Exospace Node Theory

The **Exospace Node Theory** (or simply **ENT**) was first proposed in Earth year 2096 as a way to more accurately model the travel and motion of the then-newly-discovered Warp drive; it has since survived a half-millennium of analysis, modification, and reiteration to become a pillar of modern physics. Almost all forms of modern FTL travel are based on an aspect of this theory.

## Basic Premise

Under the most-recent and widely-accepted interpretation of the theory, the *Superstrata Interpretation*, ENT posits the existence of four *subspace* dimensions and four *hyperspace* dimensions. These eight dimensions exist analogously to those of normal space (forward/backward, up/down, left-right), permeating the entire universe and allowing movement within them. For ease of categorization, each of these three groups are organized into dimensional "sets": Set 1 is the four hyperspace dimensions; Set 2 is the three standard realspace dimensions; and Set 3 is the four subspace dimensions.

Much like the Set 2 dimensions, Set 1 and 3 dimensions are planes within space-time wherein "position" can be given as a set of coordinates― the main difference being that for both subspace or hyperspace, magnitude of "distance" is given in Qales (qe) instead of meters. Interestingly, the coordinate systems of both subspace and hyperspace map fairly close with normal-space coordinates, with the exception that hyperspace coordinates tend to be closer to each other than their corresponding realspace coordinates and vice versa for subspace; this is known as the *Corenda Effect*. As the two exospace dimension sets are quite similar ―the only major differential being the relative entropy/energy levels― visualizations of the dimensions will often show exospace dimensions as sandwiching realspace: hyperspace on top, subspace on the bottom.

### Exospace Energy Strata

Exospace is composed comprised mainly of so-called *exotrons*― along with tachyons, verterons, and a host of other particles. Due to some of the exotron's more unique traits, the particles have a rather special interaction with the Higgs boson field― reacting to it not unlike how freely-rotating ferromagnet shards react to a strong magnetic field: they orient themselves to align with the imposed field.

However, while the ferromagnets will attempt to gravitate toward a pole when free to move, exotrons in the Higgs field take stranger action: according to the superstrata interpretation, they segregate themselves into 24 energy-based hyperspace sections, and 24 energy-based subspace sections. These sections are variously referred to as energy layers, levels, planes, or strata. Going up the strata into hyperspace tends to vastly increase the average enthalpy and entropy, while decreasing the distance between coordinates relative to realspace; going down subspace strata has the opposite effect.

#### Plane Labeling

As of the time of writing, there are two dominant "plane labeling systems": the *T'pak-Al'koth system*, and the *se'Poi system*.

The T'pak-Al'koth system is the more well-known of the two. Under "TAS", as it is sometimes called, both sets are labeled with Greek letters, alpha through omega ―uppercase for hyperspace levels, lowercase for subspace levels― with alpha being the "shallowest" and omega being the "deepest". Thus, hyperspace levels range from A to Ω, whereas subspace levels range from α to ω.

The se'Poi system, on the other hand, is the one preferred by professionals ―such as scientists and starship engineers― mainly due to its improved clarity: every layer is assigned a se'Poi number (k), 1-24, with hyperspace layers denoted as positive and subspace layers as negative. Under this system, k = 1 is the shallowest hyperspace strata (A), whereas k = -1 is the shallowest subspace strata (α).

### Patches

Every exospace strata can be broken up into individual sections called *patches*, somewhat analagous to how objects can be broken up into molecules. These patches are said to have *volumes* ranging anywhere from thousands to billions of qe4. A patch is defined as an exospace area having its own, distinct *frequency* when compared to neighboring patches; this frequency is essentially a combination of the exotron density over the local Higgs field strength. When exotrons are capable of diffusing between two patches, those patches are said to *interact*; when two interacting patches have similar frequencies, they are said to be *in sync*, with the frequencies of every synced patch in a given area combining to form that area's *frequency gradient.* Higher-energy planes tend to have more extreme frequency gradients, and yet much smaller tolerance for patches to be "in sync"; once again, this trend reverses when going down subspace layers.

the majority of a patch's interaction occurs between it and a single other, nonadjacent “twin” patch, with which it is said to be *entangled*; touching/adjacent patches also have some interaction, though this is much more limited. The closest entangled pair yet observed were about 20,000 qe2 away, with a corresponding realspace difference of 18,000 km; the mean average is closer to 4.8 \* 106 qe2, though a graph of charted pairs shows significant right-skew in this respect.

