author
Topic: (PPSG) Star Crossed: More parrot exposition than you can shake a phaser at! (Read 28207 times)