The Wrong Way to Fly a Spaceship, Part I

In the Odyssey universe, space travel is through star gates -- man-made portals that open into other parts of the galaxy. But you still need a ship to get to the gate, which exerts such a powerful gravitic force in the moments that it's open that the only safe place to keep a gate is a nice, safe distance from your planet.

And it's only open for moments at a time -- a complex set of computations between both the ship's computer and the gate's allows the gate to open for the minimal amount of time necessary to let a speeding ship pass through. And it's not like a lightswitch; the gate has to cycle up to readiness, and that cycling time depends on the distance the wormhole is traversing.

If the timing were ever wrong -- well, then, you might pass through the gate unharmed before it opens, or you might miss the opening, or you might get chopped in half when it closes on you prematurely.

There are redundant systems, of course; buoys that mark the ship's passage and acceleration from a distance, abort switches that can cancel an opening almost instantly, etc.

But mostly, you are relying on the ship's computer to get you through safely. And generally that works out just fine.

Gate approaches aren't the only tricky party of astral navigation. A ship needs to accelerate at forces that exceed the tolerance of most beings, so inertial dampeners (to steal a term from Star Trek -- basically artificial gravity aimed in whatever direction you need it) need to compensate for the ship's movements. Like gates, however, these dampeners need a moment to reach a ready-state; the stronger the force being generated, the longer the cycle (though it's just a difference of milliseconds at this point). That means the ship needs to start dampening inertia before taking the turn.

HOWEVER. Since it's the pilot who is doing the turning, and since leaving inertia-dampening to the computer would mean a slower reaction time for all the pilot's commands--

(Pilot: "Go left!"
Ship: "Preparing to go left... cycling inertia dampeners... going left now!")

-- it is instead left to the pilot, who deftly maneuvers the ship and its internal gravity/inertia.

Which is why pilots use implants. All pilots. The human body has far too slow of reaction times to be able to handle this much, so the body is skipped altogether, and ships are controlled by pilots' minds directly. Cerebral implants transmit thought commands to the ship.

But cerebral implants can't be given to non-adults; their brains aren't done growing until their early 20s, and installing implants before the pilot has reached maturity is a sure-fire way to create a screwed-up kid AND a dangerous pilot.

But our hero needs to be able to fly a ship!

To be continued...