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Interstellar, Intrastellar, and Space Travel List
( How To Get There From Here )
Version 1.4
Compiled By: Jack a.k.a. Wildside
At: [email removed]
or [email removed]
Disclaimer: This list is for the purpose of accumu-
lating forms of space travel in books, games, and the
media. This is not an acceptance, nor a denial, of
the idea that the forms of travel listed in this list
are possible.
Copyright 1990, 1991 Jack De Winter. Use of this
article, in part or in whole, for commercial purposes
without prior consent of the compiler of this list is
discouraged, and goes against the spirit of the copy-
right protection. Use of this article for personal
and private enjoyment is acceptable, and is
encouraged, as long as the article remains in whole,
with the exception of minor formatting changes to
accommodate different word-processing systems. If
major changes in the formatting are needed, consent is
needed from the compiler of the list.
February 28, 1991
Table of Contents
1. Notices About The List ................................. ii
1.1. Copyright Notice ................................. ii
1.2. Editors Notice ................................... ii
1.3. Compilation History ............................. iii
1.4. Contributor's List ............................... iv
1.4.1. Individual Submitters List ............... iv
1.4.2. Group Submitters List .................... iv
2. Faster-Than-Light ( Superluminal ) Drives ............... 2
2.1. Books ............................................. 2
2.2. Games ............................................ 17
2.3. Movies and Television ............................ 21
3. Sublight Spaceflight ................................... 23
3.1. Books ............................................ 23
3.2. Games ............................................ 27
4. Gates And Teleportation ................................ 29
4.1. Books ............................................ 29
5. Ansibles And Other Communications Devices .............. 34
5.1. Books ............................................ 34
6. Glossary ............................................... 37
7. Sources of Stories ..................................... 43
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1. Notices About The List
1.1. Copyright Notice
This copyright notice is placed here to protect myself, as
well as anyone who uses the list. If you wish to use this list
as part of a gaming journal, or as part of a paper on some topic
( who knows, it could happen ), if you send me a letter saying
what you wish to use it for, there should be no problem in get-
ting permission ( unless circumstances make it otherwise ) as
soon as I can reply back to you. This is here so that there will
be one source for the list to make it easily manageable, as well
as to protect my interests, as a lot of time has been invested
into constantly updating this list.
1.2. Editors Notice
I have tried to make these entries as clean as possible, but
I don't have a really good way of checking every single entry
that gets submitted. If there is an omission of a particular
drive OR if there is an error in an entry, send E-mail and I will
try and have it fixed for subsequent releases. As this list is
being compiled with the help of people on the net, you have a say
in what is put on this list by telling me what types of drives I
have missed and the source of that drive!!!
When describing the books, the title of the book is under-
lined, if possible for that type of output ( e.g. Dragonriders Of
Pern ). If the drive appears in the series, the series is also
underlined in order to give the series the same recognition as
the book. Furthermore, if the titles of the books in the series
are known, they are listed after the series name, separated from
the series with a ':'. ( e.g. Some series: First Book, Second
Book. ) If, in the course of describing an object, it is neces-
sary to use a word or phrase that is not in the Glossary at the
end of the list, then the word or phrase will be placed within
two "'" characters. ( e.g. The 'Double-K' drive uses... ).
The Glossary itself should also be explained. It is a col-
lection of terms used throughout the references in the list. If
the item in the glossary is rare enough, then it is explained
with a cross reference showing where an example can be found.
Otherwise, the item is just explained.
For the cross references, the notation 'q.v.' is used to
denote that a cross reference is occurring. While the references
may be made in the description, all of the cross references are
listed at the end of the reference. In the cross-reference, the
section before the colon describes the section in which the
cross-reference will be found. The section following this gives
additional information about where in that section the reference
can be found. If there is any additional information, it will be
found in a third section.
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1.3. Compilation History
Version 1.0. Released: Mid November, 1990. This was the origi-
nal release of the list.
Version 1.1. Released: December 12, 1990. This release included
minor corrections as well as the new section, Gates.
Version 1.1.1. Released: January 10, 1991. This release
included on minor corrections and additions.
Version 1.2. Released: January 31, 1991. This release included
minor corrections and additions and also included cross-
referencing.
Version 1.3. Released: February 15, 1991. This release included
minor corrections and additions, Postscript formatting
changes, and the new section, Sources of Stories.
Version 1.4. Released: February 28, 1991. This release included
minor corrections and additions, as well as release in Text,
Postscript, and Troff format onto the mailing list.
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1.4. Contributor's List
Thanks to the following people who have contributed to the list.
They are listed in alphabetical order to avoid hurt feelings.
1.4.1. Individual Submitters List
[email removed], [email removed],
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kl.de, [email removed],
[email removed], [email removed],
[email removed], [email removed], [email removed],
[email removed], [email removed],
[email removed], [email removed],
[email removed], [email removed],
[email removed], YOURAA@morekypr.
1.4.2. Group Submitters List
Bath Science Fiction Discussion Group, Bath, England.
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2. Faster-Than-Light ( Superluminal ) Drives
2.1. Books
(Various). Perry Rhodan. One of the drives used in this comic
series uses a gravity well attached to the front of the ship
using a magnetic container. In order to travel at super-
luminal speeds, the gravitational field is intensified until
a black hole is created through which the ship is able to
enter hyperspace. The acceleration range is usually between
500 and 800 kilometres per second squared, and ship seem to
fall into suns if they are in planetary systems. This comic
appears in weekly, sometimes parallel editions.
Adams, Douglas. Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. The idea is
that the infinite improbability drive places you at every
point in the universe at the same time. Has really weird
side effects. Uses a cup of tea somewhere in the design
process.
Adams, Douglas. Life, The Universe, And Everything. Almost
identical to Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy except that it
uses waiters in a Bistro instead of a cup of tea. The drive
operates on the principle that it is impossible to figure
out who owes what for the meal. If you try and figure any-
thing else out, such as how to get from here to there, it
will occur according to how improbable it is.
Anderson, Poul. The Avatar. A system of artifacts, set up by an
alien race, establish artificial jump points in the
universe.
Anderson, Poul. Flandry series. Similar to the drive from the
game 2300 AD. The quirk with this drive is that beam
weapons between two ships only work if the two ships have
the same skip rate.
( q.v. Superluminal-Games: 2300 AD. )
Anthony, Piers. Macroscope. Uses the idea that space is actually
folded, such that the jump drive links two points in space
that touch at the fold and travel is seen to be instantane-
ous. A large gravity well is needed for such transitions,
so the ships usually carried around large asteroids for
fuel. Also, due to the high-pressure conditions of tran-
sport, the human tissue had to be liquefied, then vaporized
before transit, and restored after the transit had been com-
pleted.
Asimov, Isaac. Foundation series: Prelude To Foundation,
Foundation, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, Foundation
And Empire; Robot Detective series. Operates by form of a
controlled nuclear explosion where the people are non-
existent during the transit through hyperspace. A problem
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was encountered due to the Three Robotic Laws, where the
interpretation of 'harm' seemed to include temporary non-
existence while 'in transit', as non-existence was equated
with death. Their positronic brains, of course, froze when
they discovered that the passengers would be dead at one
point ( regardless of their final state! ) so a special
super-brain was made that could deal with temporary dead-
ness. The first two passengers had terrible nightmares
while in transit ( scenes from hell, etc... ), and this was
the work of the super-brain, who had developed a sense of
humour in order to deal with the temporary deaths. As the
ships became more refined, the time in hyperspace became
less, and the definition of death was redefined so that the
computer would not go crazy. Entering into transit from too
deep within a gravity well causes really ugly side effects.
In the Robot Detective series, the jump drives used are
under the control of spacers, that is people who continually
live in outer space. In the Foundation series, the jump
drive starts off with a long process needed to figure out
one's exact location, needed in order to find out how to get
to the destination. By Second Foundation, a computer that
allows one to compute their exact position quickly is used.
In Foundation's Edge, it has become possible to do a series
of jumps without having the calculated position deviate too
far from the actual one that it becomes dangerous. And in
Foundation And Empire, it is possible to chart a path
through the dense galactic core, but it requires extra time
to make sure the ship does not accidentally hit any stars.
Asimov, Isaac. Nemesis. The superluminal drive negates the
effect of inertia allowing many multiples of the speed of
light. The drive is totally computer controlled and the
vessel remains in realspace throughout the entire trip. The
secret of superluminal travel is that the speed of light is
treated as Ground Zero. Above the speed of light, gravity
repels objects rather than attracting them. An early ver-
sion of this drive, a 'stutter' drive, used this principle,
but only for very short times and for very short distances.
Asimov, Isaac. Thiotimoline To The Stars. Uses Asimov's famous
substance thiotimoline as a drive. Uses logical incon-
sistencies from the previous books ( like the fact that it
goes into the water before the water hits it ).
Blish, James. Cities In Flight series; Okie stories: They Shall
Have Stars. Travel is performed using a 'spindizzy' drive,
more properly known as the Dillon-Waggoner Gravitron Polar-
ity Generator, which operates on a little known law of phy-
sics. The speed obtained is proportional to the mass ( i.e.
larger mass, larger speed ). Cities and planets were there-
fore hooked up to this drive.
( q.v. Ansible-Books: Blish, James. Cities In Flight
series; Okie stories: )
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Bradley, Marion Zimmer. ( I know she has one, can anyone fill
this in? )
Brin, David. Earthclan, Startide Rising, Sundiver, The Uplift
War. One of the species uses a hyperdrive that suppresses
reality, hence no lightspeed barrier if the 'pilot' does not
wish one. Really dangerous concept though, as if the
'pilot' did not believe in reality any more, then the ship
would never rematerialize. Apparently, there were several
levels of hyperspace that could be used in _The Uplift War_,
and the maximum speed at which you could travel depended on
which level you were on. Other species used drives that
could only be used at particular points near stars. The
humans and their uplifted children utilize a quasi jump
drive augmented with a stasis field to slow down time for
the occupants of the ship, but time-dilation effects were
still experienced.
Bunch, Chris and Cole, Allan. Sten series. Several drives are
used which are both sublight and superluminal. The primary
superluminal drive is the AntiMatter-2 drive, powered by
AntiMatter-2. Apparently AntiMatter-2 is only available
from the Eternal Emperor, who ( it seems ) is a required
organic decision-making component of the robotic
AntiMatter-2 factories ( in some other space ); this is
still being released in dribs and drabs as the series is
published. The Eternal Emperor discovered the source of
AntiMatter-2 before he was Eternal, and used it to become
the ultimate water emperor. He has survived multiple assas-
sination attempts, at least 3 which were successful.
Bujold, Lois McMaster. Series: Falling Free. In this four part
series, mention is made of Necklin field tensor equations
that allow the ships to punch through wormholes.
Bujold, Lois McMaster. Miles Vorkosigan series and associated
books: Shards Of Honor, The Warrior's Apprentice, Ethan Of
Athos, Falling Free, Borders Of Infinity, Brothers In Arms,
The Vor Game.This method of travel utilizes wormholes in the
universe. Special jump pilots are given direct mind-computer
links in order to navigate the wormholes. While a jump will
take hours for a pilot and will be very draining, the rest
of the crew do not notice the voyage.