#### Desynced Patches

Sometimes, patches are disrupted (*desynced*) with its interacting patches― generally because of the presence of a sufficiently large gravity well, though cataclysmic subspace events, variations in dark energy density, random chance, and countless other scenarios could also be the cause. The result of this desync varies widely depending on the root cause: if the desync is because of

* the presence of too many exotrons, the excess particles will rapidly diffuse away into interacting patches.
* too few exotrons, the patch's volume will decrease to compensate; some cross-patch interaction will also occur, as other patches must increase in volume to compensate.
* a minor or gradual change in the local Higgs field, often due to a gravitational anomaly, the volume will increase slightly.

The vast majority of desyncs are due to these three causes; billions of them occur every second within this galaxy alone, with most having no noticeable effect on realspace.

## Phasic Nodes

### Causative reactions

However, there is another way to desync a patch: a sudden and massive stress on the local Higgs field, resulting in a special event called an *exospace nova*― a highly-abnormal event wherein large quantities of verterons begin to form en masse within the patch, while massive quantities of exotrons begin to "fall" into the desynced patch at an extremely-high rate. If the number of exotrons within the patch can stabilize it in time, the nova ends and the excess verterons migrate to realspace to become low-frequency photons.

If the number of verterons reach critical mass first, however, further exotrons are blocked out. In the process, both the patch and its partner become *misaligned*― thus creating a new *Phasic node*. Such cataclysmic events are, as one can imagine, quite rare; they're usually caused by the influence of very large gravitational bodies, such as planets or stars, as well as rapid changes in the density or magnitude of said masses, such as supernovae.

### Description

A Phasic node is, in very simplistic terms, a wormhole in subspace. The nature, length, capacity, and other features of the node vary widely based on a host of factors, all of which would be impossible to record accurately and completely for every node in the galaxy. Like realspace wormholes, however, most pertinent traits can be determined by analyzing only a few of these variables― in particular, the density and movements of its component particles. Unlike realspace wormholes, however, Phasic nodes have much less distinct boundaries; one can theoretically enter and exit a Phasic node from any point, though there are often many practical issues associated with this. Like the patches that generate them, Phasic nodes are restricted to the energy strata they are created in; a node born in strata α (k = -1), for example, does not extend to strata β (k = -2) or realspace (k = 0), and vice versa.

### ENT Predictions

While many of a Phasic node's traits are a product of its unique circumstances, ENT does allow us to make some generalized predictions based on the energy level it resides in. For example: as the energy level increases, nodes tend to have shorter lifespans. The gradient here is somewhat extreme: for the lower subspace levels (k < -21), any nodes formed today will likely last until the heat death of the universe― whereas nodes from higher hyperspace levels (k > 17) will rarely last more than a few seconds. Additionally, lower-strata nodes tend to be easier to access from any point, whereas higher-strata nodes are much more finicky.

## History

### Pre- and Early Federation

In an attempt to explain Zephram Cochrane's faster-than-light engine, humanity's leading physicists called a forum combined forces to create ENT― specifically, what is now known as the *Parallel Bispatial Interpretation*, which interpretation held that exerting a sufficient stress directly on the fabric of spacetime would allow one to enter a "subspatial dimension", parallel to our own. However, this theory was soon superseded when the first generation of accurate starship sensor systems showed that velocity at warp was not constant for a given "stress coefficient" (an early term for warp factor)― thus paving the way for the *Asymmetrical Bispatial Interpretation* (ABI).

This process would repeat itself many times over in the years to come: ABI would soon be superseded by the *Recursive Singularity Interpretation*, which would itself be bested by another interpretation, and so on. When humanity joined the UFP in 2161, it hoped to utilize the huge reams of data collected by the other spacefairing races in their much longer tenure in the void to finally end the cycle; instead, the discovery only spawned several parallel, competing (and often contradictory) camps, as other races and factions joined the fray with their own experience and interpretations. A pattern of constant revision and clashing over new data would come to define the field now known as Exophysics for over a century and a half.

