Re: Slingshotting ships with gravity wells in SJ

>Next, I'm considering making the navigators/captains or whatever of these
>ships very mathematically evolved, somewhere almost akin to todays
>mathematical skills (excluding computers of course).
>
>Lastly, I have just had another idea.  IMC mages us "mana crystals" to power
>magic (hopefully people have heard enough of my dribbling to understand this
>one), and this sphere has a nice abundance of them.  What if their engines
>could somehow be modified to inject small ammounts of these crystals,
>crushed along with other minerals, into their fires, creating a "booster"
>effect not unlike the coloured log's of doctor Emmet Brown in my favourite
>movie of all time, Back to the Future III (I can just picture a Modron with
>a helm and a train...).  Using these "speed potions" (for lack of a better
>phrase), they can increase their velocity to attain these speeds - without
>them, such a GS would be impossible.
>
>How does this sound?  Keep in mind that mana crystals come in different
>sizes, which is irrelevant when crushed, but generally hold quite a few
>spell levels worth of magic (for standard magic campaigns, I am planning to
>write up an alternate system to the crystals, wherein they are simply small
>portable pools of magic, used by mages who have spent their magical energy
>for the day whilst on the helm).

and using crushed mana crystals in suspension is arefinement of the
old technique: tossing whole crystals into the furnace.  it used to
be that you'd have an expert gemologist or lapidary onboard, whose
job it was to evaluate the regularity of mana crystals.  knowing
this, combined with a measurement of the crystal's smallest
dimension, you could calculate roughly how long it would take the
crystal to "catch" in the furnace fires.  but it was never exact, so
sometimes your burst would come a few seconds, or even minutes, early
or late, due to unseen or misunderstood imperfections in the crystal.
space travel is much safer now, because you can predict within less
than a second when the boost will kick in.  crushing mana crystals
without releasing their energy is still a complex (al)chemical
process, so it's not something you can do aboard ship, generally, and
certainly not something you can do in a hurry.  so, sometimes, ships
are still forced to utilize an un-crushed crystal in an emergency
(horribly off-course, out of speed boost, but found an asteroid with
some crystals).

woodelf                <*>
woodelf@???.net
http://members.home.net/woodelph/

The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#24 Law of Americanthropomorphism
Americans in Anime appear in one of two roles, either as a really nasty
skinny 'Bad Guy' or a big stupid 'Good Guy'.
First Corollary - The only people who are more stupid than the big dumb
Americans are the American translators. (Sometimes referred to as the
Green Line Effect.)
Second Corollary - The only people who are more stupid than the American
translators are the American editors and censors.