>>14333796Short of sounding like a lunatic, I'm going to assume that the QI drive essentially interacts with the quantum foam that makes up reality and exerts force upon that. This foam is in which all reality and mass operates in, and changes to the density of this foam creates cavities and peaks along which the vehicle then transitions as a result of potential energy to kinetic energy conversion--and this is observed as thrust. This quantum interaction is uniformly distributed across the entire probe/engine, and thus does not need an outflow of gases via reaction mass directly through an exit vector such as an engine nozzle. That's not to say that mass isn't being lost, just the electrons being lost to this interaction are so small, that they're able to essentially transition the energy from the "inner" to the "outer".
Frankly, all of the above makes me feel like I just wrote technobabble for a sci-fi fanfic or something dumb. But outside of claimed milinewtons of force to energy requirements, there appears to be no other details on how the engine operates. So, uh... your guess is as good as mine anon. Someone smarter than me please explain, my conjecture sounds like crazy talk.
>>14333804I did not forget that Starship is 95% propellant, but that doesn't ultimately change the fact that chemical rockets generate thrust via state changes, and this too is technically operating on a state change mechanism. The difference is that the scope of interaction is vastly divergent. QI suggests to be poking around with the spookiness of physics and mechanics to make things move, whilst Starship is simply "let's make a giant explosion, control it, and point it downwards so we can go upwards without dying."
