After reading the article from b.borich I remembered a series of novels
by Anne McCafferty (which have nothing to do with Dragons) about psionic
interstellar transport. One novel was called "The Rowan" and all
of them were quite good.
The psionic travel was accomplished by a stationary psion who used some
kind of energy turbine (mechanical!) to give her or him enough energy
to "hurl" vessels between stars.
I seem to recall that it was necessary for there to be a psion at the other
end of the journey to "catch" the vessel. My subconcious may be making this
up, however, since I think it may be a good idea. Of course if there is no
psion at the other end then the vessel has no way of returning!
I envision a small interstellar culture (ie pocket empire) who haven't
developed a "real" interstallar drive (due to lack of need), but occupy
several planets. Should make a fun culture. One way of introducing
such a culture would be for RCES scavengers to find a "driveless" ship
crashed on an abandoned planet-how did such a ship get there if it had
no jump drives? Characters are sent to recover useful parts and investigate.
Other details from the book(s)
Psions powerful enough to throw ships were very very rare (say 20 in a
society of 10 billion).
Less powerful psions were employed as assistants to the more powerful ones
or as other kinds of specialists (including planetary teleportation)
Psionic interstellar travel took _time_ (weeks between planets)
Psions had an "allergy" to travelling that made such an event very traumatic
more so for more powerful psions (read the book if you want to know
why)
Someday I'm going to have my own campaign and will stop giving away all
my best ideas...
Pete
Peter Brenton [phone removed]
Biochemistry & Molecular [email removed]
The University of Chicago