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?
My favourite one is Red Dwarf when they see the future. Requires a fair amount of “dont think about it” but its still a great plot.
I like the kind where they didn’t try to explain it. Trying to show how they make their sausage never works out well. I can suspend disbelief for FTL but not for their stupid explanations
Macguffin it just enough to be maybe plausable, give it enough rules to make it interesting, be consistent and then shut the fuck up about it.
in mass effect, the core can manipulate the mass of a surrounding ship, making lightspeed travel possible.
The Infinite Probability Drive from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I liked the wormholes from the Bobbyverse. You had instantaneous travel across interstellar distances but you had to get there via slower than light speed first. So no matter how technologically advanced you became your interstellar civilisation still grew at a rate of one or two systems per decade.
That series has a good progression too. It starts limited by light speed, then gets FTL communication, and finally FTL travel.
Hyperdrives, sg1,sga,sgu. wormholes, and interdimensional teleportation, bsg is one such one. Warp is basically just "manipulating the space around it, using subspace(an alternate dimension for both sg1 and star trek). apparently its the slowest form of ftl. compartively to the likes of borg. even caretaker has a very advanced intergalactic ftl( interdimensional rift) later in sg1,sga, they have access to intergalatic hyperdrives which are superior to interstellar ones. with hyperdrives they arnt restricted to the limit of travelling faster than light speed in the normal universe. they explained hyperspace does not have such a limit, and isnt subjected to time dilation effects of approaching close or faster than light speed.
it seems ftl that requires traveling through a medium like warp hyperspace have limitation of power requirements and engine designs. Teleportation seems dont have that limit, aside from power requirements.
trek also have other form of quirky ftl, like the vortex drive of the xindi, coaxial and the rift generation. most other shows use teleportation, or interdimensional portals.
Recently read Hayden’s World and there’s some FTL in there that (mostly) obeys relativity and the associated time dilation issues, so that was fun to see. Also, a generally unpleasant experience for the humans on the craft. Otherwise I liked KSR’s Red/Blue/Green Mars, how the story developed travel technology organically on a timeline.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Would make for an epic setting for a Sci Fi show like The Magicians.
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.
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.
The exact mechanics are never explained, but I’ve always loved “fenestering” in David Zindell’s Neverwhere and Requiem For Homo Sapiens trilogy.
A pilot, in a one-person “lightship”, interfaces with their computer, merging their minds into one. They then solve maths equations which have never been solved before and prove new mathematical theories. This opens up a window underneath the ship, which it falls in to, into hyperspace. They then need to do more novel maths to open up the window to where they’re going and fall through that.
It’s weird and it’s nerdy and it’s poetic and it’s mystical, like everything in the books, and it’s just so incredibly cool.
Does L space in the Discworld novels count?
The Mirrors in Book of the New Sun. Basic idea is to surround yourselves with mirrors until you create an infinity room and then, through ‘exactly aligned’ lights, the light waves don’t cancel out but instead ‘push’ objects out of the universe, returning at the destination when the light slows down to universal speeds.
So like a video game no clip skip?
yes, and it also lets you time travel
the farcaster network built by a machine super intelligence in Hyperion. unbelievable
Slipspace from Halo.
You can weaponize that shit in a pinch if you wish. It seems to be the appropriate FTL method for humanity to use.
Tbf, you can weaponize a lot of methods of FTL in a pinch.
In Mass Effect their guns literally work on the same fundamentals as their FTL, just scaled down.
40k’s Warp… well, it’s where Psykers get their power from so every space wizard is kinda weaponizing FTL at all times if you squint. The warp itself doesn’t need weaponizing, but you probably could.
Stargates just sort of… disintegrate things that are in the way when they open. I can’t remember an instance of them weaponizing that, but I’d be shocked if it never happens.
More than once they used the Stargate to destroy something or to cut into rock.
The Stargate device has been weaponised plenty. The best one being in a satellite shooting a high powered laser from orbit.
I gotta argue that the best one was dropping a Stargate into a star to make it explode and take out a solar system.
Fair point
Event Horizon… it just had a few downsides.
Shortcut through hell. Quick adventure - in and out in 20 minutes!
That’s basically 40k.
Liberate tu temet ex infernis
In the Commonwealth Saga it’s trains! It’s portals with hugely demanding power consumption. They mostly have to stay fixed to one place and open. So they run choo choos. Their world is commerce and economics. And trains are a lovely symbol of that.
In The Final Architecture it’s jaunty. Unspace helps you go fast but you are always alone. Crewmates gone. When you come out they reappear. When you inside there is something coming to get you. Something that lives in unspace and doesn’t like that we use it for travel. The terror of its hunting you drives everyone to suicide. So instead they sleep. Magic “you sleep now” pods for everyone.
Except. You can only sleep if you are on a known route. Some rare people can feel out new routes. And they have to say awake. Most shows just follow normal routes. But the special ships with these other folks can go all over the place! At the cost of route terror.
The books are about coming together in the face of adversity cosmic horror. And unspace is a foil to that. You are alone. But we do what we can anyway. Your alone now, but not forever. Unless the monster gets you.
The Commonwealth Saga is so great.
The portals / train system brings the vibes of the commonwealth up to something like the EU, but on a multi-planetary scale. You have to go through specific points to get planet to planet but the infrastructure is so built up that it’s mostly a travel time problem. It becomes an issue later on that the society has gotten kind of hidebound into a gradual expansion so they never really ‘needed’ FTL for exploration, and now they do.
I get US robber baron vibes too.
Fair warning for those who decide to read it, the book doesn’t treat women particularly well. And it’s the best propaganda I’ve read for capitalism. Read it with eyes open and it’s fun. Great villains. Fun world building. It ends well. And trains!
And it’s like a 1000 page long novel split into two books.
