Hover Technology

## Description

Hover plates can be attached to anything, luggage, and belts. There are hover sleds used for transportation, but very slow.

## Book Reference

### Books

* Earth Girl
* Earth Star
* Earth Flight

Hover technology allows people, objects, and vehicles to "float" a short distance above the ground.

## History

Hover technology was created before the Exodus century, but the ability and knowledge was lost. The ability was first lost when the technicians left Earth for other planets and the companies that manufactured anything with Hover technology closed down, then when the Earth Data Net was lost in 2409 all of the ability to recreate anything with hovers was lost.

After University Earth's archaeologists started to explore the ruins of the great cities, looking for lost stasis boxes, they discovered the knowledge needed to recreate some of the technology of the past.

## Technology

At this time, it is not clear how hover technology works as it hasn't been explained in detail.

## Applications

### Hover Bags/Hover Luggage

Hover bags are luggage that floats just above the ground due to their hover technology. They can handle stairs, but they cannot handle greater vertical changes. Hover bags do quite well traveling through wide open spaces, but do poorly with doorways.

Hover bags also display other technologies. Users operate hover bags by clicking their key fobs, which gives the hover bags a location to head to. This is especially important when going through portals, since the bag must go through the portal during the signal loss period or it will be stuck behind, incurring fines. Users can also give hover bags instructions to set themselves down neatly using key fobs.

Using the fob, the bags can individually be set by priority so that the ones that contain the most important items can be set to a highest priority and others can be set to a lower or lowest priority.

Hover bags communicate with each other using very basic machine speak. Users can whistle instructions to hover bags (without regard to ownership) if they choose to learn machine speak.

### Hover Sleds

Hover sleds are used by a number of groups to transport materials and people over land. Archaeologists use a number of different types of specialist hover sleds for their work, such as sensor sleds, heavy lift sleds, and tag support sleds, in addition to general transport sleds. Hover sleds move a lot slower than present day cars and trucks do. Hover sleds can fit through freight portals, though they generally do not use them.

On Earth, to be licensed to drive large transport sleds such as heavy lift sleds, one must be at least 16 and past a test.

### Hover Belts

Hover belts lift the wearer above the ground, so they can move unrestricted by debris. On dig sites, tag leaders wear hover belts, while other team members generally stay on the sleds. Hover belts have multiple height settings. They do not handle moving ground well, and an avalanche can cause the wearer to become buried under rubble.

### Hover Tunics

Hover tunics are worn by civilian pilots and passengers to slow their fall in case they have to abandon the plane and jump. Hover tunics require a high altitude to give the technology enough time to activate and slow the wearer's fall.

### Hover Stretcher

Hover stretchers are used to transport injured persons. They need to be maneuvered by two people. They do not handle stairs well. Hover stretchers can fit into designed slots on air ambulances.

## Footnotes

### References

1. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Deltan Escape. Ch. 5. 2021.