Hyperspace-Warp Jump Points...?
Moment of truth time...one thing I haven't done yet for the Kaniraverse is come up with how space travel--how FTL space travel--actually works. And I kinna need to for the next page I'm doin'.
I mean, okay...space travel in a Space Opera is kind of a MacGuffin; s'long as they can get from Point A to Point B without relativistic effects or having to wait eighty-eleven bajillion years to get where they're going, we're pretty happy, neh? But...it's nice to have some sort of explanation or justification of some kind for FTL travel. Especially since fucking around with it or making it break can have some interesting plot ramifications.
I'm also considering at some point possibly introducing aliens who have a completely different style of drive system from the humans or the Myanai, or possibly a human or Myanai inventing a new style of drive system, one which makes people sit up and take notice.
So...it seems to me that there are three or four basic forms of drive systems in sci-fi:
- Hyperspace
- Warp
- Wormhole travel
- Extra-dimensional travel
Granted, each seems to be an aspect of the others, really, and often go by different names. For example, traveling through wormholes (like in the Vorkosigan Saga) involves going to a static wormhole, activating a drive system that folds the ship into 5-space, and *blammo* the ship's in another part of the galaxy. But sometimes ships generate their own wormholes...which could be called warp, like warping space, folding space, blah, blah, blah. Some systems use a wormhole generator gate in a fixed location...I d'know.
Hyperspace--at least in Star Wars--really just seems to be going really fuckin' fast, or something which allows FTL travel.
Some systems, like Babylon 5's jump gates, seems to send you into a kind of parallel dimension where distance traveled is, like, magnified or something, so when you come out of that dimension, you've gone a lot further...'least, that's what it looked like; they never really explained it in detail on the show.
There'z so many ways to achieve this feat, some scientifically plausible, some pure fiction, and I've never really been able to pick which it is for the Kaniraverse...and I really ought to, yanno?
The Adventures of Kanira Baxter half-began as a response to Star Trek...I suppose I ought to make the White Knight's drive system into a critique of ST's warp drive. Though I must admit, I've never really looked into how warp is alleged to work in Trek. And Kanira Baxter is, in many ways, purest Space Opera; I could just make up an "Alludium Q-32 Space Modulator" type MacGuffin and leave it at that...though I would like the series to be internally consistent and semi-logical as much as I can. I'm happy to focus more on 'Fi' and less on 'Sci' if I have to so long as the Kaniraverse is internally consistent...but the more science I can inject the better, I think.
Anyway...just sayin'.
I mean, okay...space travel in a Space Opera is kind of a MacGuffin; s'long as they can get from Point A to Point B without relativistic effects or having to wait eighty-eleven bajillion years to get where they're going, we're pretty happy, neh? But...it's nice to have some sort of explanation or justification of some kind for FTL travel. Especially since fucking around with it or making it break can have some interesting plot ramifications.
I'm also considering at some point possibly introducing aliens who have a completely different style of drive system from the humans or the Myanai, or possibly a human or Myanai inventing a new style of drive system, one which makes people sit up and take notice.
So...it seems to me that there are three or four basic forms of drive systems in sci-fi:
- Hyperspace
- Warp
- Wormhole travel
- Extra-dimensional travel
Granted, each seems to be an aspect of the others, really, and often go by different names. For example, traveling through wormholes (like in the Vorkosigan Saga) involves going to a static wormhole, activating a drive system that folds the ship into 5-space, and *blammo* the ship's in another part of the galaxy. But sometimes ships generate their own wormholes...which could be called warp, like warping space, folding space, blah, blah, blah. Some systems use a wormhole generator gate in a fixed location...I d'know.
Hyperspace--at least in Star Wars--really just seems to be going really fuckin' fast, or something which allows FTL travel.
Some systems, like Babylon 5's jump gates, seems to send you into a kind of parallel dimension where distance traveled is, like, magnified or something, so when you come out of that dimension, you've gone a lot further...'least, that's what it looked like; they never really explained it in detail on the show.
There'z so many ways to achieve this feat, some scientifically plausible, some pure fiction, and I've never really been able to pick which it is for the Kaniraverse...and I really ought to, yanno?
The Adventures of Kanira Baxter half-began as a response to Star Trek...I suppose I ought to make the White Knight's drive system into a critique of ST's warp drive. Though I must admit, I've never really looked into how warp is alleged to work in Trek. And Kanira Baxter is, in many ways, purest Space Opera; I could just make up an "Alludium Q-32 Space Modulator" type MacGuffin and leave it at that...though I would like the series to be internally consistent and semi-logical as much as I can. I'm happy to focus more on 'Fi' and less on 'Sci' if I have to so long as the Kaniraverse is internally consistent...but the more science I can inject the better, I think.
Anyway...just sayin'.