Solar Sail???????

[Psitticine]

I haven't actually changed the descriptions or anything but in my own game (in my own mind, at least ), the "solar sails" are actually catching otherwise wasted emissions from the engine output. If, say, a certain number of particles collide after being fired out the back, some of them are going to go rebounding back forward. Not many, granted, but a few. Those particles are what I picture being caught by the sails.

I also picture the sails as containing an electromagnetic field of some sort so that much of the "push" is actually EM repulsion from approaching particles with opposing charges.

A rationalization? Yep, you bet. Would it work? Eh . . . well . . . beats me. Ask somebody with more of a background in particle physics.