Hyperspace and Hyperdrive Overview

Hyperspace and Hyperdrive Overview

Contents:

0. Overview

1. Asimovian Hyperdive

2. Alderson Drive

3. Vorlonian Hyperspace

4. Kobolian FTL-Drive

5. Holtzmann Foldspace Drive

6. Leviathan Starburst

7. Witchspace Frameshift Drive

8. Imperatala Galacticon Hyperdrive

9. General Products Hyperdrive

10. Macross and Robotech Hyperspace Travel

11. Mass Effect Drive

12. H. Beam Piper Hyperdrive

13. Perry Rhodan 5-dimensional Jump drive

14. Inversion Star Drive

15. Federatonalist Transwarp Drive

16. Traveller Jump Drive

17. Galaxity Exospace Hyperdrive

18. Andromeda Slipstream

19. Halo Slipstream

20. Overdrive

21. Haertel Overdrive (Spindizzy)

22. Sky River Hyperdrive

23. Alterian Hyperdrive

24. Alliance-Union Compact Jump Drive

25. Immaterium Warp Drive

0. Overview

Hyperspace Travel goes by dozens of different names, and while minor variations in the methodology and effects exist, they all share certain primary characteristics:

1. The Hyperspace enabled vessel leaves the normal 3+1 dimensional 'real space' and enters the extended or alternate dimension of hyperspace, then exits the hyperspace hopefully close to its destination.

2. A tremendous amount of energy is required to enter hyperspace.

3. Navigation is extremely difficult, unreliable and miscalculations are extremely hazardous. There are very few safe exit points to navigate to, so miscalculation makes ending up inside a star or solid mass much more likely.

4. Hyperspace enabled vehicles are adversely affected by large sources of gravity, and have to be far from stars or planets.

Variants:

1. Many forms of hyperspace travel cause various amounts of adverse physical and psychological strain on the passengers.

2. Mostly, a vessel hyperspace cannot be detected, affected, or even communicated with from vessels in real-space, or even other vessels in Hyperspace. There are some notable exceptions to this, such as gravitic interdiction drives which can force a ship out of hyperspace and in rare instances hyperspace entities which can affect vessels while also in hyperspace.

3. Variants in travel time, either instantaneous, a fixed amount of time, or dependent upon time in hyperspace.

4. Some vessels do not move within hyperspace, some forms allows some sort of maneuvering relative to hyperspace. Those that allow motion within hyperspace are simultaneously accessing an additional higher dimension of hyperspace.

5. Safe entry and exit points vary from as close as a few kilometres from the surface of a gravity well, to more typically 100 diameters from said gravity well, to a hundred astronomical units.

6. Most often, there are only a limited amount of safe fixed routes.

Example, Traveller Jump Drive:

Minimal adverse physical and psychological strain on the passengers.

Cannot be detected, affected, or even communicated with from vessels in real-space, or even other vessels in Hyperspace.

Fixed travel time, 168 hours (slightly variable).

Does not move or maneuver within hyperspace.

Variable routes safe points, typically more than 100 diameters from large gravity wells.

Well documented examples:

1. Asimovian Hyperdive

To outside observers, hyperspace travel appears to be a kind of teleportation along a pre-calculated route, the ends of which are in normal space. The Hyperspace enabled vessel do not actually travel thru the real 3+1 spacetime between the entry and exit points.

Early hypership drives were extremely costly in energy use and very risky, later more efficient versions are developed.

The collection of data on stellar systems and the analysis of stellar spectra allows the compilation of what became the Standard Galactic Ephemeris, with which hyperspace navigation becomes less of an art and more of a science for well charted systems. Although hyperspace navigation still requires complex calculations; most hyperspace capable cultures have not developed hyperspace navigation that allows the total computerization of the calculation of single or multiple hyperspace jumps and the control of the jump without human intervention.

Hyperspace passengers described the instant of hyperspace transit is described as a feeling of momentary "insideoutness". Re-entry is described as "The ship winked into existence...". There is no Cherenkov radiation flash associated with re-entry from hyperspace.

Hyperspace was originally defined as a condition rather than a physical location. In Hyperspace, all velocity is zero, but relative to the relativistic metrical frame, speed is infinite. Perturbations such as those experienced by ship in space from the gravitational field around an object such as a planet or even a star are exacerbated in hyperspatial travel, since mass in real space distorts hyperspace in an equal measure. 'Jumping' near to a gravitational mass is likely to make the resulting exit from hyperspace to be highly uncertain, with the level of improbability decreasing as the inverse square of the distance to the nearest gravitational 'well'.

2. Alderson Drive

Alderson Drive is an early precursor to the Jump Drive, a crude means of travelling thru hyperpspace with the limitation that it only worked via certain metastable gravitationally isolated Alderson Points orbiting around stars. Most stars have at most one, and never more than six such metastable gravitationally isolated Alderson Points, leading to other star systems a moderate distance away, rarely more than 20 light-years away. Travel between Alderson Points within the system had to be travelled using traditional Newtonian Reaction Drives, taking between 2 and 4 weeks, depending on the system.