Chalker, Jack. Wells Of Souls series. In this series, the
universe is a giant computer running a simulation. There-
fore, if you change the bits that represent your location,
you change two. Seeing as this can involve a hyperspace
approach, it seems like a superluminal drive is being used.
Chalker, Jack. Soul Rider series: Spirits Of Flux & Anchor,
Empires Of Flux & Anchor, Masters Of Flux & Anchor, Birth Of
Flux & Anchor, Children Of Flux & Anchor. Travel is accom-
plished by punching a hole in the universe to a layer of raw
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energy ( called 'Flux' ) that surrounds the universe.
There, the speed of light is millions of times greater than
that of our universe, and when something is shot into the
boundary, it will eventually return to our universe due to a
weaker boundary between the Flux and the universe. Later in
the books, gates are established in space and on planets
where ships can be sent through. The location of exit points
in our universe are generally not known as they are faraway.
( q.v. Gates-Books: Chalker, Jack: Soul Rider series. )
Cherryh, C.J. Charnur series; The Faded Sun series;
Union/Alliance series: Cyteen, Downbelow Station,
Merchenteer's Luck, Forty Thousand In Gehenna, Rimrunners.
These series use a form of a skip drive in order to move at
sublight and superluminal velocities. As the velocity is
picked up and bleed of in bursts by exterior vanes on the
ship, the transition to superluminal speeds must be made
within a gravity well. The one bad side effect is that
humans need to be drugged for the transition to superluminal
speeds, otherwise they go mad. No other species seems to
have this problem.
Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood's End. A superluminal drive is used
by the Overlords, making the forty light year journey
between Earth and the Overlord's planet take a couple of
months. This was okay for the Overlords who had a very long
lifespan, but it did cause some problems for the human
stowaway, but he knew about the problem before he left
Earth.
Clarke, Arthur C. The City And The Stars. A superluminal drive
is used towards the end of the story, which enables the peo-
ple to travel between stars. As there was no explanation,
this was probably just a plot device.
Clarke, Arthur C. Songs Of Distant Earth. The drive used in this
book is called a quantum energy drive. This drive uses the
energy to be found below the Planck-Wheeler length ( 10e-33
cm or thereabouts ) to power a photon drive ( light pressure
from a laser ). Since the maximum speed is only 0.1c, it is
used for hibernation or sleep ships. The ship also pushes
an iceberg in front of it to function as a dust/radiation
shield.
Cook, Glen. Darkwar series: Doomstalker, Warlock, Ceremony.
Space travel is performed using witchcraft which uses
'Ghosts' to move the ships. There is also a run-in with a
technological civilization that uses an unspecified hyper-
drive system. ( Anyone want to expand more on the 'Ghosts'?
)
Foster, Alan Dean. Humanx Commonwealth Series. The 'KK' drive,
also referred to as the 'Double-K' drive uses a gravity
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field which is projected in front of the ship. As the ship
moves, the field moves in the same direction. As a result,
the ship ends up falling into the gravity well that it is
projecting which remains at a constant distance from the
ship. Takes advantage of the fact that as you approach the
lightspeed, gravitational acceleration becomes constant.
Haldeman, Joe. The Forever War. A drive that used black holes
was used in this novel, but not much of the inner workings
were explained.
Harrison, Harry. Bill The Galactic Hero. A 'Bloater Drive' is
used which acts like a rubber band. You stretch the size of
the ship until it stretches to your destination and then let
go of the tension from the starting point.
Harrison, Harry. Space Rats Of The CCC. The Kelly Drive can
accelerate ships to 7 times the speed of light. When asked
to explain this, the inventor answered "Well - sure and I
guess Einstein was wrong".
Heinlein, Robert A. Methuselah's Children. Andrew Jackson Libby
discovers a way to propel the ship through space at speeds
that were barely sublight, the explanation being detailed in
the reference in the Sublight section. When the ship trav-
els to the planet of the 'Gods' of the Jockaira, the 'Gods'
use another type of faster-than-light drive in order to
transport them to another planet, somewhat like Eden.
Observing the trip, Libby talked to the dominant species
there and came up with an analogous faster-than-light drive.
They then use this drive to return to the Solar System.
This drive is also used in Heinlein's books Time Enough For
possiblyLove,with made to the drive.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Heinlein, Robert A.: Time Enough
For Love; Sublight-Books: Heinlein, Robert A.: Methuselah's
Children. )
Heinlein, Robert A. Number Of The Beast, The Cat Who Walks
Through Walls, To Sail The Sunset. Based in a 6-dimensional
space, you can instantaneously travel to where you want to
go provided you know the proper vectors. Upon arrival, you
can be anywhere, anywhen, with any speed below that of
lightspeed. The drive is computer controlled and uses vir-
tually no power, and can be almost as small as the user
desires as the drive is a special form of a gyroscope. As
the drive is just a special gyroscope in a vacuum, the only
energy needed for the drive is that to keep the gyroscope
spinning. Also, the mechanics are quite similar to those
of a normal gyroscope. If you push a gyroscope, it moves
with a result vector that is ninety degrees from the vector
of the push. Extrapolate this into a push from three
orthogonal directions simultaneously. Then assume that the
space-time continuum is composed of three space axis and
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three time axis with all of them being orthogonal, instead
of the usual four space-time axis. When that gyroscope is
pushed, it will appear from our point of view. However,
from the gyroscopes point of view, one or more of the normal
four space-time axis have been rotated out and replaced with
the other two. With six axis there are 6^6^6 possible combi-
nations, 666 being the number of the beast. With the normal
space-time axis plus two more axis, it is possible to rotate
into another dimension, time, or position with a result
velocity vector in the space dimensions being in existence.
Heinlein, Robert A. Starman Jones. The ships in question
accelerate to lightspeed where it jumped elsewhere through
the use of 'congruencies'. The 'congruencies' are a form of
space warp that is dependent on the folds that occur in the
space-time continuum. The ship accelerates to a speed near
lightspeed and enters the congruency. If the congruency is
entered with the right velocity vector, the ship jumps to a
destination point. These congruencies are fixed and a fair
amount of effort is put into charting new ones.
Heinlein, Robert A. Starship Troopers. This famous story uses a
Cherenkov drive that is capable of several hundred time the
speed of light.
Heinlein, Robert A. Time Enough For Love. This drive, the Libby
drive, transports the ship to an alternate dimension when
the ship is in flight. The ship is totally cut of from the
space-time continuum and has a side effect of having a
potential to be as many years off target as there are light
years in the hyperspatial-jump. This is possibly an
improved version from the one that is used in Methuselah's
Children.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Heinlein, Robert A.: Methuselah's
Children. )
Herbert, Frank. Dune, Dune Messiah. The travel used in the book
stems from the work of one person: Holtzmann. In order to
travel, it was necessary to use the three-dimensional ver-
sion of the 'Holtzmann Effect', also called the 'Suspensor
Nullification Effect'. This effect moved the ship into
hyperspace, where the travel speed was quicker. Navigators,
people who have mutated due to overexposure to the spice
melange, were responsible for seeing that the ship got to
its destination quickly and safely. They did this by
searching the possible futures for the one that would make
them arrive at their destination the quickest and the
safest, and then they brought the ship around that time
line. The Navigators were important as computers didn't
exist in that universe, due to the work of the Butlerian
Jihad ( before his work, computers were used to transport
the ships ). More about the effects discovered by Holtzmann
appear in the form of ansibles.
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( q.v. Ansibles-Books: Herbert, Frank: Dune, Dune Messiah. )
Hogan, James Patrick. Giant's Star. The concept used for this
drive is the passage of the ship through and artificially
generated toroid-shaped black hole. By controlling the
parameters such as size, rotation speed, and attitude, a
hyperspace tunnel was created to a destination that could be
light years away where a corresponding black hole was formed
and was used to exit hyperspace. If the ships did not gain
at least a light days distance from any planets, the black
hole would disrupt the orbit of any planets in question.
More than a light years distance was needed if the ship was
not designed for this mode of travel.
King, Stephen. Tommyknockers. This drive is run off of the minds
of the slaves that are kept on board of the ship. The
effects on the slaves are not very nice. ( Ed. Note. Anyone
care to fill more of this one in? )
Kube-McDowell, Michael P. Trigon Disunity series: Emprise,
Enigma, Empry. The 'AVLO' drive projects an artificial grav-
ity well in front of the ship, causing the ship to fall into
it. Because the field's distance to the starship is fixed,
the field falls at the same rate as the ship, producing for-
ward acceleration. The acceleration is constant right up to
lightspeed, and beyond, into the craziness of faster-than-
light speeds. The ship is cut off from the outside universe
during the craziness, and significant time-dilation occurs.
A small percentage of people undergoing the craze develop
psychological problems due to being unable to tell if the
universe is still there outside the ship.
L'Engel, Madelaine. A Wrinkle In Time. Uses the idea that space
and time can be folded so that any two points touch. A
tesseract is used for travel and the three ladies, Mrs. Who,
Mrs. What, and Mrs. Which use mental power in order to
travel through the tesseract to their destination.
LeGuin, Ursula K. Hainish novels: Rocannon's World, The Left
Hand Of Darkness, The Dispossessed. Using Shevek's simul-
tainety theory ( from The Dispossesed ) which allows for the
instantaneous communications of the ansible, it is possible
to extend the theory to allow for superluminal travel. How-
ever, travel in this form is fatal, and therefore only prac-
tical as a weapon. Instead, most people tend to use sub-
light ships in order to travel close to, but not beyond the
speed of light.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: LeGuin, Ursula K. Hainish nov-
els: Rocannon's World, The Left Hand Of Darkness, The
Dispossessed. )
Lindsay, David. A Voyage To Arcturus. This drive relies on 'back
rays', which are similar to light rays, except that they get
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attracted to the star that they originated from. If you
fill a container with them, then the container, and the
vessel attached to it, will move towards the star in ques-
tion. In this book, they are able to travel to their desti-
nation, Arcturus, in under seventeen hours. While this book
was published in 1920, it can still be considered as a
superluminal drive, as the speed of the ship is proof
enough.
Longyear, Barry B. SHAWNA, Ltd. This short story uses a device
called the SHAWNA ( Superluminal Hegelian Absolutized World
Neospatial Amplifier ) which allows philosophers to sit
around and to think the ship from one place to another.
Martin, George. WildCard series. Dr. Tachyon's ship, 'Baby',
uses a tachyon propulsion system where the ship and its
occupants are transformed or considered to behave like a
single particle, in this case a tachyon. Some weapons that
are used also follow these principles. The Takisian names
for the drive and weapon used on 'Baby' are 'ghostdrive' and
'ghostlance' to illustrate the weird effect that they use.
May, Julian. Exiles series. Ships pass into a place called 'the
grey limbo' in order to travel. An 'Upsilon field' is
created for the ship to enter and exit hyperspace, and if
the spacial lattices of the ship are not adjusted properly
to the new surroundings after emergence, then 'the rubber
band effect' sends the ship back to its original point. The
problem with this mode of transport is the pain that is
caused by the Upsilon field and usually only 'Metapsychics',
that is very powerful psychics, who can use a 'mitigator'
program to dull the pain can go very fast. As the pain
experienced is proportional to speed, passenger ships go
nice and slow.
