I understand the concept of spacetime being warped (I’ve seen the rubber sheet analogy a thousand times), but does that mean that everything is *technically* always traveling in a straight—albeit warped—line?
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Basically yes, as long as there is only gravity involved. Since the spacetime itself is curved “straight” isn’t exactly the best term. Instead we call it a geodesic, which is the shortest path between points.
The little curvy sheet pictures tend to have a grid of “straight” lines on them to show the curvature of the sheet visually but the grid doesn’t have much relevance to the math. Being able to lay a grid down presumes an absolute reference point to draw the grid from which doesn’t really exist in relativity.
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