This can be anything from Hyperspace in Star Wars, Warp Drive in Star Trek, travel through the Warp in Warhammer 40k or anything else.

I’ve always liked “slow” FTL travel, where going a few light-years still takes a few days or so. I also really like travel through an alternate dimension like in 40k, Event Horizon, Witchspace in Elite Dangerous.

I wanna know your favorite versions, or do you prefer stories that obey the laws of known physics, like the Expanse or Rimworld?

  • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
    10·
    13 hours ago

    I love the Farcaster network of the World Web from Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos (for anyone who hasnt read the books, they’re essentially frameless stargates that are always on). Such a cool concept of being able to build a series of them linking the main commercial streets of the biggest cities on different planets together; thus making one gigantic and near endless market across hundreds of worlds… and anyone can just walk from one planet to another across hundreds or thousands of light years.

    What I really like about that book series though is that the Farcasters are not the only means of FTL… and that there are sound reasons to use another method over them OR even to oppose your planet getting connected to the Farcaster network. Just seriously good world building.

    • ours@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 hours ago

      In the later books, the alternative FTL is wild too. The acceleration is so brutal that on every jump, you will be smashed to a pulp and then spend days being put back together.

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
      5·
      12 hours ago

      Fuck!

      Turns out my “quantum superposition rifts” where certain spaces (biomes) exist in multiple locations at once allowing seemless passing between worlds, are not as original as i thought.

      Well i don’t know how Dan Simmons Explained the science behind it but in effect it would end up very similar.

      • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
        2·
        7 hours ago

        It was a bit of “handwave-ium” and sentient AI. Here’s the Wiki for the series if you want to compare your concept…

        Here’s an article about the Farcasters themselves and here’s the article about the World Web that AI and humanity ran with them.

    • decended_being@midwest.social
      3·
      11 hours ago

      I was so disappointed with that book, but agreed that was a cool system. The way the one house is described with different rooms on different worlds, and how he gets used to the differing gravity between doorways is incredible.

      • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
        3·
        7 hours ago

        Oh yeah… the poet’s house was dope as fuck.

        I would love a series about an “Interplanetary University” that had its campus setup across several dozen planets using Farcasters. That would be an interesting setting in the Hyperion universe.