"In the new gravitic ships, there was simply no way of detecting takeoff. There were no inertial effects; no accelerational push; no noise; no vibration.

"Possessing the capacity to insulate itself from outside gravitational fields to any degree up to total, the Far Star lifted from a planetary surface as though it were floating on some cosmic sea. And while it did so, the gravitational effect within the ship, paradoxically, remained normal.

"While the ship was within the atmosphere, of course, there was no need to accelerate so that the whine and vibration of rapidly passing air would be absent. As the atmosphere was left behind, however, acceleration could take place, and at rapid rates, without affecting tht passengers.

"It was the ultimate in comfort and Trevize did not see how it could be improved upon until such time as human beings discovered a whay of whisking through hypserspace without ships, and without concern that nearby gravitational fields that might be too intense. Right now, the Far Star would have to speed away from Gaia's sun for several days before the gravitational intensity was weak enough to attempt the jump."

- Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Earth

Also, an explanation by CrippledPidgeon about the turbo ability based on the work of another author, David Weber:

"The turbo is an overboost of the pulse engines. It creates a very deep gravity well in front of your ship, giving you greatly increased acceleration. Normally, most ships are limited to travelling below 65m/s so their particle shielding can still adequately protect the pilot against interstellar debris and radiation, but when "turboing," the additional gravity traps enough of those interstellar particles that standard shielding can still protect the pilot while allowing a much higher top speed."

In David Weber's examples, ships projected two wedges of gravatic energy above and below the ship. The wedges could not actually touch each other, but come closer in the front of the ship and widen to the rear. This causes there to be a greater gravitational pull to the front of the ship, and the ship "falls" to this hole.

Protecting the ship from interstellar radiation is particle shielding (most likely a magnetic field of some sort... Weber doesn't really explain these too well), but they can only protect the ships until they reach .8c, at which point they are overpowered.

So adapting these ideas to the ones that FM suggest, there is somehow ball of gravity projected in the ship's intended direction of acceleration, and the ship will fall towards that gravity well. On top of the gravity well drawing in some of the cosmic radiation, they also have particle shields to protect from cosmic rays and such, which explains the natural drop in acceleration when the ship reaches 65m/s (that's pretty damn weak shielding, but whatever) which if a ship exceeds, will result in the shields being overwhelmed and the pilot becomes a TV dinner.

However when the engines are overboosted for the turbo, a deeper gravity well is projected and this greater gravity field sucks up more radiation and the ship can temporarily travel faster than normal.

Which is my expanded explanation.

Not too bad for an explanation, Crip.

Kind of Like Star Trek "inventing" Heisenberg Compensators to , well, compensate for the uncertaincy principle when transporting matter from point to point.

A Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron to our Infinite Improbability Drive, then?

hmm, <incredibly geeky> I heard the Heisenberg Compensators were there to deal with the whole lack of people getting smashed into a fine puree when the ship accelerates up to 3 times lightspeed in just a few seconds. </incredibly geeky>

nobody ask.....

[even geekier] Actually that was the Inertial Compensator. The magical device that prevents the people inside from feeling the effects of a ship's acceleration.

The Heisenberg Compensators magically "compensate" for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which in its most basic state asserts that you can either know a particle's location or its momentum, and the most more precisely you measure either attribute will change the value of the other. Since to transport matter like the "transporter," you need a very precise measurement of both location and momentum, they created the "Heisenberg Compensater" to make it possible to measure both location and position. [/even geekier]

ahem.... oookaaaaay.......

*/me rolls an Improbability Grenade across the thread*

...

*Thurisaz turns into a penguin. A bistro suddenly appears in the docking port of the SMV Nemesis. Shape suddenly becomes a circle!

**waddle, waddle** Look at me, I'm a gentoo

(:> K - {

[edit: geh..I suck at ASCII art :C ]

HAHA!!!! THAT'S FRIGGIN' AWESOME!

me shakes his head and smiles....

and to think, i call you guys friends! :)

..YEAH, Bobsin, what *does* that say about you??

/me craves herring