Interstellar Travel

Hawking Drive

Humanity’s first widely used method of faster-than-light transportation. It used a field of matter-antimatter annihilation events, or Hawking field, to simulate the interior conditions of a black hole without the associated gravitational stresses. This allowed the ship to apparently open a rift into a parallel sub-space to our normal space-time. The Hawking drive was later replaced by the much more efficient and less dangerous galactic wormhole drive, but the technology behind it was later used in experimental communication devices that facilitated monitoring our space-time from the sub-space layer without having to use highly detectable active scanning as with the micro wormhole tunnel scans.

Galactic Wormhole Drive

See also Gravity Manipulation

Uses gravity manipulation paired with a Hawking field to open a wormhole (essentially a tunnel through Hawking space) through which a ship or transmission can travel. This shortens the travel time over interstellar distances to a few seconds and negates the effects of relativity.

When engaged the Wormhole Drive targets a highly localized gravity well very near the ship. These gravity wells operate along similar lines to the artificial gravity wells created by ship-board decking but focused outside of the ship using v-shaped casters, either singly or in series depending on the size of the wormhole and the distance it needs to be from the ship. Incredibly precise tuning of the generated gravity well will trigger a specific release of Hawking matter, which when interacting with the well will trigger the formation of a very specifically targeted wormhole. The targeting calculations can be done in advance, as was done in the early days of the drive, but the presence of a navigational intelligence or navigational A.I. greatly reduces the time required for new calculations between jumps. Once the wormhole has manifested the casters will switch to maintenance mode, using an inversion of the containment gravity fields present in singularity power generation and inertia dampening technologies to press the entrance to the wormhole open while the ship enters. Once maintenance mode powers down the entrance to the wormhole will rapidly deteriorate. It is possible for ships to be bisected or otherwise damaged as spacetime returns to normal upon the collapse of a wormhole if they're doing something exceptionally stupid like trying to follow someone else into their wormhole without any casters of their own to hold the aperture open.

Once inside a wormhole a vessel is protected from the ravages of Hawking space and the effects of general relativity by a pocket of normal spacetime until they approach the terminus. That pocket of normal spacetime will trigger the exit aperture of the wormhole to open, but depending on the size of the vessel in transit the casters may need to be powered up to ensure a smooth ejection and avoid damage as the wormhole unravels behind it.

Wormhole travel is convenient and largely very safe but is subject to several considerations and limitations. The mass and physical dimensions of the vessel in transit affect the required size of the wormhole, and by extension the depth of the artificial gravity well that generates it and the power required to initiate the well. The quality of the casters will also affect the required power, as well as the distance across which the wormhole can be targeted with high precision. The gravity well for either end of the wormhole will also be affected by other nearby gravity wells, and as such cannot be generated too near planets or stars without the danger of the resulting aperture being pulled into the gravitational center of the nearby natural gravity well. The larger the artificial or naturally occurring gravity well, the further apart they need to be.

Wormholes also release trace radiation bursts when the apertures open and as they deteriorate. Generally speaking these radiation bursts are very small, but they become more concerning as the wormhole increases in size. Radiation shielding in interplanetary and interstellar vessels is sufficient to protect the occupants from the vast majority of these bursts, and planetary atmospheres are similarly robust. That said, there is a class of vessel known as a Station Keeper which generates wormhole apertures so large they're legally restricted from using wormhole travel within inhabited star systems. These ships carry their own fleets of smaller wormhole-capable vessels for approaching planets or other ships.

Bending

See also Galactic Lifeforms

Bending is both a highly complicated feat and incredibly simple at the same time. On the one hand it's technologically very basic, while on the other hand it requires the skill and ability of a bender pilot, who manages the feat through a biological assertion on the fabric of space-time that is still largely not understood by scientists. Theoretical physicists posit that the feat in question, bending matter and energy through a fold in space-time from one physical location to another with virtually no measurable passage of time, involves passage through an entirely separate universe than our own. The inability of typical humans to perceive the transition suggests that the universe layer thus used may not adhere to one or more of the dimensions we are familiar with, particularly time.

Benders themselves are the result of rampant genetic experimentation several hundred years in the past, which among other physical atypifications resulted in the Terkius array, the biological system theorized to allow them to interact with space-time as they do. The only thing needed technologically to outfit a starship for interstellar bending is a direct connection to the power distribution system on the ship that is appropriately guarded and stepped-down such that anyone who touches it, including the bender pilot, won't be electrocuted by the contact. This is, all things considered, immensely less difficult to manage than wormholes or Hawking fields. The skill, experience, and health of the pilot will affect their ability to cover more or less distance, but even the least skilled benders are considered to be far more efficient a star drive than anything else.