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"He swears the Betan embassy there is demonstrating an artificial gravity device."
"What! How—?"
"Piping it in from wormhole space for all I know. You bet Beta Colony is sitting on the math of it, till they make their initial killing in the marketplace and recoup their R&D costs.
"
―Leo Graf and another engineer discuss the new invention.[src]

Gravitics was the name used in the Vorkosigan Saga for any kind of technology that uses anti-gravity. No detailed explanation exists in the series for how this worked, but it was invented about two hundred years before Miles Vorkosigan[1], and it was "a five-space/three-space interface phenomenon."[2]

Many technologies used gravitics:

  • Float vehicles – a general term for vehicles that used gravitics (ubiquitous)
    • airsled – a term for a Komarran police vehicle[3]
    • lightflyer – a particularly widely-used vehicle (ubiquitous)
    • grav-sled – a recreational vehicle[4]
    • scat-cat – a military vehicle for traveling over tundra[5]
    • hovercar - a floating gravitics-using equivalent to a groundcar.[6][7]
  • gravitic imploder lance – was a type of weapon[8][2][9]
  • gravitic grenades – were a type of weapon[10]
  • gravitic grappler – useful with rappelling equipment[11]
  • artificial gravity – a technology that transformed space flight[1]
  • grav-crutches – Miles Vorkosigan used these when he broke both his legs[12]
  • tractor tow, tractor beam, hand-tractor – for moving things from a distance (ubiquitous)
  • grav-bed – a particularly luxurious way to sleep[13]
  • lift tube – a particularly modern version of an elevator (ubiquitous)

Notes and references[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Falling Free chapter 7
  2. 2.0 2.1 Komarr chapter 18
  3. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance chapter 2
  4. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance chapter 12
  5. The Vor Game chapters 2-5
  6. Brothers in Arms chapter 3
  7. Mirror Dance chapters 5,6
  8. The Vor Game chapter 15
  9. Cetaganda chapter 3
  10. Brothers in Arms chapter 13
  11. Brothers in Arms chapters 14,15
  12. The Warrior's Apprentice chapter 3
  13. Komarr chapters 1,2,4,9,14
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