McCaffery, Anne. Dragonriders Of Pern series. In this series,
all of the creatures descendant from dragons have the abil-
ity to go "between" and back into our universe at a dif-
ferent point from which they left. There is one book in
which they actually travel to another planet by this method
in order to try and kill alien spores. As the dragons go to
a cold, dark void, and then out of their destination, it
could be argued that they are going through hyperspace at
the time.
McCollum, Michael. Antares Series. The instantaneous transport
scheme used here is based upon the heavy gravity wells of
stars. In these wells exist folds that are half of a pair
of folds. It is then possible to travel from one fold to
its partner fold. The heavier the star, the more fold
points are contained within its gravity well. The existence
of the folds themselves are actually functions of the mass
of the star and of the target star. If a star goes super-
nova, all fold points leading to that star are either
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destroyed or severely distorted instantaneously. As well as
the fold points near the star being changed, all of
'foldspace' may be altered, some effects being instantaneous
and some effects spreading outwards at lightspeed.
McCollum, Michael. Lifeprobe, Procyon's Promise. A gravity drive
is used in order to accelerate past lightspeed. There are
apparently no problems with infinite mass, as time is in
fact negative, and hence there are no imaginary terms past
the lightspeed. While the travel time is not very fast, it
does allow one to travel 60 light years in approximately 6
months. The drive is detectable however, as a ship coming
towards you will be detected as a stream of energetic parti-
cles receding at lightspeed.
( q.v. Sublight-Books: McCollum, Michael. Lifeprobe,
Procyon's Promise. )
Niven, Larry. Known Space Series/Universe: At The Core, The
Borderland Of Sol, The Ethics Of Madness, Flatlander,
Ringworld, The Ringworld Engineers, OfTheWorld Two different
hyperdrives are used: the first and the second quantum
hyperdrive. The first quantum hyperdrive was purchased from
the Outsiders with a ratio of one light year travelled for
every three days in hyperdrive. The second quantum hyper-
drive, was created by the Puppeteers, with a significantly
enhanced rate of one light year travelled for every one
minute and fifteen seconds in hyperdrive. Both drives have
the same weird psychological effects on people travelling
through this hyperspace, as the hyperspace is treated as a
big blind spot by the optic nerves. Therefore, while it is
possible to have your eyes open and your face towards the
viewport, it is impossible to look out of the viewport.
This is one of the main reasons that passenger cabins on
spaceliners in this universe do not have viewports. While
it is possible to go outside of the ship in hyperdrive, it
is quite possible that you will forget what sight is until
you look back at the ship. There is also a strange disap-
pearance that occurs if the hyperspatial- jump passes to
close to a gravity well. As gravity wells in realspace are
singularities in this hyperspace, space will wrap around
itself and the ship will fly of into a higher level of
hyperspace. However, if the gravity gradient is high
enough, as in a quantum black hole, only the engine of the
ship will fly off. There also were sublight drives that
were used before the hyperdrives were either purchased or
created, and are detailed in the Sublight section.
( q.v. Sublight-Books: Niven, Larry: Known Space series. )
Niven, Larry and Pournelle, Jerry. The Mote In God's Eye. Takes
place in the future of the CoDominium universe about 1000
years and uses Pournelle's Alderson drive.
- 11 -
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Pournelle, Jerry: CoDominium
series. )
Niven, Larry. One Face. The ship travels into an 'Overspace'
which has two possible subspaces: c equals zero or c equals
infinity, with very interesting consequences if the wrong
one is entered. Apparently, this type of drive is the
ancestor of the drives used in the Known Space universe.
Niven, Larry. One-Way Street. In this short story, a really
novel approach is used. The crew is placed in suspended
animation for a sublight voyage to the destination, followed
by a time travel backwards to the starting date of the jour-
ney. Depending on the method used to travel backwards, this
could be considered faster-than-light travel.
Pohl, Frederick. Heechee series. By removing all of the mass
from the ship, the limitation about accelerating masses to
luminal and superluminal velocities disappears. This is a
variation on the standard inertialess drive where it is the
inertia that is reduced.
Pournelle, Jerry. CoDominium series, A Step Farther Out. This
drive, called the Alderson drive, allowed movement along
lines of equal nuclear-magnetic flux between stars, and
thus, only worked for certain points in space. Usually,
there were a series of these points around most stars, some
within the photospheres of some of these stars. Thus a ship
would jump from star one and would jump to star two. An
unfortunate side-effect of the Alderson drive was that it
produced a slight amount of discomfort after use. One
theory on how the drive works, is that the drive send the
vessel to an alternate universe where gravity wells are
inverted and thus, the ship would slide down one gravity
gradient and glide up another gradient before instantane-
ously appearing in the target solar system. This drive is
explained in very good detail in the book A Step Farther Out
which is edited by Pournelle. ( A friend of his, Dan Alder-
son, wrote a six page proof on how this couldn't work, and
Pournelle named the drive after him for pointing this fact
out. )
Rowley, Christopher. The Founder, The Black Ship, War For
Eternity. The superluminal drive used is called the Fuhl
drive, and seems to be based on gravitic and magnetic tech-
nology. The drive uses miniature black holes which are
trapped within a magnetic container. The black holes are
then spun together in set patterns that drop the starship
out of our universe into a hyperspace, which also seems to
be the barrier between alternate universes.
( q.v. Ansible-Books, Sublight-Books: Rowley, Christopher:
The Founder, The Black Ship, War For Eternity. )
- 12 -
Rowley, Christopher. Starhammer, Vang: The Military Form, Vang:
The Battlemaster. In these books, two different superluminal
drives are utilized. The first drive is forbidden to humans
and is called the Laowhon Jump drive. This drive is gravo-
magnetic and seems to link the gravity fields of stars
together. Mention is made of 'spin-effects', but that might
possibly refer to certain applications of quantum gravity
theory. As the technology is forbidden to humans, they may
buy ships with these drives, but they may not build them.
The second drive, called the Baada drive is based on human
technology, uses very large ships, but seems to be much more
powerful than the Laowhon drive. In Starhammer, the Baada
drive ship was 20 km in diameter in order to support the
drive. The Baada drive was apparently developed just before
contact with the Laowhon. However 5 Baada ships versus
several fleets was not a fair fight in any case.
( q.v. Ansible-Books, Sublight-Books: Rowley, Christopher:
Starhammer, Vang: The Military Form, Vang: The Battlemaster.
)
Sagan, Carl. Contact. The drive used in this book uses wormholes
for travel.
Schmitz, James H. The Witches Of Karres. The residents of the
planet Karres have developed a form of magic. One of its
more useful manifestations is the "Sheewash Drive", which is
a mentally powered drive that can propel spaceships ( and,
with enough people, planets ) at very high superluminal
speeds. Other superluminal systems are mentioned, but are
not described in detail.
Scott, Melissa. Five-Twelfths Of Heaven, Silence In Solitude,
The Empress Of Earth. Alchemy is used in order to get the
ship into hyperspace where medieval symbology used in the
drive can take effect.
Shaw, Bob. Night Walk. The superluminal travel is accomplished
with a hyperspace that is very warped with respect to our
space. In the beginning, it was very hard to predict where
you would end up, so drones were send out to hopefully find
useful routes, and once found, they were jealously guarded.
However, the hero of the story discovers that the hyperspace
maps to some previously abstract mathematical space.
Shaw, Bob. Who Goes Here? A matter transmitter has been
developed, but it is not quite instantaneous thereby avoid-
ing the problem of an object being in two places at the same
time. Due to loss of fidelity in the transmission, it is
not safe to transmit objects over distances greater than 200
metres. So ships are built exactly 200m long, with a
transmitter at one end and a receiver at the other. The ship
transmits and receives itself millions of times per second,
thereby achieving a speed greater than that of light.
- 13 -
Simmons, Dan. Hyperion, The Fall Of Hyperion. The 'Hawking
Effect drive' is a faster-than-light drive that experiences
the problem of the objective time, that is the time experi-
enced by the traveller, is less than the subjective time,
that is the time experienced by people that are not moving.
The ships are then able to set up 'singularity spheres'
which are used for interstellar distance teleporters called
'farcasters', and is further described in the entry under
the Gates section, as well as an ansible being used.
( q.v. Ansible-Books, Gates-Books: Simmons, Dan: Hyperion,
The Fall Of Hyperion. )
Smith, Cordwainer. Instrumentality of Mankind series: The
Colonel Came Back From Nothing-At-All, The Game Of Rat And
Dragon, The Burning Of The Brain. Uses two kinds of drives,
the Space-2 and Space-3 drives. While most of the details
are left out on the Space-2 drive, it apparently involves
going two dimensional. These two drives are put onto
'planoforming' ships which have defense crews which consist
of teams of feline and human 'pinlighters' who ward of the
energy-beast 'dragons' who live there. After hyperspatial-
jumps using the Space-3 drive ( which was instantaneous ), a
'Go-Captain' would consult star charts to figure out how far
off course they were. In the last story, an indication is
made that a drive could be hooked up to a mansion so that
people could have a pleasant afternoon at a cocktail party,
and end up at their destination in a leisurely fashion.
E.E. Smith, "Doc" The Galaxy Primes. The Gunther drive was used
based on the psychic powers of the crew coupled with the
"Gunther" field. It was based on the parallel concept of no
space and no time, so all points are indistinguishable and,
in some sense, identical. Therefore, going from being at
one point to an indistinguishable and identical point is
possible, if you can deal with both points of view simul-
taneously. Only the best operators can move a ship out of a
galaxy. If the operator or operators have no desired desti-
nation, the jump is random.
Smith, E.E. "Doc". Lensman series: Children Of The Lens. The
main drive, the Rodebush-Cleveland inertialess drive per-
fected by Nels Bergenholm ( an Arisian-energized form of
flesh ), renders the ship inertialess, allowing for speeds
in excess of 100 parsecs per hour, the limitation on speed
being the friction of interstellar gas against the shields
of the vessel versus the thrust of the reactionless main
drive. This being the case, the ship was much better at
travelling in intergalactic space than in intragalactic
space due to the change in the atomic density of the two
spaces. Collisions with inert objects causes the ship to
stop and 'tractors' were needed to pull the vessels
together. People that travelled like this were uncomfort-
able due to the total loss of inertia. A hyperspatial tube
- 14 -
is used, which involves two generators ( although that may
not be required ): one fixed and one mobile. The tube
drills through other parallel spaces until it re-erupts into
our own space with a characteristic 'curdling' of the
'ether', detectable by apparatus or a suitably trained 3rd
order intelligence. Physical laws are variable within the
tube, particularly subjective time, but objective time to
traverse the tube is low to instantaneous ( see Children Of
The Lens ). If the mobile generator is disengaged during
transit, the ship will exit the tube into some space; possi-
bly ours, possibly another. The transition into the tube is
very uncomfortable, but once in the tube, everything is
fairly normal if you are used to being inertialess. The
alternate space mentioned had the useful property that inert
(non-inertialess) mass traveled faster than light on the
order of 15c, with an infinite number of these other spaces.