3. Vorlonian Hyperspace

Vorlonian Hyperspace is an alternative dimension where the distances between spatial bodies are significantly shorter. The primary energy expenditure in hyperspace travel is the act of "jumping" into hyperspace. While in hyperspace itself, ships use their normal propulsion systems and interstellar travel is enabled by the shortened distances. Ships must either use jumpgates, which are artificial constructs that create a rift into hyperspace, or they can use their own jump-engine. Jump-engines are usually restricted to large vessels, as opening a rift requires a staggering amount of power. Jump gates are used by larger vessels whenever possible, to save energy.

Hyperspace is devoid of useful features, with no points of reference. Therefore, ships have to use the hyperspace beacon system—a network of transmitters located in known points in real-space (usually jumpgates) – in order to navigate. If a ship travels off the beacon network, it will become lost in hyperspace. Ships in hyperspace require no energy fields to protect themselves, so an object (ship, device, etc) that becomes lost in hyperspace can theoretically drift forever, and be rediscovered even millennia later. Hyperspace also has currents, which will pull a disabled ship off the beacon network in a relatively short period.

The hyperspace background appears to the naked eye to be a reddish/black, stormy environment, this is inconsistent with science which states that hyperspace should have no color or other visual aspects.

Hyperspace appears to have strong boosting effects on those with certain kinds of psionic powers, and allowed the PsiCorps to station their mothership far off the beacons to remain hidden without getting lost.

A jump point allowing entry into hyperspace from normal space is characterized by a yellow-orange-red whirlpool, while jump points for ships emerging from hyperspace are characterized by a blue whirlpool. This is a result of the red shift of the light's wavelength moving away from the observer as the portal is opened into hyperspace and the blue shift of the light's wavelength moving towards the observer as the portal is opened from hyperspace.

There seems to be multiple ways to enter and exit hyperspace as Shadow Vessels are seen entering and exiting by appearing to simply fade away, and some of the other First Ones have other visual effects associated with hyperspace travel – assuming they use hyperspace at all.

Battles in hyperspace are infrequent and avoided; as most such battles in history have ended disastrously for both sides.

Jumpgates can be opened in gravity wells and even atmospheres, although the practice is extremely dangerous due to the jumpgate quickly destabilizing with all the gas being sucked in and violently exploding. Even worse is to form a red jumpgate inside a blue jumpgate, as the resulting shockwave can destroy even a Shadow battleship if caught unaware, and few ships capable of generating a jumpgate are capable of outrunning the shockwave as well. Also known as The Bonehead Maneuver.

Vorlons were able to take a piece of hyperspace and fold it onto itself like a pocket and use it as a hiding place (anything inside the pocket is apparently virtually invisible to sensors and the naked eye).

In Crusade, the crew of the Excalibur encounter several large jellyfish-like entities in hyperspace.

Constructs can also be established in hyperspace to serve as "hiding places" like in "The Well of Forever".

In The Lost Tales – Voices in the Dark, leftover Vorlon technology known as "quantum space" is discovered, which allows travel which is twice as fast, but causes disorientation when entering.

4. Kobolian FTL-Drive

Kobolian FTL-Drive is a superluminal propulsion travel that functions along the basic principles of a hyperspace jump drive, with a ship disappearing from its initial location and reappearing instantaneously in a new location.

Crewmembers are frequently shown reacting with nausea and/or vertigo when undergoing a jump, though no harm appears to come to living beings even after many jumps. Making a jump eventually proves damaging to the ship's armor and structure, after several years of continual combat and metal fatigue have taken their toll on the elderly ship.

An FTL jump can be executed in the gravity well of a planet, but it not preferred, not necessarily because of any physical limitations, but if the coordinates are calculated wrong there is a risk that a ship might jump too close to the planet and crash into it, or reappear within the planet.

Kobolian FTL-Drive can theoretically travel anywhere in the galaxy; the limiting factor is not the drive itself, but the finite distance that the navigation computer is able to safely calculate a jump trajectory; more advanced computers are able to calculate longer range jumps. Cellarian have better computers and have an effective jump range at least three times that of the Kobol Colonials. The extreme distance that a safe jump can be plotted is called "the Red Line", and while a vessel might jump a theoretically infinite distance beyond that, the red line represents the distance from which the chances of jumping to the inside a star, asteroid, or other space debris increases.

5. Holtzmann Foldspace Drive

Holtzmann Foldspace Drive "folds" space using a complicated distortion technology, known as the Holtzmann Engine. Travel is nearly instantaneous but very dangerous because of the extremely complex calculations required.

The Holtzmann Effect is used to fold space at the quantum level, allowing heighliner ships to instantaneously travel far distances without actually moving at all. The chaotic and seemingly non-deterministic quantum nature of "foldspace" requires at least limited prescience on the part of a sentient organic navigator to produce reliable physical projections of such events.

While Hyperspace is not mentioned, operationally, the Holtzmann Foldspace Drive does not physically cross thru the intervening space between the entry and exit points of the trip.

6. Leviathan Starburst

Living starship Leviathans have the a natural ability known as 'Starburst' which allows them and anything close to them to travel great distances in a short amount of time. Starburst depletes a Leviathan's energy and thus cannot be used frequently. It has been said that during Starburst the ship is "riding the seams between universes", which is an apt description of Hyperspace.