### Subspace Plane Intepretation

In 2346, the *Subspace Plane Interpretation* was proposed, an amalgamation of several of the period's leading interpretations; in three years, it would become the dominant interpretation within the Federation. SPI, as it was often called at the time, was revolutionary in that it was the first interpretation to correctly infer the existence of Phasic Nodes as they are known today; combined with a primitive understanding of modern subspace, and SPI was able to produce measurements far more accurate than any previous interpretation― eventually culminating in the reworking of the warp scale to better reflect realistic starship Pertrand values. That said, SPI had several critical issues― it couldn't explain events such as subspace maelstroms or verteron tempests, and incorrectly made several incorrect assumptions about subspace energy layers.

Far more damaging than all this, however, was the theory's failure to even address the other half of exospace: hyperspace. Although many previous interpretations had either implied or stated the existence of another set of exospace dimensions parallel to subspace, the founders of SPI ―particularly Richard Arcite― argued vehemently against it― usually citing a suspicious lack of empirical evidence. For the warp-based Federation and the other old empires, this explanation worked well enough― leading to a relative peace in the field of exophysics that hadn't been witnessed in decades, as scientists moved more toward testing and refining the existing theory than creating new ones.

## See Also

* List of FTL Drives (WIP)
* Corralyn Exospace Mechanics
* FTL Drive infobox
* Old FTL thoery stuff (one paragraph!)
* This Ex Astric Scientia article, which served as the foundation for much of what you see here

## Notes

1. ↑ Often referred to by the umbrella term "exospace"
2. ↑ Or "realspace", as the jargon goes
3. ↑ Time and another, recently-discovered dimension (simply called "Alman's plane") are organized into a fourth set; due to their comparatively bizarre nature, this set is referred to as Set 0, not Set 4.
4. ↑ The exception to this with the exception of a few areas which have undergone a still-poorly-understood effect known as "tachyonic breaking", which creates significant "rifts" between equivalent exospace and relaspace coordinates; note that this effect only breaks the alignment between exospace and realspace, *not* between hyperspace and subspace. However, because of the tendency of hyperspace to "condense" points and subspace to "disperse" them, this breaking effect does tend to be much more pronounced in hyperspace than subspace.
5. ↑ Hence why they'd both described with the same unit!
6. ↑ A grouping of subatomic particle, not unlike baryons or leptons, which only occur in (and account for the bulk of) exospace.
7. ↑ While all four are accepted to refer to the same entities, the favored choice depends on the context: the first is rather informal layman terminology; the second is preferred by organizations involved directly in interstellar transport, such as militaries or trading corporations; the third is preferred by engineers, especially those working in FTL-propulsion; and the fourth is used by exospace physicists and other scientists. For all practical purposes, however, these terms are interchangeable, and this document uses them as such.
8. ↑ As touched on briefly before, convention has hyperspace thought of as "above" realspace, with the least energetic layer thought of as the first and closest, and the most energetic layer as the last and farthest. For subspace, this is reversed: the most energetic is the closest, and the least farthest. The reasoning for this will become clear below.
9. ↑ By this convention, realspace is usually represented by either the Hebrew letter aleph (א) or simply 0 (pronouned "nought").
10. ↑ Realspace is generally understood to be k = 0.
11. ↑ Simple formula: f = (x / v) / I = x / I\*v, where: f = Frequency; x = Number of exotrons in patch; I = Intensity of Higgs Field; v = Patch's "volume", in qe4
12. ↑ The margin for what is considered in sync varies inversely with energy level― higher-energy patches have a much smaller margin than those of lower-energy strata, and vice versa.
13. ↑ This is why, as some of the more attentive of you may have noticed, the system for categorizing exospace strata is based off Saljuk's Wormhole Classification Scale: for many years, exospace scientists and FTL engineers mostly interacted with only these phasic nodes― mistakenly believing exospace to be a series of wormholes, the Saljuk system was usually used, to many a starship captain's confusion. It wasn't until the mid-24th century that this issue was clarified and a more modern and accurate vision of subspace was acknowledged.
14. ↑ The term "subspace" as we know it would not enter the scientific lexicon for over a century, in 2228.
15. ↑ ENT still had yet to catch on with the Alpha and Beta quadrant's other powers, such as the Romulans or Klingons, who often simply clung to whatever theories they had crafted themselves. It wouldn't be until the Dominion War that ENT finally became widespread throughout the two quadrants.