( q.v. Ansibles-Books: Smith, E.E. "Doc". Lensman series:
Children Of The Lens. )
Smith, E.E. "Doc". Skylark series: The Skylark Of Space, Skylark
Three, Skylark Of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne. Uses a
platinum-likk metal called 'X' to catalyse the disintegra-
tion of matter, particularly copper and heavier metals; the
kinetic energy released is channelled into one of several
'orders' of vibration, including superluminal motion. This
is accomplished using a drive that is informally called the
'whatsitron' drive. The first batch of 'X' found on Earth
was presumably a meteor strike as no other sources on the
planet were found. In The Skylark Of Space, when one char-
acter announces that the ships performance is impossible due
to relativistic constraints, another character states that
relativity is only a theory, and ends the discussion there.
Other applications, using the boundary conditions of the
whatsitron field, include presser and tractor beams. One
interesting application of the tractor beams is as 'object
compasses', that is setting a very weak beam on specific
objects for the purpose of tracking them It seems that
several basic laws of physics are being totally ignored, but
that is up to individual interpretation.
Smith, E.E. "Doc". Subspace Explorers, Subspace Encounter. These
books use hyperspace, and travel while 'immersed' takes
time. Communication is normally possible while immersed.
The first book starts off with an accident using a 'zeta'
field, at that time one of the major dangers. Ships
encountering one typically keep functioning with damage, but
are destroyed when encountering the next planet, since the
contact of a zeta charge with a planet releases much energy.
In the second book ( posthumously edited and released ) the
characters discover that hyperspace is two-sided, and that,
if you immerse as deeply as possible, a strong psychic can
turn the ship over, so it will re-emerge in the other normal
space.
- 15 -
Spinrad, Norman. Stories: Subjectivity. A starship crew is
drugged out on Omnidrene, a new hallucinogen, and move their
ship by instantaneously concentrating together. While
technically not a drive, a drive is developed by scientists
observing what had happened.
Spinrad, Norman. The Void Captain's Tale. Apparently a faster-
than- light drive is used here which is sex-powered. ( No
jokes, this was a serious submission. Any confirmations /
refutations? )
Sterling, Bruce Involution Ocean, The Artificial Kid. An inertia-
less superluminal drive is mentioned in this book.
Sterling, Bruce Schismatrix. According to this book, there are at
least three ways that the Investors, an alien race that
apparently stole the technology, know of exceeding
lightspeed. The only catch is the price that you are wil-
ling to pay. The Investors themselves utilize a drive that
is inertialess, and displays its special effects as rainbow
streamers at the stern of the ship.
Stewart, Ian. Novelettes: Captives Of The Slavestone. A super-
luminal ship is used in order to reach the planet by the
explorers and the traders. However, the explorer's technol-
ogy quickly withered away and was replaced by a technology
based on plants. Due to this technology, along with
wormholes, the plants allow the people to use gates and
ansibles in an organic form.
( q.v. Ansibles-Books, Gates-Books: Stewart, Ian: Captives
Of The Slavestone. )
Turtledove, Harry. Novellas: 6+. In this novella, mention is
made of a stardrive, but none of the inner workings are
explained. It is mentioned that as an emergency measure, a
sublight drive can be used.
( q.v. Sublight-Books: Turtledove, Harry: 6+. )
Vance, Jack. Demon Prince series: Star King, The Killing
Machine, The Palace Of Love, The Face, The Book Of Dreams.
An 'intersplit' drive, technically called the Jarnell Drive,
is used to make the ship go superluminal. A substance
called 'space-foam' is whorled into a spindle; the pointed
ends crack and split the foam, which has no inertia; the
ship inside the whorl is insulated from the effects of the
universe; the slightest force propels it at an unthinkable
rate. Light curls through the whorl, we have the illusion
of seeing the passing universe.
- 16 -
Therefore, if someone were to carry a small unit like this on
his person, they would become invisible and a single breath
would be capable of drifting a million miles in a single
breath. There is some talk in the books on how to find out
where you are if you become lost. It is suggested that you
travel normal to the plane of the galaxy until you can see
the galaxy entirely, and then search for landmarks. There
was also mention of missiles that were equipped with a Jarnell
drive, but the missiles could not be made to exit the
'intersplit' at the right time with much reliability. Also,
mention is made of an ansible in this series.
( q.v. Ansibles-Books: Vance, Jack: Demon Prince series. )
Vance, Jack. Rialto The Marvellous. The castle, through the use
of magic, is able to obtain faster-than-light speeds.
Watson, Ian. God's World. Humans travel at superluminal speeds
by a drive shaped like a pyramid that aliens had given to
them. Apparently sex gives off gravity waves, and the drive
is linked to an enormous alien psychic parasite, and the
drive is possibly the parasite's telekinesis.
Wren, M.K. The Phoenix Rebellion series: Sword Of The Lamb,
Shadow Of The Swan, House Of The Wolf. A hyperdrive is used
powered by matter / anti-matter annihilation. Later this is
replaced by matter transmission. ( Anyone care to fill in
more of the details? )
Zahn, Timothy. Novellas: Cascade Point, Evidence Of Things Not
Seen. A "Colloton field" is generated around a stationary
ship. While in this field, small real rotations of the ship
produce huge displacements of the ship's position in real-
space, measured in light years. There are only certain
locations at which this works correctly; they are called
"cascade points." The ships must use a sublight drive to
travel from one point to the next. In the stories, the Col-
loton drive is used commercially, but not fully understood,
and as such, ships are known to simply disappear. A
poorly-understood side-effect of the drive is that while the
Colloton field is engaged, images of the crew and passengers
that appear are apparently alternate-universe versions of
them. This is unsettling to most people; for that reason,
everyone but the pilot of the ship is drugged during cascade
rotations.
Zahn, Timothy. Warhorse. "Space Horses" were discovered, a
life-form that lives in space, and feeds on elements found
in small asteroids. They have the ability to jump instan-
taneously from star-system to star-system, and although they
are non-sapient, they can be tamed. A ship tethered to a
horse goes with it when it jumps. Why the horses can do
what they do is not understood, but that doesn't stop intel-
ligent beings from making use of them.
- 17 -
Zindell, David. Neverness. The drive used here allows the ships
to travel through 'Manifolds'. To get from one place to the
other, the pilot must construct theorems and proofs using
symbols while at a reduced time-sense. New situations
require the pilot to think very fast in order to get an
appropriate theorem.
2.2. Games
2300 AD. An follow up to the game, Twilight 2000, the drive used
called the 'stutterwarp' creates little jumps within the
space-time continuum. These jumps are usually 100-200m quan-
tum jumps which gives the ship the illusion of flickering or
stuttering forward. The tunnelling or jumping that is per-
formed is repeated millions of time per second. Unfor-
tunately, within a gravity field greater than 1/10000th of a
gee, the efficiency of the drive drops to 0.01%. Therefore,
a ship trying to jump from Earth ( Terra ), would have to be
2.4 Astronomical Units from the Sun, not allowing for the
possibilities of planets close to the ship. This is
apparently one of the only superluminal drives based on
existing physical concept. Similar drive ( but without the
gravity problem ) can be found in the "Flandry" series, by
Poul Anderson.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Anderson, Poul: Flandry series. )
Battletech. In this game the Kearney-Fuchida jump drive is used,
being named after its inventors. Composed of two parts, a
drive core and a drive sail, this jump drive has a maximum
effective range of approximately 30 light years and will not
work at all if the ship is within a gravity well. The drive
sail is made from a highly absorbent material and is able to
direct energy that it picks up into the drive core. A
titanium/germanium alloy suspended in a long tube of liquid
hydrogen, the drive core absorbs great amounts of energy in
order to make the necessary jump. The jump is made possible
by using the stored energy to travel through jump points
that exist only at the apex and nadir ( north and south
poles ) of a star. Sublight travel is needed to get to and
from this point, and there are no known naturally occurring
jump points other than those at the apex and nadir of stars.
( q.v. Sublight-Games: Battletech. )
Cyborg Commandos. ( I heard that there actually was a descrip-
tion using Tensor Calculus on how it works. Anyone? )
Expendables, Stellar Games. In this game, the most modern form
of hyperdrive was sold uniquely by a group called The Com-
pany, who also regulated the fuel used for the drive. The
fact that the drive itself was a container for a bizarre
alien creature that lived around the event horizon of black
holes, and developed an ability to warp between two points
- 18 -
in space as a natural ability. The larger the creature, the
larger the ship that it could transport. Also need was
hardware to translate the computer co-ordinates into signals
that the creature could understand and thereby guide the
creature to where they wanted to go. The creatures had to be
continually fed with a fuel only made at the event horizon
of a black hole, with a larger amount being fed to the
creature at time of the jump. The shipowners were totally
unaware of the nature of their drive.
GURPS Space. Hyperdrives. This is a class of drives where the
ship travels for finite durations through a space that is
not realspace. Ships can usually navigate and maneuver in
hyperspace, but they are unable to perceive or otherwise
effect anything in realspace. The transit time through this
dimension may be different from the time measured in the
home dimension.
GURPS Space. Jump Drives. This class of drives instantaneously
transmits the object through great distances, and automati-
cally precludes any maneuvering while going faster-than-
light as the amount of time at that speed is not perceiv-
able. Depending on the campaign setting, the starting point
and the destination point may be limited.
GURPS Space. Warp Drives. This class of drives circumvents the
lightspeed barrier during travel through realspace. This
type of a ship is able to perceive and effect the 'real'
universe even though it is going at superluminal speeds, and
thus is able to maneuver and navigate with no problems in
realspace.
Renegade Legion. A tachyon drive is used where the ship is
accelerated to a speed just short of that of light by a sub-
light drive, and then activating the tachyon drive. The
ship is then transferred to T-space and travels at an angle
perpendicular to the normal space. There seems to be a
limit if one month in T-space before fatal problems arise.
Spacemaster, ICE. The drive used in this game uses a drive that
opens a gate to hyperspace, an action that is called
'hypershunting' and an action that requires a lot of energy.
Once the pathway is open and the ship has crossed over into
hyperspace, the ship is safe. The critical points are the
entrance and the exit into hyperspace, with most errors
being the drive not functioning at all, but some make the
ship jump in a totally unpredictable manner. When in hyper-
space, the 'relative inertial field generator' creates a
field around the ship that protects it and its occupants
from hyperspace. While the field also negates the theorem
of increasing mass while approaching the speed of light, use
of this feature to hypershunt can result in the ship getting
totally destroyed. The energy needed to hypershunt is
created by the controlled use of antimatter which is called
- 19 -
Andrium in the game. In the game, Andrium is sold by a
monopole, and has a habit of deteriorating within 100 days.
The conversion process can sometimes become dangerous, and
hence most of the ships end up placing their drives in nas-
celles to allow for easy jettisoning. The speed that is
travelled in the hyperspace is in direct proportion to the
amount of space that is alotted for engines. A speed of 10
light years per day is reasonable, but the amount of
antimatter needed for engines larger than that often makes
the engine explode more readily.
Spelljammer. The Spelljammer Helm is used here, and is included
for completeness. This drive is magical in nature, and
allows the ship in question to travel through space. All
laws suspended here.
Star Frontiers - Alpha Dawn. This version of the game uses an
unspecified drive that allows the ship in question to travel
at speeds of up to one light year per day.
Star Frontiers - Knight Hawks. This game uses an interesting
idea of how to get into hyperspace. Using either the atomic
or ion drives described in the Sublight-Games section under
the same subject, the ship undergoes constant acceleration.
