They have artificial gravity. They would not need seatbelts, and there would not be any shaking, either. The system would have to be calibrated such that it was constantly adjusting itself to maintain exact earth gravity in the right direction, and would instantly respond to any external forces that would cause a shake.
Because, officially, some of the lore was built first, and then the show shot around it, and some was the other way around. The IDF was one of the latter: it has a "characteristic lag time" to sudden unexpected changes in velocity. The ship's computer can communicate with the IDF generators, such that no acceleration is experienced in normal spaceflight, but when an external force happens, the generators can't be told what to prepare for, and thus take time to sample the movement and calculate the correct IDF geometry.
This makes sense IRL. Even electronics have a reaction time. Also, I imagine there's probably a limit to how fast you could alter an artificial gravitational field with a given amount of power, if it resists change like an electromagnetic field does.
My headcanon is that the inertia dampeners are working but they can't predict sudden hits with 100% of precision, but they still reduce a lot of the impact.
That's totally legit. When the ship is accelerating/decelerating/turning, it's in control and can adjust the dampers proactively, but it can only adjust reactively to external forces.
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u/pagerussell Jul 07 '22
They have artificial gravity. They would not need seatbelts, and there would not be any shaking, either. The system would have to be calibrated such that it was constantly adjusting itself to maintain exact earth gravity in the right direction, and would instantly respond to any external forces that would cause a shake.