Gazer Drive

The **Gazer Drive** is a device within most human-built voidships, and within a few types of alien craft, which allows the vessel to travel at superluminal speeds, a procedure known as "Gazer Jumping". Gazer Drives make interstellar travel possible by making use of a pair of devices called the Ilsam Mass Oscillator and the Zhang-Wu Spacial Distortion Generator (though alien versions carry different names and configurations). Utilizing the Oscillator, a Gazer Drive can generate vast amounts of power, which is then channeled into the Distortion Generator, which stretches and folds space-time around the vessel, allowing it to travel across the vast distances of space at what appears to be a considerable speed to any outside observer. Those within a vessel making a Gazer Jump perceive themselves moving at the same rate as before the jump, while those outside will see the vessel seemingly disappear as it moves faster than light in Euclidean space.

Most Human-built voidships can carry a variant of the Gazer Drive, though smaller craft typically carry less efficient variants, limiting their jump capability to short hops between systems, while larger vessels, such as the great battleships of the United Systems, carry more powerful drives, allowing them to cross vast distances in relatively short amounts of time.

## History

The Gazer Drive, at least the version developed by Humanity, was developed some time during the Second Great Ash War by scientists upon the dwarf planet of Pluto. The Plutians, long separated from the political turmoil of the inner Solar System, decided that they would continue their work, heedless of the mass slaughter taking place closer to Sol. The actual date of invention has been lost to the ages, but it is known that by the time the United Nations declared victory over the secessionist colonies, ending the Ash Wars, the Plutians had already built and tested the first Gazer Drive, using two vessels, one with a Drive and one without,to travel to the edge of the Oort Cloud and back. The Gazer-equipped vessel made the journey in a few hours, while the sublight vessel had barely reached a single Astronomical Unit from Pluto before it was recalled.

With the fires of the Ash Wars behind them, the United Nations, and many of the Old Nations of Earth, ordered dozens of these drives to be built, and began readying a great exploratory fleet to venture beyond the confines of Sol. The "Pathfinder Ships" of the Old Nations ventured into the void first, scattering out to the various stars close to Sol. Some, like the American-made vessel, *USS Manifest Destiny*, were lost, while others laid down the first anchor beacons, which would guide the great United Nations Athens Class colony ships under construction over Mars. Though the early Gazer Drives were slow and inefficient, they provided the jolt which started the Human Diaspora and ushered in the First Expansionary Period out of the bleakness of the First Dark Age of Man.

## Jump Procedure

Before a voidship can make a Gazer Jump, it must first reach what is known as a Lagrange Point, the point in space where the folding of space-time will not be affected by the sheer mass of a stellar body like a planet, moon, or star. Jumping within the gravity well of a stellar body is risky at best, as the dip in space-time cause by the body could pull the fold containing the vessel into it, forcing it into the mass of the body itself.

Once a vessel is safely out of reach of a gravity well, its Gazer Drive can be activated, at which point its sublight engines become sufficient to travel at superluminal speeds, with space-time folding around the vessel. Turning while mid-jump is also considered dangerous, as it could throw a vessel far off course, leaving it within the emptiness of the void or crashing into a star, black hole, or other stellar hazard.

Upon reaching the target destination, or in the event of an emergency which requires dropping from a jump, the Gazer Drive is deactivated, the vessel seeming to slow down from being invisible, to a blur, to a rapidly moving object, to normal sublight speeds.

## Unusual Applications

### Gazer Ramming

Given the reinforced prows of United Systems warships, the ancient tactic of ramming continues to be exercised, and over the course of the Great War, many desperate captains independently stumbled upon an effective, if dangerous, strategy, directing their ship to perform a Gazer Jump *through* the hulls of alien vessels. This was most famously used by the Luna Class battleship *USVS Midway* during the Siege of Theostratus, where the ship, badly damaged and out of ammunition for its Heavy Railguns, Gazer Rammed the flagship of the besieging Zel'gan armada, the Byzann Class dreadnought *Yzag'kahr*, killing the commanding War Priest and causing the entire armada to break down, allowing the 3rd Fleet of Battlefleet Kaffa to regroup and defeat the aliens.

### Psionics

Initially just a pipe dream by a few United Systems scientists, a substantial research grant provided by the esteemed Miskatonic University brought forth a unique, if rare, application of the Gazer Drive, hooking it to the brain of a handful of people bearing a unique mutation. These persons were found to be able to command how space-time warped around them while plugged into the device. Seeing the opportunity, the United Systems Military established the Department of Extraconventional Operations, which began the process of rounding up people with this mutation and training them to use the Gazer Drive as weapons in space. Outfitted with specially designed Gazer Drives and housed in converted Bake-Kujira Class Special Operations Cruisers, rechristened as Kitsune Class Psionics Cruisers, these individuals command the weave of space-time to act as a protective shield and far-reaching spear for their respective fleets.