Another travel technology is wormhole travel, which few races master.

Generic FTL technology is called "Hetch drive" but is never stated how it works, Hetch apparently being some equivalent of "c", different factors of Hetch are mentioned (Hetch 5).

7. Witchspace Drive

Witchspace Drive enters a realm called Witchspace, travel is instantaneous but there is risk of the jump being intercepted by malicious groups who have the ability to lay in wait in Witchspace and force the ship into combat which can lead to the ship becoming stranded without enough fuel to complete the Witchspace jump they had initiated.

Traversing several light years through hyperspace jumps takes days or weeks, depending on the type of vessel and hyperdrive. For the pilot, crew and passengers, this time passes instantaneously. The jumps consumes fuel in direct proportion to the distance traveled and the mass of the vessel. The destination is always some distance away from large masses in the target star system, typically around 10 astronomical units for a typical Spectral Class G2 star; proportionally more in systems with a large white star or multiple stars.

A hyperspace cloud is created at the entry and exit points. These can be analyzed by those wishing to intercept and attack the jumping ship. Sometimes, more often with engines that have not been maintained properly, mis-jumps occur, which leave the ship in interstellar space, where the ship will be forever stranded if sufficient fuel to reach a star system is not available.

Due to the danger of cancerous mutations caused by the powerful engines, hyperspace jumps are restricted planets or stations with large populations.

7. Frameshift Drive

Frameshift Drive, a later variant of Witchspace Drive, jumps always exits within a few light-seconds of the largest astronomical body in the target system. The frame shift drive can also be used locally within a system for FTL travel much like warp drive, called supercruise, the engines slowly accelerates the ship up to 2000 c.

8. Imperatala Galacticon Hyperdrive

Imperatala Galacticon Hyperdrive, sometimes requires a planet has to be destroyed (by Vogons) in order to "make way for a hyperspace bypass". A ship travels for a short time along a bypass through an alternative dimension and emerges at its destination.

Imperatala Galacticon Hyperdrive is considered one of the most discomforting hyperspace experiences. The sensation of hyperspace travel is described as "unpleasantly like being drunk", in the way that a glass of water is drank. "At that moment, the bottom fell out of his mind, his eyeballs turned inside out and his feet began to leak out the top of his head. The room folded flat about, spun around, shifted out of existence and left him sliding into his own navel.”

One of the stated reasons for the development of the Infinite Improbability Drive is to allow people to cross vast interstellar distances quickly "without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace".

One of the stated reasons for the development of the Bistromatic Drive is to allow people to cross vast interstellar distances quickly "without all that dangerous mucking about with Improbability Factors".

9. General Products Hyperdrive

General Products Hyperdrive accessible Hyperspace, a dimension in which all objects apparently move at the rate of one light year in three terrestrial days. Pierson's Puppeteers develop the General Products Quantum II hyperdrive which is capable of travelling a light year every 75 seconds.

Prevailing theories hold engaging a hyperspace shunt within the gravity well of a sufficiently large celestial body causes the drive (and possibly the ship) to careen wildly into an even "higher" level of hyperspace, which cannot be reached normally and is thought to cause matter within the hyperspace field to disintegrate, but in fact other-dimensional anomalies tend towards large gravity wells which can destroy ships which enter hyperspace in their vicinity.

While travelling through hyperspace, any attempt to view anything outside the ship, through a porthole or through a transparent hull, interacts with the human optic nerve such as to be perceived as a "blind spot". This effect is extremely unnerving to most people, and prolonged viewing can lead to madness.

Quite the opposite visual outcome – albeit a recording – is had by the 360 degree view that a front-mounted camera has, from a probe within a described "interspace" employed in fourth-dimensional movement or time travel.

10. Macross and Robotech Hyperspace Travel

Macross and Robotech Hyperspace Travel also involves the notion of folding space. Hyperspace folding involves a large hyperspace bubble around the vessel travelling through hyperspace. Everything within this bubble is transported along with the vessel itself to its destination. When forced into making a hyperspace fold from close to the surface of a planet attempting to fold behind the moon, an entire island, its sea, and its inhabitants are caught in the hyperspace bubble and accidentally transported to near a distant planet’s orbit along with the ship. Elsewhere, space folds looks as if the ship turns into a beam of energy which disappears as the ship goes into spacefold. Additionally, elsewhere spacefolding seems to be a bit more conventional. The fold process seems to look like an iridescent tunnel which the ship flies through. Elsewhere, the spacefolding process drastically changed, now the vessels pass to hyperspace through a "fold portal" that remains open for some time, once in hyperspace, this resembles a "tunnel" semitransparent of light, through which you can see the stars passing at speed, this tunnel of purple and blue tones appears to be infinitely long, with some visible layers or sections, yet the ships still have a bubble of energy around.

11. Mass Effect Drive

Mass Effect Drive allows FTL (Faster Than Light) travel in spacecraft equipped with a "warp core" which makes use of element-zero. The quantitative requirements may vary, depending on the mass of the vessel and of the desired velocity. To equip a high-mass ship so it can reach these speeds is extraordinarily expensive. Element-Zero allows the decrease of mass (the mass effect), exceeding the speed of light within the gravitational field generated. This method allows for low time dilatation.

