Inertial Dampening: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Maj. Sheppard:''' Oh yeah. Without inertial dampening, we'd be hit by so many G-s, [[Eye Scream|our eyes would pop]], [[Body Horror|the skin would pull away from our faces, our brains would squish up to the back of our skulls, and our internal organs would be crushed into these chairs]]. What about that sandwich? ''Calmly glances at Ford, who is now looking a little green''|''[[Stargate Atlantis]]''}}

 

* Averted in ''[[Starship Operators]]''. All the crews need to strap themselves in before acceleration, and acceleration ranges to at most around 10g for some ships. {{spoiler|Played a bit straight later when Amaterasu fights 5 Kingdom ships. Shinon devise a plan to quickly turn the ship to fire on enemies, and generate this effect by using its own warp drive to create gravity field that will protect its crew. It does protect its crew, but results in several decks wrecked, antimatter container being cracked, and several other massive damages on the ship. Quite a suicide tactic, actually}}.

* Barely addressed in ''[[Code Geass]]''. The flying [[Humongous Mecha|Humongous Mechas]] do sharp U-turns at velocities that would turn the pilot into paste all over the cockpit's walls (and probably dismantle the mechas themselves). Handwaved by [[Hot Scientist|Rakshata]] with the new pilot suits :

'''[[Hot Scientist|Rakshata]] :''' No. But they will increase the survival rate. }}

** Not exactly. Those pilot suits are for stopping the pilot from dying when their mecha explode. Of course, when their mecha explode, they're launched from the exploding hulk in rocket-powered cockpits, so you really do want your pilot suit to inflate and stop you from breaking your neck when your head smashes into your control panel.

** Reducing your space ship's inertial mass to 0 also means you no longer have to worry about it becoming infinite as you approach light speed. This is, in fact, how ships in the Lensmen universe accomplish [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]].

** Spoofed in ''Backstage Lensmen'', a parody by [[Randall Garrett]].

* In the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' stories (and others by David Weber), inertial sinks (called "inertial compensators" in the Honorverse) are required to deal with, by "absorbing" the inertia otherwise generated, the ridiculously high accelerations ships can generate. Failure of the system, either through combat or sabotage, is considered terrifying by crews as undergoing 300 or more Earth gravities of acceleration instantaneously turns people into chunky salsa.

** Weber makes a point of describing this effect at least once in any book which involves space combat or high system-stress situations (basically all of them). The best was "Turning the entire crew into something vaguely resembling tuna paste."

* The [[Star Trek]] novel Federation, (Which was written well before First Contact) has Zefram Cochrane's first FTL trip taking the better part of a year, even though he only spent a few weeks actually going FTL, the rest of the time was used for accelerating and decelerating since inertial dampening hadn't been discovered yet. Upon returning to the solar system (specifically the moon Titan) he's told that the book's [[Big Bad]] has recently left Earth headed to Titan, and he has only 2-3 days to escape, which confuses him since, as he states, even using fluid tubes to cushion the inertia no human could survive the acceleration needed to make the trip that fast. Turns out the guy had stolen a ship equipped with the first prototype of an inertial dampening system.

** On a later return to Earth, he rides in a hover limo with inertial dampeners, and later [[Cool Ship|travels on a sublight spacecraft whose only means of propulsion is inertial control]].

* Any [[Iain Banks]] Sci-Fi book the rules of physics are always played straight. In the cases where the characters are Culture and they're travelling in a Mind-operated starship, especially in GSVs where there are so many layers of forcefields and acceleration adjustments for upcoming ships trying to reach them at great velocities that they don't actually ''have'' a physical hull. In the case of ''The Algebraist'', where the societies were more primitive and didn't yet have this technology, there were special measures taken to protect any creature travelling at any acceleration rate, with at one point the main character having to be restrained and insulated when the ship he was in was travelling at 20+ Gs. Military spacecraft crew battle stations are in gel-filled gimballed spheres to best allow them to remain conscious and functional under rapidly fluctuating acceleration vectors.

** Another example from ''The Algebraist'' is with the humanoid Divers who enter the inner layers of gas giants to converse with their denizens. They have to be completely encased and filled with a special gel-fluid within a specialised pod in order to survive the extreme gravity and environment changes.

* It's assumed by some that the "Passive Laser Restraint System" on ''[[Knight Rider]]'''s KITT is some sort of system of this nature, but it remains unexplained.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', when Carter and O'Neil prepare to test the X-302 fighter, they run through a checklist. The following exchange takes place.

'''Carter:''' Sorry, sir. }}

** Also shown in ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', when Shepard is in a [[Old School Dogfighting|dogfight]] '''IN SPACE''' with McKay onboard. After feeling the G's from a few hard turns, he asks 'I thought these things had inertial dampers on them'. Apparently they do, but considering how many sudden changes in acceleration are involved in dogfighting, it probably takes a bit to catch up.

** There was also the time Sheppard intentionally accelerated a starship ''without'' the inertial dampers activated, because he was the only one who could fly the ship, but was being held hostage by people who wanted it. He was sitting down, but they were standing up, and were sent flying.

'''Everyone else''': [[Oh Crap]]! }}

** The Puddle Jumpers are also 10,000 years old. It's possible the inertial dampers aren't at peak operating condition, probably having missed a few state inspections.