Upon hitting 12 million kilometres per hour, the ship enters
a hyperspace known as 'the Void', with any deceleration at
all making the ship reappear in realspace, great distances
from where it left. By carefully coordinating the time (
usually 3 to 15 seconds ) and the direction of the ship, it
is possible to navigate the ship to the desired location.
The only quirk about 'the Void' is that time is very dis-
torted and space does not seem to exist in 'the Void'.
( q.v. Sublight-Games: Star Frontiers - Knight Hawks. )
Star Wars. See the entry under the Star Wars Trilogy.
( q.v. Superluminal-Movies and Television: Star Wars Tril-
ogy. )
Traveller, MegaTraveller. In these games ( MegaTraveller being
the redone edition ), drives that are mistakenly called jump
drives are used. The ships in question really use a hyper-
drive as the ship goes into another dimension where it goes
to a corresponding point that represents its position in the
normal universe. This transition is made using high ener-
gies created by a very high yield fusion power plant which
route the created energy into an integral net for the dura-
tion of the voyage. While in realspace, the power to the
integral net allows the ship to transfer to the hyperspace,
that is referred to as jumpspace, use in this system, and
while in hyperspace, the net creates a containment field
that allows normal physical laws to be retained, as the
hyperspace has other laws. These laws are so varied that
- 20 -
closeness to the integral net can result in insanity or
death, and some species are totally unable to exist, even in
a protective field, with hyperspace. The maximum jump dis-
tance that has been built into the drives and is Jump6, that
is to say that the ship can reliably jump 6 parsecs. Mis-
calculations and impure fuel can cause misjumps that are in
a random direction and can be as great of a distance as 36
parsecs. Every jump takes approximately 168 hours ( plus or
minus 10% ) no matter how far the ship moves. The amount of
fuel consumed for the jump is proportional to the mass of
the vessel and the distance to be jumped as the integral net
must be charged and the drives must have enough energy to
ensure a safe journey to the destination. One important
concept is that a ship should not enter jumpspace near grav-
ity wells. Any violation of this usually leads to misjumps
which will place the ship at a wrong destination, damage to
the ship and/or the crew, effect the time needed for a jump,
or destroy the ship totally. If a ship is not only within a
gravity well, but also very close to a gravity source, the
ship will be attracted to that source, usually emerging
within 100 diameters away from the mass. Once a ship has
entered jumpspace, the only way to abort the jump is the
destruction of the ship. Passengers may travel through
jumpspace either fully animated, or in suspended animation.
In order to get to places where the effects of gravity are
not that noticeable, sublight drives are used.
( q.v. Sublight-Games: Traveller, MegaTraveller. )
Universe. Each jump ship contains a psionic navigation officer
and the jump grid which is a grid of magnetic monopoles.
The navigation officer pictures the destination and imposes
this on the grid. As the grid changes, the ship jumps.
This is really bad if done in a gravity well and the naviga-
tor stands a chance of getting psionic backlash.
Warhammer 40,000. Like other methods, this one uses a warp
space. The main difference is that the warp space used is
like a fluid. Thus, in order to go from point A to point B,
you need to catch a current and ride that current. A point
of interest is that there are physical landmarks in this
version of warp space. As there are no landmarks, psychic
Navigators are used in order to locate psychic beacons that
have been set up. The problem with this is that only people
from the Navigator families that have the Navigator gene are
able to do this. In order to keep the psychic beacons
activating, thousands of lives each day must be sacrificed
in order to keep them going. If this was not complicated
enough, a species called 'Warp Demons' lives in the warp
space and want to take over the normal universe.
- 21 -
2.3. Movies and Television
Battlestar Galactica. The ships are able to move at superluminal
velocities by using a Maron drive. This drive creates a
field around the ship which allows for great velocities
inside of the field. A chemical fuel, tylium, is used in
order to generate the enormous power needed to make the
field work.
Blake's 7. A time-distort, or time-dilation system is used that
distorts the space-time continuum while a plasma drive is
utilized for the travel itself. The result is that the bub-
ble goes faster-than-light with the ship encased within.
Doctor Who. The TARDIS, a vessel that is transdimensional, is
able to travel through the use of the time-vortex. The
vessel itself only exists as an inner dimension, and an
outer appearance is normally maintained when the ship is not
going through the time-vortex. As the outside of the ship
does not technically exist, it is easy for the vessel to
move quickly throughout the universe as it does not have to
observe the rules regarding the speed of light. This
requires a massive power source, like that gained by arrest-
ing a black hole.
Dune. Unlike the book, in the movies, humans who have been
genetically altered for a higher psychic capability using
the spice Melange, are able to change the physical location
of an object by simply wishing it to go somewhere else.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Herbert, Frank: Dune. )
Explorers. In this movie, the kids dream up and create a genera-
tor that causes an inertialess bubble to be created. The
kids then build the ship from scrap parts.
Last Starfighter. The StarDrive that is used here allows the
vessel to cover great distances in really short amounts of
time. Doppler red shift is included. ( Anyone? )
Planet of the Apes series: Planet Of The Apes, Beneath The Planet
Of The Apes, Escape From The Planet Of The Apes, Conquest Of
The Planet Of The Apes, Battle For The Planet Of The Apes.
The ship that is used in the movies seems to be capable of
faster-than-light travel, or sublight travel with a time-
dilation effect. It is used in order to get to the future
planet Earth, and the two intelligent chimpanzees use the
drive to get back to the past in order to try and stop the
holocaust.
Robotech. There are three types of drives that are used. The
first two are part of the same drive. The 'SpaceFold' sys-
tem uses the drive as a one shot jump, and the superluminal
drive uses this reaction on a continuous basis. The
- 22 -
'protoculture' that is used to power the drive is mixed with
magnetic monopole ore, the result being the creation of a
fold in space. The ship then jumps across the fold and
arrives at the new point. The spores from a plant called
the 'Flower of Life', can also be placed in a sealed con-
tainer at a given pressure. As a result, cell division is
arrested and the resulting heat is transferred into electri-
cal energy. The side effect is that the machines that util-
ize this energy gain a form of semi-sentience in the form of
reflexes. The third type of drive uses a mutant strain of
the Flower of Life called the 'Ur' flower. The two setbacks
of this drive are that people age while the drive is operat-
ing, and that only the beings from the planet that the Ur
flowers come from can activate the flower and hence the
drive. The beings must touch the flower before it is put
into the engine, as opposed to the Flower of Life where any-
one with a matrix can make protoculture from the Flower of
Life. The first drive can also be called a hyperjaunt
drive, the second is a fold-jump drive, with the third
definitely being superluminal. It is unclear if the fold-
jump drive is actually repetitions of the first drive, or if
the ship goes into a hyperspace where there are time-
dilation effects.
Star Trek, The Original Series. By placing a ship inside of a
'warp bubble', that is a field where the ship can break cer-
tain laws of physics as we know them, the ship can break the
lightspeed barrier. Warp speed is Warp Factor cubed times
the speed of light, with the 'warp bubble' being generated
around the entire ship using the warp drive nacelles on the
back of the ship.
Star Trek, the Next Generation. Like the original Star Trek, but
faster. Due to technological advances, the ship can be
placed in alternating warp fields to gain a theoretical max-
imum of 100,000 times the speed of light. Warp speed is
figured at the Warp Factor quintupled times the speed of
light, that is to say that theoretically, Warp 10 is the
fastest speed possible.
Star Wars series: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return Of
The Jedi. Uses the idea of a hyperspace where some of the
laws of the universe are reversed, in particular, ships can-
not travel slower than the speed of light. Therefore, all
hyperspace-capable starcraft have a device called a 'hyper-
space motivator' which shifts the ship into hyperspace.
Objects that exist in realspace have an analogue in hyper-
space, except for a realspace object that is currently in
hyperspace. This makes navigation incredibly complex and
navigational computers ( nav'puters ) are used to calculate
the pathways before a hyperspatial-jump.
- 23 -
3. Sublight Spaceflight
3.1. Books
Anderson, Poul. Tau Zero. Sublight travel is achieved including
a time-dilation factor.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. Mars series. Rays that controlled grav-
ity were used and were kept in tanks.
Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game, Speaker For The Dead, The
Worthing Saga. The use of sublight, relativistic travel is
shown here, complete with the time-dilation effects. The
drive itself allows the ship to go to speeds near that of
that of light and then back, making trips subjectively take
weeks. Due to this, Ender Wiggins of the first two books,
and Jason Worthing of the last book have lived long as they
have spent a lot of time in transit. They also use an ansi-
ble, but not much about it is ever known.
( q.v. Ansible-Books: Card, Orson Scott: Ender's Game,
Speaker For The Dead. )
Chandler, Bertram A. Rimworld series. Uses a Mannschenn drive.
( Anyone? )
Clarke, Arthur C. Imperial Earth. Uses the 'Asymptotic Drive'
which keeps a charged quantum black hole in the drive
chamber using magnetic fields. Gas pumped into the chamber
is sucked into the black hole which in turn emits photons
which excite the remaining gas. The gas molecules fly out
the drive outlet making a very efficient reaction drive.
Obsolete due to Hawking's work on black hole evaporation. (
Ed. Note: I believe this depends on the size of the black
hole. )
Clarke, Arthur C. The Wind From The Sun. In this book, a light
sail is used in order to propel the ship. As there is very
little to get in your way once you get moving, the idea is
to build up the ships velocity over time.
Dick, Philip K. The Unteleported Man. This story is based on a
colony planet where you can teleport to the planet, but are
unable to teleport back. The title character sets off to
the colony by way of a sublight ship.
Forward, Robert. Rocheworld. A solar sail is used with the sun's
light being concentrated by a laser and a detachable part is
used as a brake when the destination is reached.
Heinlein, Robert A. Future History. In one of the Lazarus Long
stories an inertialess drive is used to go just under the
speed of light.
- 24 -
Heinlein, Robert A. Methuselah's Children. The type of sublight
used here was one that made the ship inertialess and allowed
the Howards to escape the solar system. This operated on
the principle that when the ship lost all inertia, the light
pressure of the Sun would kick it away at just under the
speed of light. This was made possible by Andrew Jackson
Libby.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Heinlein, Robert A.: Methuselah's
Children. )
Heinlein, Robert A. Rocketship Galileo. This drive uses a type
of drive that is called a Nerva system. Instead of using a
fission plant to turn a turbine, the superheated fluid is
used as a propulsive jet.
Heinlein, Robert A. Time For The Stars. Sublight travel is
achieved with time-dilation being taken into effect communi-
cation is achieved by the use of ESP.
Kusnick, Gregory. Short Stories: Chrysalis. In this short story,
a generation ship, powered by a Bussard ramjet, is used to
travel from Earth to Tau Ceti. The shields from the Bussard
ramjet are also used to protect the ship from the exhaust,
but also have a side-effect of blocking any transmission
that is occurring from parts of the universe in the direc-
tion of the shields.