If the gravitational field yields on a supraluminal speed, then disaster is inevitable: the ship brutally backs on a subluminal speed and the large excess of energy gives rise to a fatal Vavilov-Tcherenkov effect. The motors can operate during 50 hours on average before they reach their saturation point. This limit varies in function of the mass reduction amplitude: a heavier or faster ship will reach its saturation point quickly.

The Mass Relays are attributed to the Protheans, a race who had reign on the galaxy 50,000 years ago. They form the Relays Network which allows to travel instantly in any sector of the Milky Way.

A Mass Relaycreates a corridor without gravity with another relay allowing an instant travel between the both, faster than the FTL flight which takes years or centuries to travel in such distances.

There are the principal relays allowing to travel thousands of light-years but only in the direction of its "twin" relay. And the secondary relay allowing to travel hundreds of light-years, but allow to travel to any other relay in their range.

12. H. Beam Piper Hyperdrive

H. Beam Piper Hyperdrive creates a field that puts the ship into hyperspace, where the ships travel at a constant speed of one light-year per hour. Humans appear to suffer no ill effects from entering or leaving hyperspace. Ships cannot see or communicate with each other while in hyperspace, nor can they be detected in normal space until they emerge back into normal space. There appears to be no time distortion in hyperspace.

13. Perry Rhodan 5-dimensional Jump drive

Perry Rhodan 5-Dimensional Jump Drive, At first 5-dimensional jumps were the way to travel through space with FTL technology, but passengers suffered pain and distress after each jump. The Hyperspace is explained through the 5 dimensional space-time, where the 4th dimension is the normal time and the 5th dimension is the variable existence of time, and with the help of the manipulation of this space-time all factors of time for the travel is eliminated.

Superlinear technology is a second hyperspace technique, learned the phenomena seen by Arconids during the war against the "Druufs". The starship is surrounded with a "Kalupian bubble" in which it was possible to see 'normal space', but not to be seen by sensors or scanners. Superlinear flights occurred in a "libration region" between the fourth and fifth dimensions. This allowed the ships to achieve velocities thousands or even millions of times greater than that of light.

Dimmesexta, a new third kind of propulsion is developed, achieving billions of times light speed. Dimmesexta consists in a kind of hyperfast travel, through a zone existing exclusively between the fifth and sixth dimensions.

Matter Transmitters are a fourth manner of travelling thru hyperspace. The Matter Transmitter equipment acts as portals or stargates, with different ranges, proportional to the energy available, allowing travel among the planets of a single system.

14. Inversion Star Drive

Inversion Star Drive is used by ships moving at relativistic speeds. Instead of breaking the barrier of the speed of light, spaceships in Primary Inversion go around it. Inverting is the act of adding an imaginary component to their velocity, thus entering a superluminal universe, allowing for near-instantaneous travel. Because the ship must come close to the speed of light to invert, travel in real space still takes some time. Various space-time calculation errors add complications. There is communication is through a rip in space-time, called a Kyle Singularity, allowing FTL communication across the separate medium of Kyle Space (also known informally as 'psiberspace'). "Complex Speeds and Special Relativity" is a paper published in the American Journal of Physics by Asaro gives the mathematical formulation she developed for the Primary Inversion Star Drive. Describing the idea as a "mathematical game", she shows how making the speed a complex number can remove the problems associated with the singularity at the speed of light.

15. Federatonalist Warp Drive

The Federatonalist Zone equivalent of hyperspace is known as subspace. Although similar in concept to hyperspace, subspace plays a slightly different role in FTL travel. Subspace exists in layers, all of which are "below" normal three-dimensional spacetime much like the different layers of an onion. When a starship is traveling at FTL speeds (known as "warp"), the ship itself does not enter subspace. Instead, the ship either reacts a steady stream of deuterium and anti-deuterium together (or else taps the massive energy of a quantum singularity) in order to power large subspace field-generating coils ("warp engines"). The field (known as a warp field) extends into subspace, allowing the enclosed starship to travel at FTL speeds while it remains within a "pocket" of normal spacetime (similar in concept to a hydrofoil) and it is this pocket of normal space itself which travels faster than light, as the ship sits safely inside the pocket. Wrapping a spaceship within the warp field prevents the relativistic time dilation normally associated with standard FTL travel, and allows interstellar travel to continue in a reasonable amount of time. Despite warp drive's incredible speed compared to current day travel speed, it can still take years to travel across a mere fraction of the galaxy, around a year per 656 light years.

This concept of FTL travel is asymptotically limited by the idea that if the warp field is too strong, the ship itself will be too deeply submerged in subspace, which has negative genetic effects on living things. In addition, at high warp factors the energy required to sustain the field grows exponentially.

Among the uses of subspace is as a medium for propagating audio and visual signals at FTL speeds, thus allowing nearly instantaneous communication across vast interstellar distances. This is commonly referred to as "subspace communication".

