Re: New mechanic for strategic speed

Scale shifting is a very interesting suggestion, with some major
game-altering consequences that do not appear to have been raised:
    1)    interplanetary travel is faster for a higher power helm
        Thus, the worth of upgrading to expensive high-energy feul stuffs
and a major helm is greater for a merchantman
    Unless the tiring system of helm operation is modified so that no-one
can go above SR1 for over a minute or so without taking Con checks (like
running)

    2)    there is a very large distance in which a faster ship remains
faster, there is no SJ(interplanetary) speed for the slow ship to escape
battle with
(i.e. the dump-a-rock escape manoever)

In general this would change combat and travel from a shockingly obvious
division (dropping out of SJ speed; all the stars stop moving, maybe a jolt)
to be more like land movement where surprise attacks are an actual
posibility.
    -this could even give a new proficiency (use) Wildspace tail:
navigating so as to avoid eclipsing a star so the ship you're following has
a hard time noticing you before getting shot at.
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As for the mechanism, this is my view:
    gravity is a mystical cohesive force that exists around matter.
    this area of cohesion produces a force on any obect within it which
pulls it to nearby objects, and keeps its atoms tightly together
    planets have so much matter that things close to them are very tighly
stuck together, further away things can drift apart, including the atoms of
an object, allowing the object to get bigger
    other, smaller, objects, like ships, people, dragons, etc., have so
little matter in them that they get really big in interplanetary space and
have virtually no effect on the size of visible objects, only on nearby or
adjacent objects, with even this effect being swamped out by the planet's
gravity force
    a ship's helm does not produce this gravity, it produces an adhesive
force that is directional towards the keel of the ship (which can be shaped
and placed to produce reverse gravity decks) that the passengers think is
gravity because the macroscopic effects are similar.    -therefore, a ship
gets big in interplanetary space just like other objects do, and an
overboard skiff is similarly-sized to the 'rescuing' ship (or a little
bigger)

(optional non-planar phlogiston:
    in interstellar space there is prety well no cohesive gravity, so:
        all objects are Really big
        only the helm's adhesive gravity is keeping the ship in one piece,
which can be disrupted by an excessively random motion of particles (fire
goes Boom)
        the amount of matter in a human range sized creature is insufficient
to keep the atoms functionally together, so either:  the creature is in
phlogiston stasis, or the creature is effectively disintigrated (dead).  And
when a ship's adhesive gravity comes into contact with the creature it might
not put it toghether properly (chance it gets killed rather than recovered),
which is more likely for bigger creatures
        if the helm dies in the phlogiston, there is little to now wait
before stasis sets in, things stop working just as quickly as ship 'gravity'
tails off
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