Light Drive

An Imperial shuttle utilizing a Light Drive to go above the speed of light

Light Drives, also referred to as Warp Drives, Hyperdrives, Stardrives, and Jump Engines, are common devices present aboard starships, used to enter Hyperspace and achieve faster-than-light travel.

## Capabilities

Light Drives, equipped into ship's engines, can transport the ship and all its occupants into hyperspace, allowing them to travel large spacial distances at speeds above the speed of light, even those needed to cross galaxies, in minutes, hours, or days, depending on the distance traveled. More complex models can even function as the full engine for the ship itself, not just the hyperspace propellant. Light Drives need external parts built into the rest of the ship for a safe passage, such as jump shields and drive safeties. Light Drives make the jump into hyperspace without changing the complex configuration of mass and energy within the ship. To enter hyperspace, the starship's pilot or piloting computer would enter commands into the Light Drive control interface, known as an LDCI. Light Drives can operate on Magic, Novanium, anti-matter, or other forms of fuel, although tacheo-energy is required as a propellant. Novanium systems, charged with tacheo-energy, the most common form of Light Drive fuel, would charge the primary thrusters, which would activate the secondary coil generators and cause a ripple in space-time around the ship, allowing it to jump into hyperspace. Ships would automatically slow down upon exiting hyperspace, and the reemergence sends detectable signals that can be used to track their movements. If deactivated mid-flight, it would violently pull the ship back into Realspace. Drive safeties aboard standard Light Drives prevent them from flying into the pullfields generated by large objects in realspace and hyperspace, while jump shields shield the ship from any particles present in hyperspace. Light Drives are also equipped with relativity shields, devices built into the hyperspace shielding systems designed to function solely within the altered physics of hyperspace, keeping the ship and crew from contracting any negative relativity effects from hyperspace travel, mainly keeping the time passing in the ship the same as it would be within realspace. Although these stabilizers are technically not needed for the Light Drive to function, it would prevent any unwanted time-based complications, such as arriving at a destination several hundred years in the future for a trip that only took a few hours from the crew's perspective. This technology was also equipped on the early hyperspace slingshots, as it had been discovered entirely by accident during a later development on sub-light drives. Although some Light Drives can achieve maximum hyperspace speed if all needed parts and needed fuel are present, attempting to exceed it will cause the Drive and craft it is equipped on to irreversibly dissolve into energy, killing all aboard. Achieving maximum speed often disrupts the hyperspace clouds and could cause different levels of damage to the ship it is on, many times rendering the ship unable to make needed maneuvers. It is also known to sometimes make relativity shields malfunction, thus causing unwanted time dilation. Weaponized Light Drives are unfeasible, as the pullfields of large objects would undo all the Light Drive's speed and deal more damage to the Drive craft than the target, if any damage is done to the target at all. Because of this, Light Drives cannot be used on a planet or other atmospheric surface, but rather, in the void of space. Light Drives and their variations cannot be steered by anything short of an LDCI once they are active, as the slightest deviation could throw them light years away and into obstacles, and it may be impossible to regain control afterwards. Although Light Drives cannot collide with other masses in realspace, they can collide with each other in hyperspace, in an event known as a hyper ram.

## Background

Light Drives were conceived by Titanians from Sub-Light Drives, which bent space around the ship rather than utilizing hyperspace. They quickly became the standard for vast interstellar travel, allowing for easy access to galactic distances, and fueling the creation of super empires.

## Variants

* Standard: The universal standard of Light Drives, mostly in function rather than form and build, as many species create their own versions. Hyperspace, while also a violent and turbulent realm, can provide protection from most realspace dangers to any adequately equipped starship, which would have the needed defenses. The only things that can pull a ship out of hyperspace would be pullfields, which are essentially reflections of gravity wells caused by either artificial generators or celestial bodies, such as planets, stars, asteroids, comets, black holes, other ships, and vacuum-dwelling lifeforms. Standard Light Drive systems have safeties that would automatically pull a ship from hyperspace before they can collide with a pullfield and get annihilated on their way back to realspace, which would often leave the realspace object unaffected. Advanced Light Drives, such as military-grade models, are able to achieve maximum hyperspace speed, although this is only safe for starfigthers and other small ships to attempt, as large ships would be at a major risk of getting wrapped in lethal hyperclouds or being unable to maneuver.
* Sub-Light Drives: Sub-Light Drives, otherwise known as sub-light engines, are the standard engines of modern spacecraft. They are incapable of reaching lightspeed, and are often equipped with relativity shields the same as a standard Light Drive. Although they cannot practically cross galactic distances, older models were used to propel archaic generation ships. One notable example of a Sub-Light Drive equipped craft is a generation ship launched from Earth during the early years of the Trans-Galactic War, when standard Light Drives were for strictly military purposes. Said craft, the S.L. Jyist, utilized a hyperspace slingshot followed by a Sub-Light Drive to travel out of the Sol System and nearby stars, and about a decade into their journey (by perspective of the Jyist crew), during a short stop and deactivation of their Sub-Light Drive to re-calibrate their navigation systems due to unforeseen asteroid collisions, they were struck by a hyperspace anomaly that boosted them the distance of galaxies, and they landed in an isolated system located in what is now known as No Man's Space. They did suffer from the effects of time dilation, being completely unaware of the Trans-Galactic War or later War for the Chronicle Timeline, and thus lacked any technology not yet invented by the SpaceForce Corporation prior to their departure.
* Hyperspace Slingshot: A static device resembling an oversized railgun, which can sling a ship into hyperspace, creating a realspace shield around them. This technology is outdated and cannot achieve high hyperspace speeds, and can only send ships a certain distance. Terran generation ships utilized this technology to make it to other parts of the Milky Way, and would then activate their sub-light drives upon exiting hyperspace. However, a mobile version of this technology, known as a hyperspace booster, would travel with a ship through use of an external piece of machinery.
* Portal Drives: Portal Drives, often mounted on the front of a starship and powered by magic, create portals to enter and exit hyperspace, also forming a realspace shield around the ship in question, but travel through hyperspace at low speeds.
* Teleportation Drives: A more dangerous, obsolete, and surprisingly slower form of a Light Drive is a Teleportation Drive. Teleportation Drives do not travel through hyperspace, instead traveling through realspace at light speed, offering no protections and risking destroying the entire ship and crew with any potential interference. These drives have a notably lengthy charge time, and involve the ship being slowly teleported, most often seemingly dissolving into light, then being regenerated at the destination. On-board assets and crew members may be damaged from this sort of tech-based long-distance mass teleportation, and would be frozen in time during the process, unable to make any needed corrections or maneuvers should a complication arise mid-flight.