gravity wells and other such ‘inertial fields’ are trans-phasic. You don’t fall through the floor because it’s not the floor being solid that holds you there, it’s the inertial field of the grav-plating bleeding into higher dimensions and back down into parallel phases of the causal volume.
inertial dampening fields do the same thing, which is why the habitation space within the ship isn’t instantly pancaked to the back wall under full impulse propulsion. When the ship is moving under normal circumstances, the interior does not experience any acceleration so long as the inertial dampening fields are not being overpowered by excessive maneuvering.
A perfectly cromulent explanation. Now, as to why the character is still able to breathe, despite their lungs being phased relative to the ordinary air molecules on the ship…
actually it would be a wicked cool plot device if fluidic volumes were susceptible to interaction with objects independent of phase due to the quantum level brownian motion interactions of unincorporated particles–and that this is a fundamental cornerstone of why things like atmospheric containment barriers and structural integrity fields can exist, and just nobody fucking noticed that out-of-phase sapients are still consuming oxygen and SLIGHTLY displacing atmosphere!
Like, they can’t reliably create coherent pressure waves to create audible speech, but if they blew really hard into someone’s ear they’d actually feel something very faintly. I mean, canonically this isn’t so, but if I were a writer, I’d actually go there and make that stipulation even if it perturbs prior established canon. It’d be just FUNNY you know?
There actually was an episode in one of the 1990s series (voyager or TNG or something) where someone who was ‘out of phase’ due to a ‘transporter accident’ (as one does) was able to cause a disruption of flow in a plasma conduit or something by reaching into it; the superheated charged particles were not able to harm them but their interference made the conduit buzz or rattle or something and a crewmember recognized there was a particular pattern to it (like morse code) and they were able to communicate through it.
Hoshi was out of phase and stuck her hand in a plasma conduit to try and communicate with Captain Archer in Enterprise but it was all a hallucination so technically we still don’t know if it’s possible.
Doesn't spoil anything about the plot of the film or anything, but just in case you're hypersensitive about spoilers
“As you know, for reasons we don’t fully understand, ghosts can stand on a floor, but we go right through a wall.”
Stargate has always been streets ahead.
RIP random Romulan.
But Ro, no problem.
my headcanon:
gravity wells and other such ‘inertial fields’ are trans-phasic. You don’t fall through the floor because it’s not the floor being solid that holds you there, it’s the inertial field of the grav-plating bleeding into higher dimensions and back down into parallel phases of the causal volume.
inertial dampening fields do the same thing, which is why the habitation space within the ship isn’t instantly pancaked to the back wall under full impulse propulsion. When the ship is moving under normal circumstances, the interior does not experience any acceleration so long as the inertial dampening fields are not being overpowered by excessive maneuvering.
A perfectly cromulent explanation. Now, as to why the character is still able to breathe, despite their lungs being phased relative to the ordinary air molecules on the ship…
actually it would be a wicked cool plot device if fluidic volumes were susceptible to interaction with objects independent of phase due to the quantum level brownian motion interactions of unincorporated particles–and that this is a fundamental cornerstone of why things like atmospheric containment barriers and structural integrity fields can exist, and just nobody fucking noticed that out-of-phase sapients are still consuming oxygen and SLIGHTLY displacing atmosphere!
Like, they can’t reliably create coherent pressure waves to create audible speech, but if they blew really hard into someone’s ear they’d actually feel something very faintly. I mean, canonically this isn’t so, but if I were a writer, I’d actually go there and make that stipulation even if it perturbs prior established canon. It’d be just FUNNY you know?
There actually was an episode in one of the 1990s series (voyager or TNG or something) where someone who was ‘out of phase’ due to a ‘transporter accident’ (as one does) was able to cause a disruption of flow in a plasma conduit or something by reaching into it; the superheated charged particles were not able to harm them but their interference made the conduit buzz or rattle or something and a crewmember recognized there was a particular pattern to it (like morse code) and they were able to communicate through it.
Hoshi was out of phase and stuck her hand in a plasma conduit to try and communicate with Captain Archer in Enterprise but it was all a hallucination so technically we still don’t know if it’s possible.