20120623, 07:08 – The Hemera generates gravity in a rotating section – a section that locks into place when the engines are running. The Sabrosa carries massive Mass Amplifiers and Mass Abstraction hardware and can effectively generate its own gravity field and ignore or diminish the influence of external forces on the ship. The Daedalus diminishes the single biggest health concern of space medicine the old fashioned way – by keeping the pedal to the metal.
The Daedalus has been accelerating continually for over four hours. While depth in am is critical, the amount of gas in the tank is the key limiting factor of how long the ship can maintain artificial gravity via thrust. At just shy of the halfway point between earth and wherever the ship is going, it’s time to slam on the brakes. Another four hour burn in the opposite direction will produce the desired effect while maintaining some degree of crew comfort. While GNOMES engines are the most efficient propulsion system ever developed by man they still eat a good amount of fuel. This fact and a few other physics-related inconveniences would be why the Daedalus thrust gravity and nacelle orientation vary throughout the story.
GNOMES energy density is what makes the engines the most advanced piece of hardware on the ship – while the rest of the Daedalus hardware could be easily fabricated with modern methods, the GNOMES reaction chamber is probably closer to a fusion reactor than any currently existing power source.
It’s worth noting here that art ops for this scene were completed earlier this week, which means ATC is guaranteed another three weeks of updates. I’ve spent no time on any of the assets required for the rest of the chapter and don’t expect to do so until next weekend at the earliest. I have planned a few revisions that should make 2.16 and 2.17 a good amount of work instead of an insane amount of work, so if there is a delay it’ll hopefully be a short one.
In unrelated news, I took the initiative and updated book numbers and book links on ATC’s TVTropes entry, which ought to direct any incoming traffic (outside of Viewers Are Geniuses) to the current incarnation of the comic instead of one of the old abandoned-in-place subdomains. This being the second time I’ve edited the TVT entry I took the liberty of cleaning up some of my earlier mess.
In other news, ATC is finally getting traffic from outside established sources and the Project Wonderful campaign! If you’re here from the TGComics Forums, welcome! This ain’t the typical gender bender!
Oh, and the chapter is now at the halfway point! Transitional Voices is now 3/8 complete! :D
