FTL Methods in Trek
- Thread starter Ronald Held
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I used to greatly enjoy the first-person space game Tachyon: The Fringe, which had an interface similar to those used in X-Wing and related games, and had a FTL system similar in a few basic ways to the B5 system. Tachyon gates were built around a type of singularity called a ripstar, which is relatively rare and very dense. Ripstars in open space are a potential threat because they're only a few meters across but generate very strong gravity, and only one explored region actually has them in any abundance. Several of the factions maintain enclaves there because the ripstars provide a useful defense, and one faction wants to gain an economic advantage by secretly developing the technology to harvest them. Ripstar fragments are also used in a few weapon designs.
In a gate, a tachyon coil sends energy into a ripstar and causes it to warp, and this warp releases a very large wave of tachyons that the ship then "rides" to the next sector in the form of a wormhole. Since tachyons can't travel slower than the speed of light, it's a pretty efficient way of connecting distant parts of the galaxy. Capital warships have their own internal jump drives for independent travel, but the game suggests they'll coordinate with a local gate before jumping. No mention is made of whether such drives require any sort of recharge time, as is the case with B5 engines. Local gates can be controlled or locked by the nearest base or someone with the proper codes. Auto pilot doesn't function if there are hostiles in the area, to prevent the ship's computer from unwittingly flying the pilot into a line of fire.
In a gate, a tachyon coil sends energy into a ripstar and causes it to warp, and this warp releases a very large wave of tachyons that the ship then "rides" to the next sector in the form of a wormhole. Since tachyons can't travel slower than the speed of light, it's a pretty efficient way of connecting distant parts of the galaxy. Capital warships have their own internal jump drives for independent travel, but the game suggests they'll coordinate with a local gate before jumping. No mention is made of whether such drives require any sort of recharge time, as is the case with B5 engines. Local gates can be controlled or locked by the nearest base or someone with the proper codes. Auto pilot doesn't function if there are hostiles in the area, to prevent the ship's computer from unwittingly flying the pilot into a line of fire.
Going to not present Wsrp 10 and salamanders.
I've recently enjoyed diving into the Dropzone Commander universe, and all species use variations of the foldspace drive. Humans developed the capacity in the 24th century (the main setting is the 28th century), and the drive allows travel to any points that have a signal node. The major drawback in all versions is that they cannot be used in the vicinity of planetary gravity wells, and the ideal distance to jump is 6-10 hours away from the destination planet.
Foldspace drives used by the United Colonies of Man take several hours to build a charge, and can only handle a few dozen charges before they have to be replaced with a new one. Scourge drives have similar limitations, except that the Scourge models can sustain longer periods of use between refits.
Post-Human Republic vessels are considerably more advanced, being able to achieve the same jump accuracy without having to rely on nodes. This is possibly a side effect of their heavy use of AI, as a Republican crew interfaces directly with their vessel. The Shaltari also have no need of nodes for marking, but their engines can recharge far faster than any of the other races and they rarely have to worry about being pinned in the wrong spot.
Foldspace drives used by the United Colonies of Man take several hours to build a charge, and can only handle a few dozen charges before they have to be replaced with a new one. Scourge drives have similar limitations, except that the Scourge models can sustain longer periods of use between refits.
Post-Human Republic vessels are considerably more advanced, being able to achieve the same jump accuracy without having to rely on nodes. This is possibly a side effect of their heavy use of AI, as a Republican crew interfaces directly with their vessel. The Shaltari also have no need of nodes for marking, but their engines can recharge far faster than any of the other races and they rarely have to worry about being pinned in the wrong spot.
In the Star Trek/Star Wars crossover I was working on in high school, I had late 23rd century Starfleet designed ships in the Star Wars galaxy. They were limited with their warp drives in terms of how fast they could get from system to system, so they couldn't fight the Empire as a whole, just locally. The warp drive did allow for Starfleet ships to come and go in battle a lot more easily than Imperial or Rebel ships. They could also break out of a Gravity Well Projector's pull using the warp drive (with difficulty).
Early on the Rebels gave them some really old model hyperdrives so they could be more useful to the Alliance's cause. The engineers installed them into the impulse units, and after some teething problems, they got the drive to work and the navigation setup to be at least functional, if not great. In a straight race along a trade route, a Starfleet ship would be about five times slower than a modern Imperial warship in hyperspace.
Later, as they got more comfortable with hyperspace, they decided to experiment with using the warp drive while in hyperspace. This worked (after a lot of trial and error) to bring them up to and even past normal hyperdrive speeds of the era (essentially they got a variation of transwarp drive out the deal). Not as fast as something like the Falcon, but that's mostly because the Starfleet style ships don't have the maps the would need for that kind of navigation through hyperspace.
Early on the Rebels gave them some really old model hyperdrives so they could be more useful to the Alliance's cause. The engineers installed them into the impulse units, and after some teething problems, they got the drive to work and the navigation setup to be at least functional, if not great. In a straight race along a trade route, a Starfleet ship would be about five times slower than a modern Imperial warship in hyperspace.
Later, as they got more comfortable with hyperspace, they decided to experiment with using the warp drive while in hyperspace. This worked (after a lot of trial and error) to bring them up to and even past normal hyperdrive speeds of the era (essentially they got a variation of transwarp drive out the deal). Not as fast as something like the Falcon, but that's mostly because the Starfleet style ships don't have the maps the would need for that kind of navigation through hyperspace.
How many FTL Techniques are there that do not involve reshaping subspace?
Actually, it's space that's "reshaped" not subspace.
Actually, there's a real warp displacement theory and it only speaks of space distortion. Subspace is not a Scientific concept by any means. It's been present in Sci. Fi. literature since the early 1900s (sometimes it's called hyperspace but the idea is the same) but has no correspondence in science whatsoever.
In trek tech,I was asking about how some FTL propulsion works.AFAIK,many warp drives and corridors need some manipulation of subspace, not the physical space-time.
I envision the elusive gravity particle or graviton makes up the subspace dimension resulting in artificial gravity, inertial damper fields, deflectors and use of gravity propulsion to propel ships. Additionally, electromagnet waves (light, radio, microwave, etc.) move much faster in its medium resulting in FTL subspace radio and sensors. The key technology to access the subspace realm is the transtator. Big equipment for powerful ship-born use, and fairly recent in TOS, miniaturized ones for hand held devices. It's harder to put energy/things into subspace from our universe, while easier to pull gravity out of subspace. Hence the development of gravity technologies about 200 years before TOS, and subspace radio/sensors about 100 years before TOS.
I like the way you think.
Subspace and Warp speed are two very different things, ST writers often confuse them because they are either ignorant or negligent, which in the end amount to the same thing. You don't need subspace to warp space. "Subspace" aka "Hyperspace" is a purely sci. fi. notion that has no correspondence in reality whatsoever whereas warp speed is a real thing, however, it's still theoretical and is likely to remain that way for a long time.
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