Federationalist Transwarp is probably actually entering into subspace instead of pushing into the barrier between real-space and subspace; it is currently not well defined.

16. Traveller Jump Drive

Traveller Jump Drive is used to access what is referred to as Jumpspace, an alternate dimension/universe, Jump Drive relies on the rare earth element lanthanum to act as a hydrogen plasma sponge to distribute the immense amount of energy to the jump drive, to create and inflate a bubble of jumpspace in which the ship exists. The ship is totally alone in jumpspace, even if another ship jumps very close (but far enough to avoid field overlap), each ship will be alone in their respective bubbles of jumpspace. A ship in jumpspace cannot be contacted by any sort of means, even by another ship in jumpspace. The distance traveled during a jump varies depending on the drive class and energy expended, which is measured in how many parsecs one jump will carry a ship. The most unusual thing about jumping (travelling through jumpspace), is that all travel, no matter the distance, takes around a week. This is because that is the amount of time that the bubble of jumpspace is able to maintain itself, before collapsing, putting the ship back in normal space. Travelling through jump space is done by "riding" quantum levels, higher levels go "faster" and are able to transport ships higher distances. The distance that a ship travels is dependent on what level it uses, higher class drives use higher levels to travel more distance in a single jump. Velocity the ship enters jumpspace has no effect on how far or how fast the ship travels in jumpspace, so the ship will exit jumpspace with the same velocity and rotation (relative to the jump point) as it did when it entered jumpspace. It is impossible to change direction or "move" within jumpspace, as any gravity fields, and really any force similar, severely affects the bubble of jumpspace, and would cause it to, at best, collapse prematurely, putting the ship back into real space. It is for this reason that it is standard procedure for a jump is to form the bubble 100 diameters away from a planet, star, or other gravity well.

17. Galaxity Exospace Hyperdrive

Galaxity Exospace Hyperdrive accesses Exospace, a hyperspace-like parallel dimension, where spacecraft travel (usually helped by an autopilot) to other places in time and space. The crew of the spacecraft has to be seated in their piloting pods during the exits from exospace.

18. Andromeda Slipstream

Andromeda Slipstream is a method of travelling faster-than-light. A Gravity Field Generator drastically reduces the mass of the ship, and then a slipstream drive opens a slippoint which the ship enters. The pilot then navigates the series of slipstream "tunnels" until they reach the desired slippoint where they exit the slipstream. Slipstream has the unusual property that it cannot be navigated by machine-based intelligence, however advanced. Only organic sentient beings are capable of selecting the correct path.

19. Halo Slipstream

Halo Slipstream accesses what they call slipstream space. Humans, using Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engines, can tear black holes in known space which quickly evaporate, creating a hole in space. This puts a human ship into eleven-non-dimensional Slipspace. The ship usually comes out several kilometers off target. Halo Slipstream maximum speed is under 1000 c. Covenant Slipstream Ships are drastically more accurate precision in this matter, along with much faster speeds up to 336,000 c. Halo: Contact Harvest describes it as "If one imagined the universe as a sheet of paper, Slipspace was the same sheet of paper crumpled into a tight ball."

20. Overdrive

Overdrive is a method of faster-than-light travel by a field of energy called an overdrive field. When the overdrive field is activated, the ship then enters a dimensional subspace, moving thirty times faster than light. Most of this power is held in batteries and capacitors, then recharged when the overdrive field is turned off.

21. Haertel Overdrive (Spindizzy)

Spindizzy, also known Haertel Overdrive create a small space-time bubble in which the spacecraft travels. The ship, therefore, occupies a space-time continuum where effects such as the Lorenz-Fitzgerald contraction do not apply. The space-time created by the Spindizzy or Haertel Overdrive can be considered a small, self-contained hyperspace.

22. Sky River Hyperdrive

Sky River Hyperdrive. It is unknown if hyperspace is a parallel dimension or only a metaphor for traveling at the speed of light in "realspace" (the normal dimension), as starships that travel into it can be influenced by realspace agents, but can bypass walls and deflector shields. It was established that a ship traveling at light speed can crash into a squadron of realspace ships, severely damaging them.

There are established safe hyperspace routes that were scouted out by an unknown species 30,000 years ago. These routes made interstellar trade and eventually the establishment of the Sky River’s Republic possible. New routes are almost never scouted out, mostly because the end coordinates might place the traveling ship inside some star or planet. The Deep Core Systems are especially hard to navigate because of the high density of stars. A pilot's skill in hyperspace has a lot to do with how he navigates the tangled web of hyperspace routes that crisscross the galaxy.

Traveling through hyperspace requires the aid of either an astromech droid (such as R2-D2 or R4-P9) or a navicomputer (navigational computer), although supposedly Jedi are reputed to be able to travel through hyperspace without reference to navicomputers, astromech droids, or existing known routes. Traveling through hyperspace is also apparently quite complex as Han Solo tells Luke Skywalker that "It ain't like dustin' crops, boy."

