Interstellar Travel

Interstellar travel is the concept of traveling throughout different areas of space. The sophistication of a species' interstellar travel is dependent on their scientific knowledge and level of technological advancement. Less advanced races may be less adapted for interstellar travel and could take hundreds or thousands of years to travel across space, whereas an extremely advanced species could use advanced travel to reach distant star systems in just days or even hours. 
== Types of Interstellar Travel ==
=== Comet-Jumping ===
A less-frequently used and archaic method of faster-than-light travel, the act of comet-jumping has since been abandoned. To achieve this method, a ship would attach itself to a comet or asteroid that is able to make short Warp jumps between star systems. Despite its early usefulness, there were multiple cons. For one thing, the comets or asteroids could never make coordinated Warp jumps, so the travelers would end up in any random star system in proximity to their own. Worse, they would have few, if any, ways of returning home, and communication between worlds would be next to impossible.
Some species such as the H'minesh, Kig-Yar and Sangheili had colonized other worlds and systems in their early millennia of expansion. These colonies would be isolated for centuries, if not millennia, before eventually being rediscovered by their homeworld brethren. 
=== Slipspace ===
Probably one of the most common types of interstellar travel to this day, slipspace allows ships to quickly travel various parts of the galaxy by entering an 11-dimensional reality known as slipstream space. It is described as a "tangle" of our own universe. Once a ship reaches a point that corresponds to its destination, its drive will allow it to re-enter realspace. Less-advanced species capable of using slipspace may end up a considerable distance from their destination after dropping out of slipspace, whereas more advanced civilizations can better navigate it.
The Forerunners had a great understanding of slipstream space and could navigate it with ease. This was eventually passed on to races like humanity, the San'Shyuum, Sangheili, and, to a lesser extent, the Pandarians. The Terrans and Protoss would soon embrace the ability to travel in slipstream space, and eventually the Zerg evolved to travel within it as well.
=== Warp Travel ===
Warp travel is a less-frequently used and often more dangerous method of interstellar travel. In fact, some Union ships contain a Warp drive to be used ONLY when their slipspace drive fails. The Warp drive generates the energy necessary to allow a ship to enter the extra-dimensional realm known as the Immaterium, and is then carried along the currents of the Immaterium like a pebble in a stream. Like slipspace, the ship drops back into realspace once they reach a point that corresponds with their destination. 
Warp travel is dangerous for multiple reasons. For one thing, time differences between the Warp and realspace can vary, and a ship's crew cannot know how long their voyage was until they exit the Warp. Another danger is the turbulent tides of the Warp itself. As opposed to slipspace, which is relatively easier and safer to use, the Warp is a dangerous reality, merely a twisted reflection of our own universe, and can be very unpredictable. Even worse to consider, the Warp is in fact home to malevolent entities known as the Chaos Gods, which feed off of the everyday thoughts and emotions of living beings, particularly humans. Ships traveling in the Warp can experience anomalies such as Chaos incursions and even daemonic possession.
The Terrans, Protoss, and even Zerg species once utilized Warp travel, until the Union began sharing the technology needed to travel in slipstream space. As evolved as they may be, the Warp proved to be a match for even the Zerg, and they too needed to evolve to achieve slipspace travel. Warp travel became common in the Milky Way galaxy during the era known as the "Dark Age of Technology", when the humans there had begun to spread out to the stars.
=== Newtonian Travel ===
Newtonian, or gravitic travel, is a much-less-frequently used method of travel that allows ships to safely travel along the boundary of realspace and the Warp. By making only brief drops into the Warp, species that utilize Newtonian travel tend to travel the stars slower than others, but it is nevertheless safer than full-on Warp travel. It was most notably used by the Tau Empire.
=== Webway Travel ===
The extra-dimensional reality known as the Webway was constructed by the ancient species known as the Old Ones more than 60 million years ago. The Old Ones, having hated the Warp and its turbulent energies, constructed the Webway to keep intelligent species' psychic presence out of the Warp and inadvertently creating malicious entities. 
The Necrons managed to achieve Webway travel thanks to the C'tan known as Nyadra'zatha the Burning One. They are able to enter Webway through the use of living stone portals known as Dolmen Gates. Without the Dolmen Gates, the Necrons would be forced to travel via slow-moving stasis ships and their kind would be doomed to isolation. 
The Webway is described as a series of maze-like arteries that span across much of the Milky Way and Minecraftian galaxies. Through it, ships can travel swiftly, often without any harm. However, there is little way to enter without a Webway Gate, and the technology needed to create it is lost. This would explain why the Eldar seem to value whatever Webway Gates they have above all else. 
Various parts of the Webway have been damaged over the course of several millennia, and some parts may even be infested by daemons. In various places across the Minecraftian and Milky Way galaxies, the faction known as the Dark Eldar conceal their dark city of Commoragh throughout the Webway.
So far, the Eldar and Necrons are the only species capable of Webway travel. It is known that the Milky Way humans of the 31st millennium attempted Webway travel at one point.
Category:Concepts
Category:Union Canon