Manzione, Joseph. Novelettes: Candle In A Cosmic Wind. This
story uses two types of sublight vehicles. The first type,
the landers, are simple hydrogen-fuelled, fusion-powered
landing vessels. The cruisers, the second type of vehicle,
use a modified Bussard ramjet for their propulsion. The
engines work by using the hydrogen / antihydrogen annihila-
tion reaction and ejecting the resultant muons and pions
through a divergent magnetic container for thrust. In order
to fuel this engine, several tanks of hydrogen and several
tanks of electrostatically suspended antihydrogen are car-
ried on the ship. The ships in question actually operate
with two engines tethered on a twenty kilometre cable, with
the command module, tanks, and landers attached to the
cable, and shields in between the engines and these items.
When accelerating, the lead engine fires with the shields
protecting the modules and landers from gamma radiation.
Protection from interstellar dust and micrometers is
obtained by diverting their kinetic energy into a ferrous
fluid compound and spraying a screen of droplets ahead of
the ship. When decelerating, the command module and shields
are shifted around and the trailing engine fires against its
current trajectory. In order to gain protection from some
of the small particles that are emitted, thin lightweight
layers of plastic film are used, as well as the empty fuel
tanks being ground up into find dust and shot ahead of the
ship at 0.9 times the speed of light in order to clear the
- 25 -
way of larger particles. In the novelette, an accident
occurs with the ground up tanks and causes a catastrophe on
Earth.
McCollum, Michael. Lifeprobe, Procyon's Promise. In order to
provide propulsion an nuclear fusion drive is used that
makes use of a catalysed reaction using antimatter mini-
black holes.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: McCollum, Michael. Lifeprobe,
Procyon's Promise. )
Niven, Larry and Pournelle, Jerry. Footfall. Uses ORIONs to push
the ship along.
Niven, Larry. Known Space series/universe: At The Core, The
Borderland Of Sol, The Ethics Of Madness, Flatlander,
Ringworld, The Ringworld Engineers, The World Of Ptaavs.
Before the superluminal drives were used, most ships used
either Bussard ramjets or simple chemical rockets. The
ships that used the simple chemical rockets were called
slowboats, often carried entire colonies and took a very
long time in order to reach their destination.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Niven, Larry: Known Space series.
)
Niven, Larry. A World Out Of Time. Not part of his famous Known
Space universe, this book uses an undescribed form of sub-
light travel, with the pilot being in suspended animation
for the entire flight. As the story progresses, the pilot
ends up in an asymptotic orbit around the galactic core and
his ship lands on a planet, three million years in the
future. It is unclear if this is due to natural time pro-
gression, or due to time-dilation effects.
Rackham, John. The Proxima Project. The ship is propelled by the
overbalancing of inertia. A massive piston moves down very
slowly and up very quickly... thousands of times per second.
The result is the ship that houses the piston begins to
rise. Think of being in a canoe. It is possible to move the
canoe by leaning back very slowly and then move forward with
a big jerk. This drive, while feasible for atmospheric
travel, does not work in space due to the fact that in order
for the above to work, an appropriate frictional surface or
medium is needed. It can further be argued that most of the
generated energy in a medium would go to heating the vessel.
Rowley, Christopher. The Founder, The Black Ship, War For
Eternity. These books used Bussard ramjets on very large (
over 1 km long ) starships that were made out of stressed
ice. These ships seemed to have an average velocity of
approximately 0.7c.
- 26 -
( q.v. Ansible-Books, Superluminal-Books: Rowley, Christo-
pher: The Founder, The Black Ship, War For Eternity. )
Rowley, Christopher. Starhammer, Vang: The Military Form, Vang:
The Battlemaster. These books used Bussard ramjets on very
large ( over 1 km long ) starships that were made out of
stressed ice. These ships seemed to have an average velo-
city of approximately 0.7c. This was used mainly by humans
for colonization.
( q.v. Ansible-Books, Superluminal-Books: Rowley, Christo-
pher: Starhammer, Vang: The Military Form, Vang: The
Battlemaster. )
Sheffield, Charles. Between The Strokes Of Night. After experi-
menters in sleep research discover a stable metabolic rate
which is 2000 times slower than normal for humans, and call
this state of being, S-Space. This rate is accomplished by
placing the people into a supercooled state for travel,
which also subjectively increases their lifespan due to
their supercooled state. Therefore, people lower there
metabolic rates and go into to S-Space, travel at 0.1 times
the speed of light, and get to the next solar system in only
a month instead of 100-200 years. As well, since everything
is slowed down, only supplies for a month are necessary.
The problem is that only the metabolic rates of the people
in the ship are changed, the laws of the surrounding
universe are not. This necessitates the near absence of
gravity aboard the ship as a 1G fall would be instantaneous
to a person in S-Space. While, from the traveller's
viewpoint, the ship seems to be going faster-than-light,
sublight speeds are used with a form of suspended animation.
The "immortals" in the book also use suspended animation to
make the transit time appear to be nothing. There is also a
reference to an even slower subjective state in which one
person in that state watched the universe recontract in the
"big crunch". Of course, he couldn't communicate back.
Sheffield, Charles. MacAndrew stories: The MacAndrew Chronicles.
In this series, a sublight drive is used that uses quantum
mechanical vacuum energy, thus getting something from noth-
ing. Of equal interest is the feature used to compensate
for inertia at high accelerations. The thrusters are mounted
on a huge disk of condensed matter with the living quarters
on a column behind this disk. The distance from the living
quarters to the disk is adjustable so that gravitational
attraction of the disk matches the inertial force due to
acceleration.
Smith, E.E. "Doc". Spacehounds Of The IPC. A cosmic intake is
used in order to allow the ship to move at sublight speeds.
Turtledove, Harry. Novellas: 6+. As an emergency measure, the
stardrive that is used for superluminal travel can be
- 27 -
powered by a light sail with the occupants of the ship in
suspended animation for the trip back to civilization.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Turtledove, Harry: 6+. )
Vinge, Joan D. The Snow Queen. Apparently sublight drives were
used as the travel took several years, and the accessibility
of the paths depended on astronomical cycles.
Vinge, Vernor. Marooned In Realtime. The "bobbles" are perfect
spherical time stasis fields. They have numerous applica-
tions; one of them is to encase a ship in one, then explode
a series of atom-bombs next to it, like ORIONs. The
passengers are completely insulated from the effects,
including the massive acceleration, due to the stasis field.
The time stasis results in a vastly reduced perception of
travel time, so it is suitable for *long* interstellar
trips.
3.2. Games
Battletech. In this game, jump drives are used, but sublight
drives are needed in order to travel to the jump points.
Three main types of drives were used for this, the three
drives being chemical fuel drives, solid fuel drives, and
fusion ( EMH or Electro-Magnetic Hydrogen mass reaction
drives ).
( q.v. Superluminal-Games: Battletech. )
Star Frontiers - Knight Hawks. In order to move the ships to a
velocity where the ship will enter hyperspace, one of two
sublight drives must be used. The ion drive is a standard
ion drive, and uses very little fuel, and the atomic fission
drive is a standard atomic drive, using the energy from
split atoms for thrust. These drives have the draw back
that they must be mounted on struts, with the exception
being a ship with the atomic drive and the crew wearing
radiation suits. A third type of sublight drive, a chemical
drive is used, but it is unable to provide the necessary
thrust to allow the ship to enter hyperspace.
( q.v. Superluminal-Games: Star Frontiers - Knight Hawks. )
Traveller, MegaTraveller. In order to reach places where the
jump drives can be activated, sublight drives are used.
These appear in two varieties. The first type of drive is
an anti-gravity drive, that is to say that it pushes itself
away from gravity fields. The problem with this drive is
that it loses power away from strong gravity fields. The
other type of drive is the 'thruster' drive, a drive that
creates a field that interacts with 'thruster plates' and
this interaction causes the ship to move, and is total reac-
tionless.
- 28 -
( q.v. Superluminal-Games: Traveller, MegaTraveller. )
- 29 -
4. Gates And Teleportation
4.1. Books
Bertin. A drug reminiscent of LSD is used to unleash the full
power of the human brain and teleportation across interstel-
lar distances becomes possible. ( Ed. Note. Submitted like
this. Anyone? )
Bester, Alfred. The Stars My Destination. People in society use
trainable psychic power in order to teleport to their desti-
nation. They have to be able to visualize the destination,
otherwise you would 'blue jaunt' and teleport into a wall
and explode. Unique in the fact that to prevent burglary to
houses, mazes were built behind the doors so that the
thieves would not ever get into the house and therefore be
able to teleport in and out at will.
Blish, James. Cities In Flight series; Okie stories: They Shall
Have Stars. The series makes use of the Dirac Radio, where
all communications would be heard simultaneously everywhere
in the universe. With a properly tuned Dirac, it is possi-
ble to hear conversations that are 100 years into the future
as well as 100 years into the past. ( Ed. Note: Apparently
he explored the ramifications of the Dirac in a short story,
but the submitter could not remember the title. Anyone? )
Use was also made of the Ultraphone, which used obscure
phase relationships and mechanics of normal radios in order
to get propogation speeds approximating 1.25c.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Blish, James. Cities In Flight
series; Okie stories: )
Brunner, John. The Infinitive Of Go. Based around a teleporta-
tion device called the poster which sends objects through
rho-space. It has a slight flaw however that when conscious
beings are posted they arrive in the correct destination but
in a parallel world. The amount of divergence between the
source and destination worlds is proportional to the dis-
tance travelled.
Chalker, Jack. Soul Rider series: Spirits Of Flux & Anchor,
Empires Of Flux & Anchor, Masters Of Flux & Anchor, Birth Of
Flux & Anchor, Children Of Flux & Anchor. The gates are
maintained by large computers that are capable of digitizing
large amounts of mass and then blasting them through the
'Flux' and the having them reconstructed on the other side
by an equally powerful computer. A description of the
'Flux' is given in the Superluminal section.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Chalker, Jack: Soul Rider series.
)
- 30 -
Cherryh, C.J. Morgaine series. The gates used in this series
were created by a powerful race of beings, and the gates not
only span space, but also time. These gates work by
disassembling the object at one end, saving the pattern of
the atomic composition of the object, and the other end
reassembles the object using this pattern. As the pattern
is recognized as part of the gate process, it is possible to
save this pattern so that you may always come back as the
pattern says you look. This will reverse any aging as well
as healing any injuries that were sustained, as long as the
injuries were not too severe. While this process may seem
to circumvent the usual debate surrounding the transmission
of matter and the soul or essence, this is taken care of as
the essence of the being is trapped, to be returned to the
body after the gate is finished with reassembling the
being's body. Because of this fact, it is possible to steal
someone else's body, as well as their memories and personal-
ity quirks. When the creators of the gates were using the
gates, the accidentally set off a Moebius loop, destroying
the universe as they knew it. The Qhal, the race of the
principle character Morgaine, found one of these gates on
one of the dead worlds of their solar system and learned how
to make more. Becoming almost as advanced as the previous
gate makers, they too started a Moebius loop, destroying
their part of the universe. The series concentrates on the
efforts of Morgaine to destroy all of the gates, using the
knowledge of the elder race gained from her father. If she
does not destroy all of the gates, there would be a chance
of the cycle repeating itself once more.
Clarke, Arthur C. 2001, 2010. A cosmic gate is used. ( Any more
description anyone? )
DeChancie, John. Starrigger books. The gates used in this
series of books are in the form of an interstellar highway
built by an unknown power. Roads across the planets lead to
giant, rotating, levitating cylinders which bracket the
road. Vehicles travelling in the right speed range are
instantly teleported to a similar pair of such cylinders on
another planet. The process is not reversible, so people
are reluctant to map unexplored areas for fear that they
will not be able to get home.