Hyperspace is an extremely fast method of travel, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke's journey from Tatooine to Alderaan is theorized to have only taken two days maximum, whereas these two planets are separated by half a galaxy or more. Darth Maul took approximately seven hours to travel from Coruscant to Tatooine. Hyperspace has a mottled, blue-and-black appearance. Entry into hyperspace shows the stars stretch into starlines, then turn into the mottled appearance. Externally, a ship entering hyperspace is described as displaying a "...flicker of pseudo-motion..." before disappearing. "Holocomm" transmissions are featured as long-range, faster-than-light communications signals, sent through hyperspace.

The hyperspace speed of a ship is represented by "class," an arbitrary and abstract measure. Lower numbers indicate proportionally lower travel time, and thus higher speed. For instance, an X-wing starfighter is class 1. The Death Star is class 3, which means it can travel through hyperspace only one-third as fast as the X-Wing. A more standard capital ship such as a Star Destroyer may clock in at class 2, and a civilian bulk freighter at class 4. Very fast ships, with class lower than 1, are relatively rare; the remarkably speedy Millennium Falcon is class 0.5, or twice as fast as the X-Wing. The Ebon Hawk, the primary ship used in the Knights of the Old Republic series, is said to be the fastest in the galaxy, 4000 years prior to the rise of the Empire. However, at that time, hyperdrive technology was not as well-developed; a class 1 hyperdrive, the Ebon Hawk′s class, was considered extremely fast. It is stated that it is the only ship capable of breaking the Sith-blockade of the planet Taris (although that may be interpreted as the only ship that was capable and also located on Taris at the time of the blockade). Similarly, the Ebon Hawk was used for smuggling prior to the events of the games, just as the Millennium Falcon.

Ships can be prevented from entering hyperspace, as well as removed from it, by way of mass shadows. Existing in hyperspace, mass shadows are the hyperspace signatures created by gravity wells of large objects existing in normal space. Due to their nature, mass shadows can potentially cause the threat of collision if a ship were to drop out of hyperspace and impact with the associated object. Mass shadows occur naturally, caused by the gravity wells of large celestial bodies such as, planets, stars, or gas giants. Smaller objects (e.g., comets) may also cause mass shadows to occur.

Artificial gravity wells can be produced by gravity well projectors, known as an interdiction field, and can disable hyperspace maneuvers – preventing or removing ships from traveling in hyperspace. The Interdictor-class Star Destroyer of vessels employed by the Galactic Empire are equipped with technology to generate gravity wells and are leveraged by the Empire to disable Rebel ships attempting hyperspace travel. The Interdictor-class cruiser was previously featured as part of the Star Wars expanded universe (SWEU) and declared non-canon with the rebranding of SWEU to "Star Wars Legends". However, they have since been restored after being featured in novels part of the new continuity.

"Sub-hyperspace" is the term used by First Order officers to identify the hyperspace-like region in realspace in which the "phantom energy" shot from Starkiller Base travels. The energy (derived from a kind of dark energy known as "quintessence") is visible by characters on planet Takodana due to a strange rip in sub-hyperspace.

23. Alterian Hyperdrive

Most spaceships are equipped with hyperdrives that open up a window to hyperspace. Different speceies have hyperdrives of varying speeds; a hyperdrive constructed by the Alterans (Ancients), or by the Asgard would be significantly faster than a Goa'uld hyperdrive. There are two types of hyperdrives: interstellar, which only allows the ship using that hyperdrive to travel between stars in one galaxy in relatively expedient manner, and intergalactic, which allows the ship using it to travel greater distances and at greater speed. The only races shown to use intergalactic hyperdrives are the Tau'ri (through Asgard hyperdrive engines, for example on the USS Daedalus), the Asgard, the Ancients/Alterans (most notably Atlantis), the Asuran human-form Replicators, the Milky Way human-form replicators, the Ori and the Nakai.

Most hyperdrives use the fictional substance of Naquadah as fuel. Some, including certain Earth vessels, use the highly unstable, but more powerful isotope Naquadria instead. Ancient hyperdrives are powered by one or more ZPMs, whereas the Asgard hyperdrive engines use the Asgard Neutronium-Ion generator, although when installed on Earth vessels they use whichever power source is available (typically a Naquadah generator or, in the case of the Odyssey or on occasion the Daedalus, a ZPM).

Unlike hyperdrives used in other universes, hyperspace travel in Stargate does not interact with any matter in real space. Therefore, it allows ships to pass straight through any object (but not large space-time distortions, such as black holes) in its path. This has been used in numerous escape scenarios throughout the series. The speed of the hyperdrive can be increased by increasing its power by an external or internal source, or by modifying it manually.

When the Daedalus is powered by its Asgard Hyperdrive, it takes 18 days to travel to Atlantis in the Pegasus galaxy; however, when the engineers rigged the Zero Point Module (ZPM) sent for Atlantis' Ancient shield into the system, it took only 4 days. Earth's Daedalus-class battle cruiser the Odyssey is mentioned to have its own permanent ZPM during the war against the Ori, although it is unknown if the ZPM is sent to Atlantis following the Ori's eventual defeat.

Several ships can be encompassed in one hyperspace window by expanding the window but it takes a lot more power than usual, it is also possible to land a ship on one that is entering the hyperspace window and travel alongside. This previous is not a problem if someone can install a ZPM, because a fully charged module can procure massive amounts of energy. It has been shown that it's possible to open a hyperspace window in a planet's atmosphere, but it seems to distort space around it.

