NSS Alliance Ion engine/nerd swap

Your missing the point Uso, all things have a strong tendency to move towards a state of lower energy (when possible). For sublight matter this makes a high energy object slow down when it encounter other objects (on average) since a slower velocity (and same mass) means a lower energy. However for tachionic matter it is the reverse, since higher speed actually means lower energy. This means that when the tachyons interacted with the interstellar medium (however low density) the tachyons would, on average, loss energy and gain velocity. Since energy cannot disappear, this lost energy would be emitted in the form of light. This waste light from the tachionic exhaust (at all points along the exhaust, the further away from the engine the lower the higher the tachyon velocity and thus the lower the energy level of the emitted photons), not the engine, and would make it extremely visible.

Actually, the above is another reason you do not want to have the exhaust go through the ship (as a note, this also means the hull must be permeable to tachionic matter, putting a serious vulnerability there), since the higher energy radiation emitted as the tachions passed through the ships matter (walls, floors, people, etc.) would still be high enough to be quite dangerous to life and equipment.

An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside source. The only thing on the ship that is interacting with the tachyons is the engine so the only place where tachyons will emit energy is the engine.

Because tachyons do not interact with normal mass they simply pass through the ship. Because they are not in an interaction field they are not imparting acceleration (aside from gravity) nor are they bouncing against anything nor are particles falling off so there would be no release of heat, or light.


If what you are saying is true then tachyons would be able to be used as a super-penetrating ray gun and they would be easy to prove with observational means. In everything I've read about tachyons they are always extremely difficult/impossible to prove with observational means and have only math to support them what you say has to be wrong. It would defy laws of physics.