User:The All-knowing Sith'ari/Inertia damper

The inertia damper, also known as the acceleration compensator, is a device used in UNSC starships to counter or dampen the effects of inertia, acceleration, and other forces and motion that a ship undergoes in the course of its normal activities. Unlike the "inertial compensators" proposed by numerous science fiction authors, the damper does not negate the forces but either absorbs or redirects them by other means. Without compensators, ships would either have to accelerate much more slowly, or kill their occupants with excessive g-forces. It is known that the Covenant possess a system similar in principle but different in operation based on the manipulation of gravitons.

Technology
The damper works on the principle of "utility fog"; a swarm of nanobots, each with extending arms reaching in several different directions, and can perform three-dimensional lattice reconfiguration. Grabbers at the ends of the arms allow the robots (or foglets) to mechanically link to one another and share both information and energy, enabling them to act as a continuous substance with mechanical and optical properties that can be varied over a wide range. Each foglet has substantial computing power, and is able to communicate with its neighbours. The foglets' bodies are made of aluminum oxide rather than combustible diamond to avoid creating a fuel air explosive. The whole system was originally designed as a "replacement for seatbelts", although restraints are maintained UNSC spacecraft in the event of the damper failing.

When the damper is in use, the swarm of robots is widely spread-out, and the arms loose, allowing air flow between them. In the event of a collision the arms lock into their current position, as if the air around the passengers has abruptly frozen solid. The result would be to spread any impact over the entire surface of the passenger's body. This causes buoyancy forces to act counter to any acceleration.

Small craft such as starfighters and Bumblebee lifeboats (ironically the craft that require inertia dampers the most) are too small to carry the bulky inertia damper fog production system and so a mechanical solution is required: The crew and passengers of the craft sit at stations wearing sealed vacuum suits for protection should they need to eject, as well as to protect them from extreme G-forces. In order to allow the craft to perform extremely high-gee manouevres without harming the crew, the entire cockpit is filled with fluid equal in density to the body, which causes buoyancy forces to act counter to any acceleration.

Behind the Scenes
The author was inspired to write this article when he came across Wikipedia's article on utility fog while trying to think of a plausible (by 2010 scientific knowldege) method of creating an inertial compensator for Halo. This is a concept similar in function, though different in detail, to that of the "crash field" presented in Larry Niven's science fiction short story The Soft Weapon (1967), and is also similar in function to the "inertial compensators" of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other science fiction series.