|
I like one SF plot solution to extreme-range combat that says you can't sustain relativistic drives in deep gravity wells (solar systems). Combatants have to drop out/in of "warp" at significant distances from a planet. You can conventionally accelerate to relativistic speeds but your ship has little use in a battle as it flashes by a given target at some fraction of c and takes a year to slow down.
Of course, a related SF trope that bothers me is how ships drop out of "warp" at solar systems with nearly zero relative speed. Seems like there would be enough different system velocities (speed and direction) out there to make that absurd.
|