Interstellar Travel

Interstellar travel, also known as Faster Than Light (FTL) travel, refers to how material can travel quickly between star systems. It is vital to any space-faring civilisation that interstellar travel can be accomplished in as short of a time as physically possible, as simply moving quickly through empty space can still take years, and often decades or even centuries. As such, appropriate technology is constantly being invented and developed in order to further progress in the field and make interstellar travel as reliable as possible.

FTL travel is achieved through various means. This is done through the use of advanced machines called Warp Drives - gigantic and complex systems that often take up a large percentage of a starship’s volume. The drive size to transport mass tend to be directly proportional - the larger the warp drive, the larger the possible quantity of transported material. From start to finish, the time experienced by crew members throughout one trip between systems using a warp drive can be from 15 minutes to upwards of ten hours, proportionate to the relative stability and overall distance to the target destination.

Long range (from planet to planet or even system to system) communication systems use a miniature form of warp drives, typically called Long Range Transmission Ports (LRTP) to quickly be passed over long distances. This extremely fast method of bypassing distance can reduce the relative travel time of transmissions from several decades to a few minutes. As they are merely transporting information in the form of waves, they do not require as much precision to process packets of data. However, the nature of some LRTP (such as the ones used in internet operation) mean they require this processing to be constant, which requires both additional technology, power and monitoring.

Calculations performed by researchers using the quantum mass projection method of travel show that the average of ~2 hours experienced by personnel to travel between adjacent planets in a system hints at an equivalent relative velocity of about 2% of the speed of light. However, with more power being used to travel between nearby systems, this percentage increases exponentially (and even considerably overcomes 100%). It is worth noting that time is not expected to function exactly the same during active FTL travel but it is currently unknown as to why it differs depending on distance. There were attempts to compare these variations with the Kolban Alliance's established time system, but these failed to draw any accurate connections. Some argue that the estimated velocities that come out of these calculations are not at all relevant to the operation of warp drives due to these seemingly arbitrary inconsistencies.