- SpoonGuard
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- Exalted Heroic Member
Posted by: opogjijijp
The MAC round/station would have a momentum of 36,000,000,000,000 kg*m/s. If the station weighs 100,000,000 tons, then it will move backward at 360 m/s. With a 1 km barrel(just a guess), and assuming even acceleration, then the acceleration happens in .00017 seconds, producing over 220,000 Gs for the station. You'd clearly need some very powerful engines or some sort of technology that can reduce the recoil. Or both.
This is what got me. I believe that ODP deployment began at Reach just a year or two after first contact with the Covenant. This implies that research and production began before humanity was even aware of the Covenant's existence, ruling out any possibility of implementing captured Covenant artificial-gravity technology (as has been speculated upon in regards to later human ship production). Thus, the next most-likely possibility is, as you suggest, very powerful counter-thrusters.
The other possibility is that maybe the MAC rounds don't actually weigh that much. The size of MAC rounds in Halo 2 don't seem big enough to mass 3000 tons, and I believe there may even be a weight listed on them.
I don't remember the exact page number but Nylund does touch on the specific of MAC technology in FoR so these numbers, at least for ODP's should be accurate. Then again, game canon>book canon so you could be right.