Donaldson, Stephen R. Mirror Of Her Dreams, A Man Rides Through.
In these books, mirrors are used as gates. ( Anyone care to
expand on this? )
Feist, Raymond. The Riftwar Saga series: Magician Apprentice,
Magician Master, Darkness At Sethanon. An interdimensional
rift exists between the worlds which magicians are able to
traverse.
Gemmell, David. Sipstrassi Tales series: Wolf In Shadow/The
Jerusalem Man, Ghost King, Last Sword Of Power, The Last
- 31 -
Guardian. The power of the magical Sipstrassi Stones is used
to open gates between different places and times. The gates
are direct connections, everything passes through in both
ways including light and gravity.
Harrison, Harry. One Step From Earth. This book is a collection
of stories using a "matter transmitter" that forms a gateway
between one place and the other. ( Ed. Note. I forget the
details on how it worked. Anyone? )
Harrison, Harry. Star Smashers Of The Galaxy Rangers. A space-
opera spoof, particularly of the Skylark series; uses a sub-
stance called 'cheddite' derived by cyclotronic bombardment
of cheddar cheese to power a teleportation device. The
cheddite projector emits kappa radiation which drops any-
thing in its field in to the lambda dimension, which is
much, much smaller than our dimension, meaning that a small
movement there corresponds to a massive distance once the
ship returns to our dimension. The inventors put it into a
747 ( sealed against vacuum ), a flashlight, and other
artifacts. This book is strictly for fun.
Herbert, Frank. The Dosadi Experiment, Whipping Star. These nov-
els use gates that are controlled by sentient stars that
have a four-dimensional consciousness. Also used were peo-
ple possessing psionics, called psionicists, for the purpose
of communication. ( Ed. Note: These were submitted without
explanations. Anyone? )
( q.v. Ansible-Books: Herbert, Frank: The Dosadi Experiment,
Whipping Star. )
Langford, David. The Space Eater. This book uses the concept of
Anomalous Physics gates. Anomalous Physics devices vary fun-
damental constants of the universe in order to get their
desired effect. As an example, imagine E=m*c^2 as c
approaches infinity. The first Anomalous Physics gate was
about 10 feet across; it eventually blew up ( taking half of
North America ) and causing ~10% of the stars in the Galaxy
to simultaneously nova. A safer version exists, but is only
1.95 centimetres across -- they chop you into little bits
and push you through.
Niven, Larry. Speculative Essays: The Theory And Practice Of
Teleportation This form of travel is definitely unique.
Niven supposes a ship that has a teleport sender at one end,
and a receiver at the other end. In order to move, the ship
repetitively teleports itself in front of itself.
Norton, Andre. Witchworld series. The world in this series is
all full of gates. Most have to be activated, some are one-
way. They were left behind from long ago and the people who
use them now don't really know how to.
- 32 -
O'Donnell Jr., Kevin. The Journeys Of McGill Feighan series:
Caverns, Reefs, Lava, Cliffs. In this series, there exists
'Flingers', people charged with the duty of teleporting peo-
ple from star to star. There are many interesting twists
such as a precise mass cutoff while 'flinging', a strict
maximum on the number of 'flings' per day, as well as the
fact that a 'flinger' must have visited a place in order to
Fling someone else to it. The 'Flinger' must go with cargo
and or passengers and the limit for extra weight is exactly
918 kilograms.
Simmons, Dan. Hyperion, The Fall Of Hyperion. Gates were esta-
blished by using 'singularity spheres' set up by ships trav-
elling at faster-than-light speeds. These spheres enabled
the use of 'farcasters', interstellar distance teleport dev-
ices that allow for the instantaneous transfer of matter by
simply stepping through a gate that is created by the dev-
ice. The system of these 'farcasters' is known as the Web,
and the general impression is that each planet has an expen-
sive piece of hardware in orbit that powers the gates on the
planet below.
( q.v. Ansible-Books, Superluminal-Books: Simmons, Dan:
Hyperion, The Fall Of Hyperion. )
Stasheff, Christopher. Warlock series. Teleportation is accom-
plished through the use of Extra-Sensory Perception, as well
as through devices that provide transdimensional gateways.
Stewart, Ian. Novelettes: Captives Of The Slavestone. In this
novelette, organic matter-transmitters form gates that the
local people refer to as 'syntes'. The idea is simple as
the bud of a plant remains linked to its parent by means of
a wormhole. Therefore, if you have the right breed of
plant, that is a plant with a big enough opening, you can go
through the plant to where its parent is in the case of a
'synte'. Caution must be used though, as although travelling
sideways is very easy, travelling upwards is difficult as
the difference in gravitational potential is compressed and
travelling downwards risks the chance of being torn to
shreds by tremendous tidal stresses. This organic technol-
ogy is also used to make some crude forms of ansibles.
( q.v. Ansibles-Books, Superluminal-Books: Stewart, Ian:
Captives Of The Slavestone. )
Van Vogt, A.E. The Arsenals Of Isher, The Weaponsmiths. Instan-
taneous matter transmission is used within the solar system
by the arsenals. A superluminal drive is also created later
by someone working independently, but no details are given.
Zelazny, Roger. Creatures Of Light And Darkness. In this book, a
gate is used for travelling. ( Anyone care to be more
explicit? )
- 33 -
Zelazny, Roger. Amber series. In this universe, creation exists
out of two real lands, Amber and the Courts of Chaos. In
these lands are the two primal powers, Order, seated in
Amber, and Chaos, seated in the Courts of Chaos. Both are
represented on this level of existence by their emblems, a
pattern for Order and a shifting maze for Chaos. These
respective emblems emit waves of Order and Chaos, and where
these waves meet, the Shadows of Amber, the Courts and their
inhabitants are created: alternative universes, in a cer-
tain way. All Shadows attempt to mimic their original, but
never do so succesfully, hence the name Shadow. Shadow is
infinite, and everything exists as a Shadow. Members of the
royal houses of Amber and the Courts can traverse their
emblems of power and thus gain power over a Shadow: the
ability to pick any Shadow out of the infinity that they
like, and then travel to there, either by walking there (
exchanging your present Shadow for one closer to the target
Shadow, until you reach your target ) or by trumping: making
a representation of your target, and concentrating on it
until you create a doorway to your destination. For
instance, travel from Earth to Mars would be done by either
adapting your surroundings till you arrive at Mars, or by
using a picture of Mars, made by an initiate of an emblem,
and concentrating on it.
Zelazny, Roger. Changeling, Madwand, Roadmarks. In these books,
the concept of having a road that you can travel that goes
between worlds is used.
- 34 -
5. Ansibles And Other Communications Devices
5.1. Books
Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game, Speaker For The Dead. Used an
ansible which was able to transport communications almost
instantaneously.
( q.v. Sublight-Books: Card, Orson Scott: Ender's Game,
Speaker For The Dead. )
Herbert, Frank. Dune, Dune Messiah. The communication is based
on the work of Holtzmann. The one-dimensional effect,
called 'Holtzmann Waves', creates catastrophic folds in the
space-time continuum which produce long radio waves whenever
they impact significant amounts of matter. Therefore, you
point your radio at the other person, the message is instan-
taneously transmitted, no matter how far the distance is,
and the large objects that are in the way end up emitting
the radio waves themselves. The two-dimensional version of
the effect, called the 'Holtzmann Shield' is used quite
often in the book. The three-dimensional effect is
described in detail under the same heading in the Book sec-
tion of the Superluminal drive section.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Herbert, Frank: Dune, Dune
Messiah. )
Herbert, Frank. The Dosadi Experiment, Whipping Star. These nov-
els use psionicists, that is people with psionics, as com-
munication devices. The psionicists who are capable of
telepathy are used to communicate across interstellar dis-
tances. All known telepaths are in the employ of the com-
munications company.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Herbert, Frank: The Dosadi
Experiment, Whipping Star. )
LeGuin, Ursula K. Hainish novels: Rocannon's World, The Left
Hand Of Darkness, The Dispossessed. The author coined the
term ansible. The technical definition of an ansible, that
is the one that was coined by the creator, is that there is
a communication device, one end of which is mobile, and the
other end which must be firmly rooted within a gravity well.
It violates relativity by allowing instantaneous communica-
tion across vast distances.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: LeGuin, Ursula K. Hainish nov-
els: Rocannon's World, The Left Hand Of Darkness, The
Dispossessed. )
Rowley, Christopher. The Founder, The Black Ship, War For
Eternity. The ansible used in these books are called Deep
Link, and seems to utilize either black holes or wormholes.
- 35 -
In War For Eternity the Arizel-ti-Fein move a black hole
nearer to Fenrille to improve communications with Earth.
( q.v. Sublight-Books, Superluminal-Books: Rowley, Christo-
pher: The Founder, The Black Ship, War For Eternity. )
Rowley, Christopher. Starhammer, Vang: The Military Form, Vang:
The Battlemaster. Some form of ansible is used, however none
is described. One could speculate that the ansible is grav-
itational based however.
( q.v. Sublight-Books, Superluminal-Books: Rowley, Christo-
pher. Starhammer, Vang: The Military Form, Vang: The
Battlemaster. )
Sheffield, Charles. Between The Strokes Of Night. As in the
entry under sublight drives and methods of communication,
the concept of S-space is used with respect to communica-
tion. As the metabolic rates are slowed down, the messages
seems to take days, not months and years, to get from the
sender to the receiver.
Simmons, Dan. Hyperion, The Fall Of Hyperion. The 'fatline' com-
munication system that is used is a tachyon based system
that is independent of the Web.
( q.v. Superluminal-Books, Gates-Books: Simmons, Dan:
Hyperion, The Fall Of Hyperion. )
Smith, E.E. "Doc". Lensman series: Children Of The Lens. In
terms of communication, 'sub-etheric' vibrations ( in par-
ticular, thought waves, but also numerous other examples )
traveled instantaneously. 'Etheric' vibrations such as
light were the only energy forms bound to the lightspeed
limit. There is an implication that 'sub-etheric' energies
are simply higher wavelengths, but this is not made expli-
cit. ( .q.v Superluminal-Books: Smith, E.E. "Doc". Lensman
series: Children Of The Lens. )
Stewart, Ian. Novelettes: Captives Of The Slavestone. In the
same manner as the 'syntes' use wormholes to create gates,
the 'olosynte' and the 'falasynte' use wormholes for ansi-
bles, in the videophone and telephone varieties.
( q.v. Gates-Books, Superluminal-Books: Stewart, Ian:
Captives Of The Slavestone. )
Vance, Jack. Demon Prince series: Star King, The Killing
Machine, The Palace Of Love, The Face, The Book Of Dreams. A
form of abnormal hyperspace is used in order to transmit
messages. These messages are sent through this particular
hyperspace, and may sometimes arrive at their destination
before they are sent.
- 36 -
( q.v. Superluminal-Books: Vance, Jack: Demon Prince series.
)
- 37 -
6. Glossary
Ansible. A term used to describe a communications device that is
able to transmit a message from the transmitter and have it
instantaneously received by the receiver, no matter how far
away the transmitter and receiver may be from each other.
