Pseudo-Gravity Generator
Pseudo-Gravity Generators are a class of machine which create large-scale force fields that accelerate matter through a designated volume. These devices are commonly used to provide the artificial gravity of starships, but are also used in cargo handling facilities, factories, and vehicle suspensions. Although far more energy-intensive than many artificial gravity systems (such as by centrifugal force, or magnetic devices), arcane pseudo-gravity generators have the benefits of accelerating material uniformly within the active space, providing a uniform force in a variety of directions, keeping the field contained to the active space, and negating the need for special hardware such as magnetic attachments.
Operating Principle
Pseudo-gravity devices make use of Resonant Arcane Dynamics to produce an arcane force field in a designated volume, using a form of arcane wave interference whose interactions with physical matter produce an attractive or repulsive force depending on the relative phase of the waves known as "partial-phase gravimorphic induction interference".
In most devices, two layers of magically active material such as Mithral is electrically pulsed to emit the waves, whose relative phase is controlled by the electrical pulses. In smaller devices, this simply creates an attractive force surrounding the machine, often focused by aetherial shielding into a cone. Larger devices, such as those used on ships, enclose the affected area in a cage made of active filament, often shielded to prevent the waves from affecting external objects. This enclosure allows the control system to create forces in a variety of directions, though doing so can be computationally difficult.
Pseudo-gravity cages are usually highly faceted, as keeping their geometry as regular as possible greatly reduces the computational power needed to generate the appropriate combination of waves. As the computing power available on ships has climbed, so to have the complexity of their pseudo-gravity enabled compartments, and in 2530 a research team led by computer scientist Janya Alvaeyane published the first post-Silence algorithm enabling the creation of stable uniform fields using a curved surface (in their case a paraboloid section). Further work by their and other teams has since greatly expanded the number of shapes which can be used in pseudo-gravity cages. The neucurve style of ship design, with its extensive use of complex interlocking curves in both ship exterior and interior design, has both become far cheaper and more popular in recent years due to these advances.
