The Skibby on Space Travel
All through science fiction, one thing that is ever prevalent is space travel! That's right, traveling from star to star, world to world, dimension to dimension. Here I have a short list of space drives/travel styles from quite a few different series and books. In OHA many races use different methods. Drives with a * by them were made by me and are used exclusivly in OHA.
Hyper Drive:(Classic, used in Starwars, Startrek etc) uses Hyperspace to get
to any point in SPACE. Just about any race can use
this and it's the most primitive of space drives used.
The Millenium Falcon from Star Wars used this.
---Advantages: No special training/body type needed to use, quick, fairly stable.
---Disadvantages: Chance of appearing in a moving object, asteroid field, large planet eating shark etc. Hard to get a decently made
drive. Fuel is expensive Everybody has one.
FTL Drive:(Used in Anne McCaffrey novels, it's now very popular in
Scifi) Very fast mode of transportation but puts huge stress on the body.
Regular elves, weakened humans, Carns, and Pearlonians have to be in cold
sleep to ride in a ship that has this drive. A piolet must have enhanced reflexes,
senses, etc to use this drive and currently it isn't very popular as it lacks the
easy of Hyper Space and can be very dangerous.
---Advantages: Up to four times faster than hyper drive, no problems with moving objects, extremely fast transport with little or no error
---Disadvantages: Only brainships and piolets that are highly trained can run it, chance of overshooting target, extremely expensive. Driver must have inhuman stamina and reflexes as well as a computer implanted into their brain. Thus...it's really really hard to find someone to use it Graphensburg Drive (G-drive):(used in This Alien Shore, the
radiation from this drive mutated all near it causing "alien" races to appear in space)
This is the type of Hyperdrive used in the few human ship fleets on Karu.
It's slower than FTL but can jump places like Hyperspace. The only problem is
that prolonged exposure to the engines mutates all humans near them into new
critters...this drive isn't used much.
---Advantages: Easily made
---Disadvantages: Warping of genes, death from radiation, highly explosive, no chance of refueling, slow
Singularity:(First used in the "Ship Who Sang" series by McCaffrey. It was used only by the Brainships because it took alot of computing power to make the jumps) It's the fastest of all ship drives as it uses other dimensions to jump to any place in space or time. Of course..there is a huge risk involved such as suddenly appearing on the other side of your join point INSIDE a planet, or in two peices. The Shikkari in OHA used this...though not very well ^`^
1.)Intradimensional travel mutates the DNA of any who use it. Constant use through Jinking (that's Geli's teleporting), Singularity, or time travel results in incurable cancer or mutations, best not discussed in polite company.
2.)Stuff in other dimensions like to eat ships. 'Nuff said.
3.)The stress on the brain during travel at that speed is enough to instantly drive most mortals insane. For this reason, all non-piolet travelers on these hyperships are either put in cold sleep, sedated, or otherwise occupied.
Generation Ships:(The first theory of space travel used in scifi and proposed by NASA. "The Dark Beyond the Stars" uses this as well as hundreds of other stories.)
A few alien races use ships the size of small planets where a race lives there
for generations to get someplace. It's a nutty idea but the people of earth use it.
---Advantages: Easy to do, great for colinizing, doesn't have to be fast
---Disadvantages: Loss of mass through deaths, size of the ship needed, way to make sure that one sickness doesn't
kill the entire crew, training problems, how to make the return trip.
P.R.I.M.(Primitive Repulsar Interdemensional Machines) Drive:(The space drive used in Lexx and many other Biotech influenced scifi novels. This came from the idea that the body makes tons of extra power that it doesn't use and it can be harnessed.) This is a sort of one person shuttle craft used on Bioships. They're actually biomechanical creatures which can jump demensions to get from one place to another and use repulsar mechanics to help them move. The shikkari use this regularly when in space and sometimes on land. Due to the BIO nature of the mechs they can be a total pain in the ass around plants however. Bugs like plants. These bioships can resemble fish like creatures, bugs, or other squishy animals and have liminited intelligence.
---Advantages: Can drive themselves more or less, make fuel from eating at stops at planets, if you get lonely you can talk to the ship but they're kind of stupid so conversations are limited,
---Disadvantages:if a ship doesn't like someone, they won't let them board. Some ships might learn to hate their pilots and kill them or ignore their commands if abused. When low on fuel a ship might tend to vere off of the set path and land for a lunch break. Ships can actually DIE and then you don't repair it, you have to grow a new one. THey can get sick, get parasites and are generally a total pain in the ass without nanotech to take care of them Hyperspace Portals:(First used in Cowboy Bebop and Red Planet, the theory being that it's easier to travel in the black between frames than through the frames themselves) Ships fly through huge floating portals in space which take them through hyperspace. However, these aren't the most stable and have a chance of exploding and showering the planet they're orbiting with deadly radiation. Not pretty.
---Advantages: Nearly instantaneous travel with any item, always gets you to the right place
---Disadvantages: allows big brother to see what anybody does, can explode and destroy entire planets, highly unstable and pains in the ass to build StarGates/Dimensional Portals(Used in Dragonlance, Stargate, Serrated Edges, and many other series) Imagine stepping through a watery gate one moment, and ending up on another planet or dimension the next. This is called Gating. Many fantasy settings use this, this effect can also be caused by a spell called Dimensional Door. In OHA the Drak's set up portals like this, all linked to eachother across their giant empire.
---Advantages: Stable, instant travel between gates given that the user knows what they're doing, hard to break and if they do they don't really hurt anybody
---Disadvantages: space for taking items through is limited, hard to understand and get to working, they act like links on a web site and sometimes you have to gate multiple times to get to the right place, if that place still has a functioning gate. Disfunctional gates tend to burp out all sorts of strange creatures from whatever realm the portal stopped in last which isn't really a good thing...unless you're looking to gain some extra EXP
That's enough for now. If you've come across another type of space travel just tell me and I'll post it (with credit to you!)
