Superluminal Drive

The Superluminal Drive (SD), also referred to as the Hyperdrive (HD), is the primary tool for effective faster-than-light travel in the Local Cluster. Accompanying it is the Superluminal Gate (“Hypergate”), a device that can be described as the SD equivalent of a slingshot.

Causes
Main article: Flatland

The Standard Model understands the Cluster as a collection of universes, each a four dimensional “bubble” with their own slightly different set of laws of reality and a rigid boundary. The nature of how this allows for various known phenomena can be visualized by the Flatland Model, a simplified analogy of the true nature of the Local Cluster.

Imagine the existence of a two-dimensional universe, referred to as “Flatland”, on the inside of a three dimensional sphere of opaque material. The inhabitants of Flatland may traverse it in two dimensions, or they may master the art of “superluminal” travel and instead traverse through the three dimensional volume inside of the sphere in order to reach other locations by traveling a smaller distance and expending less time. This three-dimensional volume in question is analogous to “hyperspace” in the Local Cluster.

From the perspective of the other inhabitants of Flatland, a superluminal drive equipped Flatlander will disappear from their origin and appear at the destination after some time. As the watchers cannot observe the third dimension unaided, and as the path through the empty space is shorter than the path through Flatland, the traveler will appear to have moved at faster than light speed. This space can be said to be Flatland’s equivalent to hyperspace or another superluminal dimension.

Extrapolating Flatland upwards by one dimension yields a simplified and incomplete but layman understandable explanation of how SDs and Gates function.

Effects
The process of initiating a hyperspace journey is mostly automated. The prospective user selects their current location and a desired destination using a regularly updated digital map of the galaxy, and the navigation and SD control computers carry out the complex and difficult calculations required to determine a safe trajectory. As this occurs the control computer also instructs the ship carrying the SD to build up a charge in its capacitor banks and allocate an amount of fuel.

Once the navigation computer determines a trajectory and feeds it to the SD and the ship has built up enough of a charge, the SD consumes the charge and the allocated fuel to catapult the ship into hyperspace. During the journey the control computer instructs the ship to build up a second charge and a corresponding amount of fuel; upon re-entry the SD consumes the second charge and fuel to decelerate the ship (by reducing its velocity in the hyperspace direction) into a soft transfer back into realspace.

Superluminal Drives are rated as a certain velocity class for a certain mass. The class value describes its speed in hyperspace relative to a “Class 1” standard speed and the mass value describes the ship mass that the drive can transport through hyperspace at the speed advertised. The Class 1 standard speed is arbitrarily defined as 912,500 c (equivalent to 2500 light years per day), and all other velocity classes are inversely multiplicative in relation to the standard; a Class 3 is a third as fast as a Class 1 while a theoretical Class 0.5 is twice as fast.

The velocity class of a SD as specified on its manual is only accurate if installed on a ship with a mass approximately equal to the mass value it is rated for. On more massive ships the effective velocity class is lower, and on less massive ships the opposite is true. As a rule of thumb, for every order of magnitude difference from the specified mass value the true velocity class is different from the given velocity class (in the same direction of the number line) by about 3.16 times the given. In simple terms, a Class 1 drive for mass X has an effective class value of 3.16 for mass 10X.

This can be summed up with the equation

$$ V_a = \frac{V_s}{R_a} * \sqrt{\frac{M_s}{M_a}} $$

… where $$V_a$$ is the actual superluminal velocity achieved by a SD, $$V_s$$ is the standard Class 1 velocity, $$R_a$$ is the actual Class rating of the drive, $$M_a$$ is the actual mass of the ship the SD is attached to, and $$M_s$$ is the standard mass that the SD is rated for.

The act of initiating and completing a SD jump creates ripples through hyperspace, traveling at a speed far faster than any SD can achieve, that can be detected with the appropriate equipment. It is possible to triangulate the precise location of the source of a ripple, even if it is many light years away, using a minimum of three detectors. However, it is not possible to detect the direction of a jump given only an entry or an exit ripple.

The act of carrying out an SD jump also creates preemptive foreshocks around the approximate location of reentry. These foreshocks can be similarly detected with the appropriate equipment. However, their significant dissipation at interstellar distances limits their detection to observers in the same system. The magnitude of the foreshock correlates with the net kinetic energy of the objects in transit, the duration of the foreshocks is equal to about half of the time the objects in transit will require to carry out its journey, and the “shape” of the foreshocks can provide a rough approximation of the direction of the objects’ origin.

Hypergates slingshot ships to their destination in a manner identical to a standard superluminal drive’s method of function. Built-in SD arrays slingshot objects inside the gate’s area of effect into hyperspace on a predetermined path towards a set destination, consuming fuel and energy from the gate instead of the launched object(s). They have greater effective ranges compared to most SDs but require recharge time between each slingshot.

Though hypergates are expensive and unwieldy structures that require great investments in resources, they are powerful strategic devices that allow for the rapid movement of large quantities of mass across great distances. Networks of hypergates form interstellar highways in both the member states of the Union and the signatories of the Accord, while forward placed hypergates allow a participant in a war to launch attack forces farther than they could without.

Gravity Anchor
One notable derivation of Superluminal Technology is the "Gravity Anchor", a device that exploits the nature of hyperspace to artificially anchors a device to a point in space seemingly in violation of the basic laws of relativity.

The Gravity Anchor extends a portion of the ship into hyperspace to "secure" itself to local spacetime much like a seaborne ship deploying a physical anchor. The resulting distortion of local space creates an artificial gravity well and corresponding lensing effect around the Anchor. This process consumes large quantities of energy, relegating its use to space stations that must remain in a fixed position relative to some large object.

Gravity Anchors are mostly used in the relay stations that make up the HoloNet and Noosphere and listening stations of the signals intelligence forces of the Union and the Accord.

Limitations
The SD, though a versatile tool, is not unlimited in its capacity to transport objects through hyperspace.

The SD’s initial jump charge scales with the magnitude of gravitational force experienced by the drive, making it effectively impossible to enter hyperspace when the drive is too close to an astronomical body or other large source of gravity. Even when sufficiently far out enough to avoid this issue, the SD still consumes prodigious quantities of stored charge for both initiating and exiting jumps. This energy consumption also scales with the size of the drive in question, as larger drives are intended to generate greater “catapulting” forces for correspondingly larger ships. Smaller ships taking on larger drives will have to dedicate much of their available space and mass to support said drive and give up on other hard and soft factors. Finally, the energy consumption also scales with the distance traveled. The facilities required to feed the SD with its required energy often occupies as much space as the SD does, if not more, limiting the minimum size of what can reasonably field an SD.

Similarly, the SD consumes a great quantity of fuel. As a rule of thumb, a ship designed with a balance of all factors and equipped with a Class 1 SD can cross about 10,000 (subject to change) light years using the entirety of its fuel reserves. Slower SDs have superior fuel efficiency and can cross greater distances, however this is offset by the greatly increased time required to traverse these distances.

The gravity well restriction also applies to the act of exiting hyperspace. The energy and fuel consumed by the SD to “cushion” the ship’s return to reality scales with the gravitational forces it is experiencing in a manner similar to the energy cost scaling of exiting a gravity well. Failure to input a sufficiently large amount of energy and fuel will lead to a “hard” landing where the kinetic energy in the hyperspace direction is lost all at once instead of gradually. Such an event could rattle a ship and its components to the point of non-functionality and cause severe injury or death to its crew. In severe cases ships returning to reality too close to a gravity well have rattled themselves apart, killing all aboard and creating a temporary debris field in the localized area.