Each species's hyperdrives works on a unique "frequency", a fact that the renegade Ancient scientist Janus took advantage of when creating the Attero device: a weapon of mass destruction intended to disrupt the hyperspace window generated by any Wraith ship in the galaxy, instantly vaporizing the ship as it entered the window. This device was ultimately abandoned by Janus due to unforeseen, yet catastrophic side-effects on the Stargate network: causing active gates to explode, destroying most or all of the planet on which it resides.

Hyperspace also has a type of "Hyperspace Radiation" which all Wraith ships suffer damage from and as a result must exit out of hyperspace incrementally to allow their organic ships to regenerate their hull from the hyperspace radiation damage. Due to this shortcoming, the Wraith often plan their hyperspace travel in a series of "jumps" in which they simultaneously enter and exit hyperspace as a cluster. Wraith ships are the only ships known to require these pauses in their hyperspace travel as all other hyperspace-capable ships are protected by their energy shielding.

In order to reach the full potential speed of their hyperdrive, the Asgard must shunt all power away from shields and weapons. When using the full potential of their hyperdrives, the Asgard can move from one galaxy to another in under two minutes.

The Ancient Ship Destiny uses a different method of faster-than-light propulsion, simply referred to as FTL by the Destiny Expedition. Much of its workings remain unexplained. Destiny's drives, once engaged, must remain active for a minimum of four hours and, upon exiting FTL travel, must remain inactive for a minimum of three to prevent damage to the drives. Unlike sublight and hyperdrives on previously seen ships in both the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies, Destiny's engines appear to be a single unit which provide both forms of propulsion. This same method of FTL is used of both the Ancient Seed Ships seen in Stargate Universe, and the Alteran city ship seen in Stargate: The Ark of Truth.

Besides hyperspace travel, there is, of course, wormhole travel through the stargates that give the series its name.

24. Alliance-Union Compact Jump Drive

Alliance-Union Compact Jump Drive is a technology to travel faster-than-light (FTL). Jump can also be a verb, and is the act of travelling FTL using jump technology.

Estelle Bok, a physicist researching FTL travel, at Cyteen Station and derived the Bok Equation, a loophole allowing the limit on the speed of light to be breached.

Bokian Jump Engines comprise vanes that are attached to the outside of the ship. When the vanes are pulsed, they generate gravity waves which create a field, or "bubble", around the ship that pulls it (and anything else in the field) along the interface between realspace and hyperspace (jumpspace).

Jump takes place between two massive objects, called jump-points, which are generally stars, brown dwarves, or "rogue planets" sufficiently massive to make "pockmarks" in hyperspace. Prior to jumping, the ship's navigators calculate an outbound vector, targeting the destination jump-point with direction and speed. The ship accelerates along this vector with a long STL burn until it is clear of the current jump-point's gravity well. The jump engines are then engaged and the ship punctures the interface between realspace and enters jumpspace. Provided the proper heading was achieved prior to jump entry, the ship is drawn through jumpspace to the nearest gravity well on the outbound vector, the destination jump-point. Here it re-enters realspace, traveling at the same heading as it was before it entered the jumpspace, but at a velocity which is a large fraction of C (the speed of light). Back in normal space the ship dumps velocity by cycling its vanes to graze the interface, like casting an anchor hyperspace, before the STL thrusters take are used to slow the ship further at system-safe velocities. It is possible to pass through several jump-points without slowing down, but this is risky as it can cause the ship's velocity to become uncontrollable.

Calculating the correct outbound vector prior to jumping is crucial, and the mass of the ship and its load have to be factored in. The more momentum the ship has in jumpspace, the closer to the destination jump-point it will re-appear. Too much momentum could result in it dropping into realspace too close to, or even inside, the destination mass. The ship can also "overshoot" the jump-point with too much momentum and will then drift through hyperspace until a sufficiently massive object is encountered which could drop it "anywhere" in realspace. Not enough momentum, or targeting an object not massive enough to pull the ship out of hyperspace will also leave the ship drifting. A ship's power-to-mass is significant, allowing an unloaded ship to travel faster in jumpspace than a loaded ship of similar design, even enabling the former to "over-jump" the latter. Warships have high power-to-mass ratios, making them fast despite their size. If another ship happens to be at your ship's re-entry point, both ships will be destroyed.

In theory it is possible to jump "any" distance, but the practical limit is about ten light-years. Calculating trajectories beyond a certain distance become too unreliable because of the unpredictable nature of n-dimensional hyperspace. Over short distances the calculation discrepancies are negligible, but over longer distances, the errors multiply. In addition, there is the interference of nearby stars that are likely to alter the intended trajectory.

Contrary to other "jump technologies", jump in the Alliance-Union universe is not instantaneous. However, just how long a ship actually spends in jumpspace is difficult to gauge because jump-time (also called "no-time") is not real-time. But sufficient time does elapse for minor injuries on "tranked" (tranquilized) crew's bodies to heal and for "night-walkers" to move about the ship. Typically subjective time aboard a ship in jumpspace can vary from a few days to several weeks.

