Sunday April 9, 2017
Book 17: A Little Immortality — Part II

Note: Those with even a passing familiarity with rocket science will be quick to argue with the curved "turn around" imagery used in the last frame. In a frictionless environment with no nearby gravity wells turning isn't accomplished by banking. You simply apply acceleration in the other direction. Vessels with fixed-position reaction drives might need to rotate, turning themselves around, in order to do this, but it still wouldn't deliver that swoop.

Gravitic drives are a bit different. They bend spacetime around the ship, which is forever "falling" forward. Turning around means reversing the direction of falling, and it's easier to swing the "down" point around than to turn it off and then turn it on in a new location. It's a terrible idea to swing it straight through the ship, whose Drivetide Compensator Inertiics (DCI) will overload, and everybody will literally fall to pieces.

That still doesn't justify the swoople in panel 10, but it's fun to talk about.