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Space Travel Warp Drive? Star Gates? Hyperdrive? Umm... no, actually. Traveling faster than the speed of light in the Shards Universe is a dicey proposition. In fact, the very first faster-than-light (FTL) ship, the unmanned Hoboken, was commissioned in 2244, sent on its first FTL test flight in 2245... ...and blew up just outside Pluto's orbit. Achieving FTL speed was, well, dangerous. There were initially three methods of FTL examined in the early 23rd century. Rather than bumble through it myself, I'll let Professor Paul Magill, who helped lead the FTL project, explain it. As you might expect, the achievement and improvement of FTL technology was a long and at times painful process. Initial FTL ships could barely muster 150FTL (150 times the speed of light). Later generations achieved 500, 5000, 50000 and higher FTL speeds. Interestingly, perhaps, was an unexpected quirk to FTL travel. Once light speed was achieved, there was an instant jump to a speed slightly of eleven times light speed. As of the dawn of the fifth millennium, it was virtually impossible to travel over light speed but less than 11.2FTIL.* Go figure. * It is possible to achieve virtually any speed with a homo Magicus caster assisting. As a race, though, the Marks people were not given to breaking any "rules" lightly, and generally did not dabble in areas where there was no benefit. Early Light Speed: Singularity Hyperidor Advanced Drives: Unlimited Mass Transgate Compressed Plane Insertion Neural Folding Special: McDonald Phase Time
Sub-light Drives While not technically a drive used in space - other than simple freight shuttles that transported cargo from the planet's surface to orbit - it is important to mention this workhorse of surface travel. Created in 2035, the Wilson-McAlistair ion drive was the power source for fully eighty percent of all surface vehicles for over five hundred years. So ubiquitous and well built was the drive that a "Willy Mac" was synonymous with the drive itself. The first effective drive to be used for interplanetary travel, the Gore-Bush fusion engine opened up the solar system to mankind and gave them the ability to "colonizing" Mars and setting up micro-colonies on various moons and on Pluto. While originally having a top speed of 20kps (kilometers per second), they eventually became capable of ninety percent light speed. No fusion engine ever broke the light barrier. Though the fusion engine was originally developed by Gore-Bush Industries in the early twenty-first century, the technology was purposely left unpatented in hopes of inspiring other companies to design their own versions of the drive. Wildly successful barely describes the result. By the twenty-second century there were no fewer than 1,500 versions of the fusion engine. This led to wide skews in quality and reliability. It wasn't all bad; by the time the fusion engine faded from prominence, more than one billion had been built over a millennium.
Early FTL Drives The first FTL drive used was the singularity drive technology. Known far and wide as a "ball chaser", it was aptly named: The drive generated a micro-singularity inside a subspace field projected less than a meter in front of the bows. As a result, the ship was constantly "falling" into the singularity's event horizon, which allowed FTL speeds to become possible. Adjusting the size of the "ball" and its closeness to the ship allowed the speed to be controlled. There were problems, of course. The first and foremost was that while the ship benefited from being so close to a manmade black hole, everything else was definitely at risk. Generating a ball within a solar system could effectively destroy that system. Any other ships in the area would be lost instantly, sucked into the event horizon. As a result, a ball chaser had not one but two forms of main propulsion, the singularity drive, used outside star systems, and fusion engines, used within star systems. Another problem was "catching the ball". In the event of subspace field collapse, a ship would fall into the event horizon. If the ball could not maintain its own mass - a distinct possibility since it was a manmade object - it would detonate once its source of stability - the ship - was gone. This is what happened to the Hoboken in 2245. The process of a ball imploding and exploding is called imexing. To find out more about the destruction of the Hoboken - and its ultimate fate - read the short story, Outside the Lines, located in the library. A third problem was "turning off" the ball. This could be done only by converting its mass into energy. While the ship could absorb a limited amount of the converted mass, the vast majority had to be bled off as plasma streamers that were formed by "spikes" that circled the ship's bows. The closer the conversion ratio was to 1:1, the quicker the mass could be burned off. Achieving a 1:1 ratio, however, was fatal on the FTL ships of the first centuries of space travel. Still in all, ball chasers enjoyed a very long, very productive existence. Although other, newer and safer FTL technologies were to come out during the life of the ball chaser, none could equal the ball chasers freedom from marked corridors or the puterverse. It wasn't until Neural Space Folding was introduced in 35th Century that the venerable ball chaser technology was finally consigned to the past.
