FTL Travel
FTL Travel usually refers to the act of propelling an object, usually a spacecraft, to Faster Than Light speeds. FTL Travel can also refer to the use of portals, wormholes or any other kind of teleportation, as they also get objects from point A to point B in a shorter time than "conventional" travel methods. Over several years of development across various nations and species several different solutions to achieve FTL Travel have been developed, each one with their own benefits and limitations.
FTL Methods
Herculina-Drive
The Herculina-Drive is a one of a kind interstellar propulsion method more powerful than most other FTL-drives that utilises an anomalous black hole designated "SDS-025" to achieve FTL travel. Due to this requirement, only 1 ship can utilise it.
Infinity-Drive
Infinity-Drives are an advanced form of FTL Travel developed by The Quhanim in order to traverse the intergalactic void with relative ease. Infinity-Drives function by distorting reality/spacetime in order to rapidly "drag" a spacecraft through spacetime. In order for a ship to survive this distortion process it needs to be both large and sufficiently armoured in order to to withstand the significant force, limiting Infinity-Drives to spacecrafts specifically designed to withstand them. Ships using Infinity-Drives can be tracked much easier than most other FTL methods due to easily traceable trails of radiation and space-time distortions they leave behind them.
Isolation Warp-Drive
Isolation Warp-Drives function by using loopholes in physics to avoid encountering the speed of light. On activation ships are encompassed by a spacetime bubble designed to entirely isolate the ship from the outside spacetime of the universe. This bubble itself is then moved at FTL speeds[1], dissipating and materializing the ship back to normal spacetime on arrival, then dissipating the isolation bubble. Ships using Isolation Warp-Drives never reach or surpass light speed within reality, instead the spacetime bubble simply isolates them from the laws of physics allowing them to traverse great distances.
Despite its advantages, there are still downsides to Isolation-Drives though;
- As the isolation bubble is a closed system, excess heat, radiation, and waste from the ships accumulate within the bubble until arrival.
- The Isolation Bubble itself is still affected by the gravity of the surrounding universe, and thus can be dragged off its course.
- The Drives themselves are extremely large, often taking up a majority of a ship.
Limidrive
Limidrives are a form of FTL travel developed by the SDS Foundation that utilise extradimensional gateway technology to transition the spacecraft into the void between liminal spaces, and then accelerating through this space (which already defies the laws of physics) via more conventional Sub-FTL methods. Once it has traveled a specified distance it will re-enter baseline reality, appearing at the destination point.
Psionic Warp
Psionic Warp-Drives function by accessing a realm named 'Psionic Subspace', a unusual and chaotic realm with largely inconsistent and irregular space-time, allowing for easy access across space within only a few hours at most, often less. While it may be one of the fastest methods, the major downside to Psionic Subspace is its chaos, as it is completely impossible to navigate and emerge from alive for most pilots. Despite this, there are some psionically attuned species[2] who are capable of navigating this realm if psionic-stimulants are ingested, which drastically increase their ability to perceive mental connections. Thanks to their increased psionic capabilities, they are able to navigate a safe path thru the Subspace, achieving its extreme speed and efficiency. The primary downside of this method is that said psionically attuned species/individual must personally know a conscious being residing at the "arrival point" so that they can sense them through the Psionic Warp, making exploration or military use for the method highly impractical if not impossible.
Psuedospace-Drive
Psuedospace-Drives actively break the laws of physics, shattering reality entirely in a shell around a spacecraft, allowing for them to accelerate at rates otherwise impossible in normal reality. While they may be fast, Psuedospace-Drives are not stable in most cases; at low multiples of the speed of light they work fine, but if their velocity goes too high they are prone to either glitching, causing a spatial anomaly or tearing a hole in reality. While this may simply slingshot a ship haphazardly into the beyond, more often it can end up shooting a ship through reality itself, essentially "hopping" the vessel to another dimension[3].
Psuedospace-Drives were among some of the first FTL Drives to be made by humanity, though due to their unreliable nature they have mostly fallen out of use ever since the advent of more secure FTL-Drives such as Voidspace-Drives.
Void(space)-Drive
Void(space)-drives work by causing the controlled collapse of an object, usually a spacecraft, by careful manipulation of void matter. If done correctly, this leads to the object being sent into "Voidspace" where it is subjected to the forces there. The momentum and heading of a craft that it takes through voidspace is usually achieved previous to entering the dimension, where these factors are then amplified by the chaotic forces within the realm often making FTL speeds possible. Interestingly, since voidspace travel is at its core reliant on the actual realspace speeds of an object prior to entry, the acceleration of a vessel directly impacts how quickly it can reach certain FTL speeds. To exit voidspace, a controlled explosion usually is enough to expel the object again. These explosions are usually executed based on a previously calculated time of transit, as keeping a probe immersed in realspace while travelling at the usually FTL speeds is nigh unfeasible. While it is possible to manoeuvre within voidspace, due to the realms strange forces any kind of internal movement can usually only be achieved by more advanced methods that don't rely on propulsive exhausts such as gravity drives, momentum engines or void-energy conductors.
To exit voidspace, one simply requires an explosive force, preferably activated at the correct time to exit at the correct point along ones heading.
- ↑ Which it is capable of doing, considering it isn't made of matter.
- ↑ Humans are not a psionically attuned species, thus 99.99...% of humanity is completely incapable of using Psionic Warp, and the remaining 0.00...1%, whom are typically a rare case of a "para"human, are only able to do it with psionic stiumulants.
- ↑ This capability has been used intentionally in the past, though only reliably doable by accelerating to <67.5 kilometers per second per megaparsec