Disappearances

If a ship fails to return to realspace, whether through pilot error, or some other failing, it remains in hyperspace, lost permanently. Only one of Cherryh's novels, Port Eternity (1982), deals with this, although it is unclear when in the Alliance-Union timeline it takes place, except that it is after the establishment of the Alliance and Union and occurs in Union-side space.

The Knnn

The technologically advanced and enigmatic methane-breathing Knnn from Cherryh's Compact space are the only known species that can change a ship's vector during jump. Knnn ships also have the ability to jump together in synchronisation, sometimes up to a dozen at a time. A single jump-field is created around all the ships and they are pulled into hyperspace as a unit. The Knnn sometimes use this ability to transport ships of other species through jumpspace. They cluster around an unsuspecting vessel, create a single jump-field and haul the ship with them.

Effects of jump

Time dilation

One of the relativistic effects of jump is time dilation, that is, time slows down for objects in motion relative to those at rest, and the faster the object moves, the more pronounced the effect. Crew that spend much of their time aboard spaceships that jump frequently age slower than space station personnel and this gives rise to the notion of "ship-time" and "station-time" (or "Universal time"). A navigator on a merchant ship may be 30 years old ship-time, but considerably older in terms of station-time. To resolve this dilemma, a person's "true age" is calculated with medical computers using parameters such as what ships he or she has been on, what routes these ships took, and what load they carried.

Disorientation

Jump is a disorientating experience for those using it, although the degree of discomfort varies depending on the species. Most humans experience extreme psychological distress, potentially resulting in madness, and need to "trank down" or tranquilize themselves prior to each jump. The oxygen-breathing species native to Cherryh's Compact space, with the exception of the Stsho, do not require drugs during jump as their bodies naturally enter a deep sleep. However, some species in the Alliance-Union universe can function normally during jump and require little to no assistance.

For humans, the jump from realspace to hyperspace is perceived as the ship (and themselves) coming apart, and it became necessary to develop "trank-packs" that administer tranquilizers to the crews of FTL ships prior to jumping. Tranking down puts the crew into a quasi-sleep state for the duration of the jump, leaving them only marginally aware of their surroundings. "Nutri-packs" were also developed to provide essential sustenance for the crew upon waking after system re-entry, as jumps can sometimes last up to a few weeks of "no-time", leaving them extremely hungry, thirsty and nauseated.

Ships with tranked crews are always at their most vulnerable when they drop back into realspace. The crew is groggy and slow reacting to the current status of their ship and the possible presence of other ships in the vicinity.

Night-walkers

A "night-walker" is someone from a species that normally sleep during jump (naturally or via trank) who have learnt to function normally while in jump-time. They embrace this alternate reality, with all its unworldly shapes and sounds, and believe there are new "worlds" to be found out there. New jump-points and routes are often discovered by night-walkers. Notable night-walkers in Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe include Chur Anify (hani) in Chanur's Homecoming (1986), Hallan Meras (hani) in Chanur's Legacy (1992), and Capella (human) in Tripoint (1994).

Night-walkers who are also navigators, like Capella, are valued because they are awake on re-entry into real-space and can therefore react quicker than crew still recovering from trank. They can also sometimes "hear" potential problems while in hyperspace, for example the presence of an enemy ship. However, they can't navigate the ship, as their computers do not work in hyperspace. But aside from just listening, they sometimes amuse themselves by wandering around the ship and entering tranqed crewmates' rooms.

25. Immaterium Warp Drive

Immaterium Warp Drive enabled starships are able to enter "the Warp" also known as the "Immaterium", a parallel dimension that is said to be the domain of the consciousness of every sentient being in the universe, and also the realm of Chaos. Warhammer 40K starships access the Immaterium for faster than light travel, an unsafe operation due to the Warp's unpredictable nature. Ships are known to emerge from the Warp many hundreds of light years from their intended destinations, and timewise many years, decades or even centuries after they had been expected to arrive. The Emperor of Mankind, provides the Astronomican as a kind of magnetic north for starship navigation, the only feasible way to traverse the Warp. Imperial Immaterium starships require a special force shield known as the Geller Field, that creates a "realspace bubble" around the ship when in warpspace.

The Tau (no relation to the Desertborn Tau) cannot truly enter the Immaterium. By studying the Immaterium Warp drives from other species, they developed a method in which their ships "dive" towards the Immaterium and are then catapulted away, back into real space. While this is much safer than actually entering the Warp, it is much slower.

The Eldar use a system of Jumpgates known as the "Webway Matrix", which operates using an expansive series of ancient "tunnels" in the Immaterium that are immune to the chaotic influences of the Immaterium and the other usual perils of Immaterium travel.

The Necrons may have used a similar system as the Webway Matrix Jumpgates at some point in their past, but use an Inertialess Drive now.

The Tyranid Hive Fleets do not travel through the Immaterium but instead rely on small Narvhal bio-ships which are capable of creating corridors of compressed-space through which Tyranid vessels can travel towards a gravity well at a swift rate. Whilst slower than proper Warp travel, this method is much more reliable.