Tales from The Early Years – Jenna: Rocket Science
Jenna Stannis has grown up on a space station and thinks planets are a bit backward. My original wheeze for a story about her early life was to have teenage Jenna race spaceships with a boy that she fancies.
Script editor Ben Aaronovitch liked the idea, but tossed back my first draft because I had avoided the real physics. He said:
“The B7 universe doesn’t have shields. These are not Star Trek shuttles they’re racing, they don’t swoop, glide, veer etc. They move according to Newtonian physics – sorry.”
At his insistence, I had to go ask my clever friends about orbital mechanics and delta-v.
You can’t race space ships in vacuum. If they’re both the same shape and have the same thrust they’ll be perfectly matched. So my race now takes place through an asteroid field, where the ships get pinged with dust and rocks, and the pilots need skill to keep themselves on a steady course. The dust rattling off the nose cone will also, I’m hoping, make it sound good on audio.
I worried how I’d explain the physics stuff to the listener without bogging down the story in explanation. So I’ve used the complexity of the physics as a plot point. They race without using their ships’ computers, doing all the calculations in their heads. That means they’re also trying to put each other off.
So I’ve got an important plot reason for Jenna mentioning off-hand to the guy she’s racing that she’s not wearing a bra…
Simon Guerrier
Tags: Blake's 7, Dust Run, Jenna, Simon Guerrier, Trial