Bussard Ramjets. This is a term used to describe a type of sub-
light drive that uses matter that is in space in order to
propel itself. A Bussard ramjet uses a powerful magnetic
field as a funnel in order to sweep up interstellar hydrogen
and guide it to the ship's drive, which then burns the
hydrogen by fusion and expelling it as an ordinary rocket
would. Therefore, the fuel is free in the sense that you
don't have to carry it with you. The problem is that you
have to carry some fuel in order to get up to the ramjet
speeds, since the funnel doesn't work ( either not effi-
ciently or not at all ) below a certain threshold velocity.
However, once you are moving beyond that velocity, you are
able to refill your tanks easily. As Larry Niven pointed
out in his book The Ethics Of Madness, there is a maximum
velocity at which a ramjet can drive you - when the relative
speed of your ship and the hydrogen you are sweeping up is
the same as the speed at which the burning hydrogen is
expelled from your rocket, you can't go any faster ( since
accelerating the hydrogen you are sweeping up slows you down
as much as burning that hydrogen speeds you up... ).
Black Hole. A region where matter is so dense that it attracts
matter from great distances. The gravitational pull is so
great that closer to the black hole, most electromagnetic
radiation will be unable to escape the pull of the black
hole.
C. A term denoting velocity. See speed of light.
Event horizon. Part of a black hole, the event horizon is a
point where, due to the nature of the black hole, everything
stops.
Faster-than-light. A term used to refer to objects that are
travelling at speeds that are greater than that of light.
Fold. A term used to explain a point in space, artificial or
natural, where an object may travel through this point in
space and end up at the other end of the fold, which is
situated somewhere else in the universe. This is the basis
for some of the jump drives. These can also be used as
artificial disturbances in the space-time continuum in order
to communicate with another being.
Fold-jump drive. A term used to denote a drive that has the
ability to jump from one point in space to another point in
space by causing the space-time continuum to fold.
- 38 -
Fold Points. A term used to describe points, that are the only
points that a ship may cross from one part of a fold to
another part of a fold. This is dependent on the actual
situation, as some drives can fold space at any location.
Galactic Core. A term used to refer to the densely packed region
of a galaxy that forms the core. These are usually the
areas of the galaxy with the highest density, and are often
a problem for navigation. Because of their high density,
they are also the most visible parts of the galaxy.
Gates, Gateways. Regions where any object that crosses the boun-
dary into such a region will be teleported to another region
located somewhere else in the universe.
Generation ships. These are usually ships with sublight drives
that travel great distances. In order to survive until the
destination is reached, the ships is made with the purpose
of generations of people being able to live on the ship
itself.
Gravity Field. A term for a field of usually intense gravity,
whether it be artificially-produced or naturally-occurring.
When such a region exists is space for a long time, it is
said to be a gravity well.
Gravity Well. A region in space where the gravity from an object
is noticeable. Naturally occurs around large objects such
as planets and stars.
Hyperdrive. A term used to refer to a drive that enables the
ships that possesses it to go through hyperspace with some
degree of accuracy under normal circumstances.
Hyperspace. A term used to denote another universe or alternate
reality where some of the laws of the universe are different
enough so that a ship may travel through there faster than
through our own space. A common feature of hyperspace is
that, as the mapping between it and realspace is usually
quite random, a small error in hyperspace means a big error
in realspace. If the mapping between realspace and hyper-
space are not random, they are sometimes very difficult to
figure out and usually require the assistance of the com-
puter, or even the computer needing the being's help for
some minor input. Stories are written about ships that got
lost doing a jump into hyperspace. Sometimes, hyperspace is
mistakenly referred to as jumpspace, as the name seems to
fit the type of propulsion better.
Hyperspatial-jump. A term used to denote a jump, that is not
really a jump as it defined in this glossary. Instead, it
involves going through hyperspace, but appears to be instan-
taneous to beings watching the ship move.
- 39 -
Inertia. One of Sir Isaac Newton's Three Laws of Physics that
states that an object tends to want to do what it is already
doing unless acted on by an outside force.
Inertialess. To not have any noticeable inertia.
Inertialess drive. A term used to refer to a drive that causes
the amount of inertia possessed by the ship to decrease to
the point where high speeds are relatively easy as not as
much power is needed in order to gain the high speeds.
Ion Drive. This is a term used to refer to a drive that ionizes
the particles that is uses for propulsion, usually hydrogen,
and then releases those particles from the ship at high
velocities.
Jump. A term used to refer to the process of using a jump drive
once. Can also be used to describe a transfer through hyper-
space that is thought to be a jump.
Jump Drive. A type of propulsion that allows the ship with the
drive to go from one point in the universe to another point
in the universe. Restrictions depend on the actual drive.
Some hyperdrives may be mistakenly called jump drives.
Jump Points. Points in space where certain ships with certain
types of jump drives may jump from one jump point to another
jump point.
Jumpspace. See hyperspace.
Light Sails. These are sails made of special materials that cap-
ture the waves of photons going through the universe and has
the same effect that a wind sail has on an ocean. Since a
large surface is often used in order to capture as much sun-
light as possible, the sail is often as thin and as light as
possible in order to prevent to much extra weight from being
added to the ship.
Light Year. The distance that light can travel within one year.
This form of measuring distance can also be used with other
time units such as light minutes and light days.
Lightspeed. A term used to refer to objects that are travelling
at the speed of light and is interchangeable, in terms of
meaning and use, with the speed of light.
Magnetic Container. This is a sealed container that is formed
with magnetic fields. This is very useful in the case of
storing antimatter, as any antimatter/matter collision will
result in annihilation of both particles and a tremendous
release of energy.
- 40 -
Magnetic Fields. A term used to denote fields that are solely
composed of magnetic energies. These are most often used
for particle accelerators and magnetic containers.
Magnetic Monopoles. Physical oddities that are magnetically
polarized to only one pole, not two.
Misjump. A term used to denote what happens when a ship that has
the ability to jump does not jump to the desired location
due to the influence of some action. Such actions often
include impure fuels, trying to jump from within a gravity
well, and improper calculation for the actual jump itself.
Moebius Loop. A term used to describe a loop where, due to
matter transmission ( gate ) or time travel technology, some
of the vessels or some of the matter transmitters get 'per-
manently' stuck into a mode where matter from one point is
being constantly retransmitted and grows larger, or a cer-
tain amount of time is being repeated in a cycle.
ORIONs. Coming from the original form, Project ORION. Project
ORION made use of nuclear weapons dropped one at a time
behind the ship, which has a larger 'pusher plate' affixed
to the rear. The resultant shockwave from each explosion
pushes the ship forward. Messy when used for launching from
Earth. Use on Earth and in space is now forbidden by inter-
national law, due to the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1983.
( q.v. Sublight-Books: Niven, Larry and Pournelle, Jerry:
Footfall. )
Psionic. A term used to describe a person who has mental powers
that are considered supernatural. Examples of this are:
extra-sensory perception, telepathy, and teleportation.
Psychic. See psionic.
Reaction. The force that opposes an action, from Sir Isaac
Newton's Laws of Physics: 'For every action, there is an
equal and opposite reaction.'
Reaction drive. A term used to describe a drive that causes an
action, such as expelling mass from the rear of the ship, in
order to make the drive and the ship that carries the drive
to perform a calculated reaction.
Reactionless. An action for which there is no reaction.
Reactionless drive. A term used to describe a drive that propels
the ship that carries it without any apparent reaction.
Realspace. A term used to denote our own universe and our own
dimension.
- 41 -
Singularities. A term used to describe a point in a space where
everything near that point only exists at that point.
Sleeper Ships. The ship in question travels at normal velocities
with all of the people on board in suspended animation.
Space-Time Continuum, Space-Time Axis. The first term relates to
our understanding of our universe, being one where there are
space components and time components. The second term tries
to quantify this understanding by giving measurement to our
universe, usually represented by three space axis ( length,
width, and depth ) and one time axis ( duration ).
Speed of Light. A term used to describe the speed at which light
travels. This is believed to be a ceiling on travel speeds
with the normal range of our universe. Superluminal travel
supposes that this ceiling is somehow able to be passed
through for short periods of time. Velocities may be quoted
as Xc where the number in place of the X is assumed to be a
certain factor of the speed of light. ( e.g. 0.7c is
equivalent to 70 percent of the speed of light. )
Stasis Field. A field that somehow slows down time for all of
the object encased within the field.
Sublight. A term used to refer to objects travelling at speeds
that are less than that of light.
Superluminal. A term used to refer to objects that are capable
of travelling at faster-than-light speeds.
Suspended Animation. A process by which the metabolic rates of
people within certain chambers are reduced to the level at
which little or no aging takes place.
Tachyon. A theoretical particle that, due to its nature, can
break the lightspeed barrier as it can go backwards in time.
Teleport, Teleportation. A term used to describe movement from
one area to another without going to any of the points
inbetween the source and the destination.
Teleporter. A term used to describe an object or a person who
can teleport.
Tesseract. A mathematical model of a four-dimensional space
where three-dimensional beings can become very confused due
to their spatial perceptions.
Time-Dilation. A phrase describing the theory that as one gets
closer to lightspeed, the rate at which time flows with
respect to the universe increases. This theory has been
proven by using space flight as well as quantum mechanics.
- 42 -
Time-Line. A term used to denote a certain path that the
universe might take. Let time be defined as a tree, where a
branch of the tree is created whenever a decision is made.
The idea of a time-line stipulates that every decision is
made, but to any being in the tree after one of these deci-
sions, it appears that only one choice was made.
Time-Sense. A term used to denote the ability to sense into the
past, present, or future, and these are sometimes viewed as
being the same to such a being. This term can also be used
to denoted a being that is able to sense different time-
lines, and may be able to influence the time-line that will
be followed as the probably outcomes are known to them.
Warp Drive. A type of propulsion that allows the ship with the
drive to somehow bypass the speed of light while remaining
or seeming to remain within our universe.
Wormholes. Naturally occurring gaps in the universe, thought to
be made by tachyons and other subatomic particles. These
gaps lead from one point in space to another point where the
particle decided to travel to.
( q.v. Superluminal-Games: Bujold, Lois McMaster: Miles
Vorkosigan series and associated books. )
- 43 -
7. Sources of Stories
This section is here for the stories that are part of an
anthology or magazine. Hopefully, this will allow people who
wish to read one of the stories to find the story more easily.
Listing of the stories is done by the author's name.
Bujold, Lois McMaster. Falling Free. From Analog, Mid-Novemeber
1987 to Mid-February 1988.
Harrison, Harry. Space Rats Of The CCC From The Best Of Harry
Harrison.
Kusnick, Gregory. Chrysalis. From Analog, Mid-December 1987.
Manzione, Joseph. Candle In A Cosmic Wind. From Analog, August
1987.
Spinrad, Norman. Subjectivity. From The Last Hurrah Of The
Gloden Horde.
Stewart, Ian. Captives Of The Slavestone. From Analog, Mid-
December 1987.
Turtledove, Harry. 6+. From Analog, September 1987.
--- END ---
--
Jack a.k.a. Wildside ... 2nd regeneration of a Time Lord
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"But that's not decent"
"I am a pirate, I don't do decency!" - Don Carnage
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