ive spent my whole life confused by star trek about how you could possibly slingshot around a star to get more speed. like i remember being like 12 and thinking "wouldn't you just accelerate a bit going in in freefall and then decelerate the same amount coming out"
and i finally read the wikipedia article and i am VINDICATED because that's not how it fucking works at all, the whole idea is to slingshot off of a planet so you pick up the speed of its orbit