Perhaps the most used, most misunderstood drive, the hyperidor engine wasn't really a drive at all. It was closer to a field generator that allowed a ship to enter and remain in hyperspace. Movement through hyperspace was achieved through more conventional drives, such as the fusion engine and magnetic repulsor drives. It is this second one that is frequently mistaken for a hyperidor engine. Hyperspace, contrary to speculative science fiction stories of the twentieth century, was a "sleeve" inside physical reality. It is in many ways the true "anti-matter" universe brought up in those same stories. The primary difference was attraction of molecules to each other. There wasn't any. Quite the contrary, everything in hyperspace repels everything else. While this isn't the proper venue for going into detail, suffice to say, hyperspace had its own package of unique problems and opportunities. On the opportunity side, hyperspace required virtually no power to either enter nor travel through. Before it reached the end of its effective life, hyperidor ships could travel faster than any ball chaser on only a fraction of the power and no risk of catching the ball. Against this huge advantage, however, were two problems; one big and one small. The small problem was the matter of pollution. Contaminating hyperspace with matter from our side of reality could cause that portion of hyperspace to collapse, making it fatal for any hyperidor ship that should hit it. After some initial experimentation, a gravimetric magnetic drive was developed that gave direction to the repelling nature of hyperspace with virtually no pollution. The big problem was navigation. It couldn't be done. To get from any point to any other point in hyperspace was cheap, quick and easy. To start from a specific point and end at another specific point was impossible. Hyperidor buoys, anchored in real space but sending signals into hyperspace, were created to mark routes between points. The negative side was obvious: You needed a ball chaser to lay the buoys first. And travel by hyperidor to anyplace other than marked corridors was risky to say the least. The end result was a technology that provided transportation for common people between established planets, but little else. This was enough, though, during the Great Expansion that occurred between 2400 and 3300 Terran time. Ultimately, while a reliable, inexpensive way to travel, when the hyperidor ship gave way to more advanced ball chaser and the Mass Transgate, it passed into history without so much as a whimper. Advanced FTL Drives Unlimited Mass Transgates, or UMTs, replaced hyperidor drive ships in the early fourth millennium. Like its older sibling, the hyperidor engine, a UMT is not really an engine either. In fact, it performed virtually the same thing the hyperidor engine did; it opens a "sleeve" in space that could be traveled through at nearly unimaginable speeds for virtually no power or cost. Where the hyperidor and UMT technology differ greatly is in the "space" it uses. Where hyperidor engines use physical space to tunnel through, unlimited mass transgates tunnel through the puterverse. Developed in 2981 during the Six Planets War, the UMT provides passage of physical matter through the puterverse at no cost. There are two requirements: A puterverse terminal is needed at each end of the journey; and the entity Efwon must give permission for the journey to take place. A being created out of Unlimited Trinary Code, Efwon is one of only two indigenous beings in the puterverse. His power and his authority in the puterverse is absolute. If he does not give permission, the journey is not made. Period. Fortunately, Efwon's primary reason for existence for unknown centuries is the helping of mankind in the puterverse. Denial of passage is rare and usually invlovles the traveler making immoral or illegal use of the UMT. The UMT is still in use well into the fifth millennium.
Invented in 3098 on Earth by noted homo Magicus person Jennifer Navarra, the compressed plane insertion drive replaced the ancient fusion engine. Limited to roughly two lights years from a star, the CPI engine had no speed restrictions; travel is nearly instantaneous. The CPI engine requires the use of pentrinsic code to operate, but when mastered, the pilot can place her or his ship within one meter of any destination in the range of the drive. Flattening the ship to two dimensions, the CPI then "rides" the light particles emitted by a nearby star. Since the "ride" takes only a few seconds to complete, from a dead stop to a dead stop, measuring the "speed" of the engine is impossible. For the first time in mankind's history, the CPI drive has no risk, either to the ship or to others. And although pentrinsic code is needed to activate the drive, and it only works within two light years of the target star, its overwhelming advantages over fusion engines has led to the greatest boom in ship building since the Martian Iron Rush. Little is known about NMF other than it is under the tight control of a very small group of homo Magicus people known as "Harbingers". Though their name might imply an ominous intent, it has done nothing to demonstrate anything but service to the peoples of the galaxy. What NMF does is create doorways - varying anywhere in size from several square centimeters to several square kilometers - which contains two points in space that are non-contiguous. Travel is simple; merely step through the doorway. Movement from one point the other is identical to walking through an ordinary door. There is no cost, either in creds, time, or skill. It is the ultimate means of transportation in the galaxy. Speculation abounds that the source of all this power is nothing less than the use of Septuagint Mercy code; which would explain why so few people - and all of them from the Marks race - can create and remove the doorways. Efforts are underway to connect the NMF technology to a physical engine, so that more control can be given to those who travel the folds. As to whether these efforts will succeed has yet to be seen. Special Drives Created in 2586 by twins Charles and Christine Fischer four years after phased travel was first "invented", the McDonald Phase Unit - or Mac - altered travel and movement through space and solid for all time. Making use of the vast space between electrons in matter, the Mac allows to cohesive solids to misalign relative to each other, the result being they can occupy the "same space" at the same time. Specifically, the nuclei and electrons of one defined atom can pass safely through the orbit of another atom and not exchange either mass or energy. Used initially to allow craft to pass through ground, thus shortening the distance and allowing for higher velocity since the vehicle could pass through potential impedance, it was eventually was adapted for use with ball chasers. The combination was formidable and extended the usefulness of ball chaser (above and here) by centuries, allowing them to achieve speeds that actually warped time and forced a sort of "speed limit" on craft traveling within a galaxy. Time travel as a means of absolute relocation in the universe was attempted in 2214. The resulting conflagration became known as the Oregon Firestorm and the technology was either destroyed, lost, or forgotten. Rumor persist that workable time travel devices do exist, but what little indications there are that this is true is anecdotal at best.
Reference: Velocity Charts and Tolerance Indicators 1st & 2nd Generation Ball Chasers 1st thru 3rd Generation Hyperidor Ships Extremely High FTL Calculations for 3rd thru 6th Generation Ball Chasers
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