system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Wars] Why do ships not have thrusters in the front? In other words, how do they slow down?

I'm working on a couple of assumptions here:

1. Ships, especially military ships, will want to slow down as quickly as they speed up;

2. The massive engines at the back of the ship are almost purely functional rather than decorative;

3. The engines are used to provide thrust in normal space as opposed to hyperspace;

4. The ships don't turn around to decelerate; and

5. The laws of physics work the same way in the SW universe as in our own.

If the above assumptions are correct, what tech do they use to slow a ship down - and why don't they use that same tech to accelerate the ship?
gpt
Inertial dampers don't just shield the people inside the ship from the devastating effects of rapid acceleration changes, but they can also "dump" the kinetic energy of the ship, causing it to rapidly lose speed.  They just can't produce thrust, which is why ships can only accelerate forward, thanks to their engines.