Space Travel

Space travel employs a variety of propulsion systems, each specialized for different forms of travel: planetary ascents, interplanetary transits, and interstellar voyages.

Planetary Ascent — Boost Drives

Most planetary ascent vehicles use Capacitive Plasma Launch Systems (CPLS)—commonly called Boost Drives. Unlike chemical rockets, Boost Drives operate without reactive mass. Instead, they are a high-energy system that generates plasma within a rocket-dome to produce thrust.

Due to their extreme energy demands, a ship’s reactor cannot power the engines in real time. Instead, prior to launch, the onboard reactor is spun up to peak output during a dedicated charging phase. This energy is stored in high-density capacitors at extremely high voltages, then rapidly discharged through the engines during ascent.

Boost Drives cannot sustain prolonged operation—not only due to their dependence on high-voltage discharges, but also because extended use risks overheating or damaging the thrust chambers. As a result, their role is limited to surface-to-orbit ascents and short maneuvering burns.

Interplanetary Travel — Slipstream Drives

The Slipstream Drive, or Spatial Reaction Engine (SRE), is humanity’s adaptation of alien Gray technology. Though it does not enable faster-than-light travel, it provides a viable, efficient means for interplanetary travel.

The drive works by creating an Albrecht-Gray Field, distorting the space around the vessel to push it forward—like a bar of soap slipping through squeezed hands. This field remains in effect during the entire journey, even when not accelerating or decelerating.

Speed and Inertia

While Slipstream Drives allow incredible speeds, they’re limited by both gravity and inertia. Exiting Slipstream without balancing out all built-up inertia will release it all at once, with catastrophic results for both the ship and its occupants—a phenomenon known as the “rubber-band effect.”

Gravitational interference also affects Slipstream stability. Near stars or massive planetary bodies, maximum speeds may drop to 1–3 AU/day, rising to 5 AU/day closer to the heliopause. Beyond the heliosphere, sustained acceleration can reach up to 100 AU/day—though doing so requires prolonged acceleration and deceleration periods to avoid the rubber-band effect.

Because ships remain in Newtonian space, relativistic time dilation occurs. Months may pass for the crew, while years pass outside. This makes Jump Drives preferable for interstellar travel when available, although Slipstream Drives can still be used in emergency situations, or when intentionally exploring deep space—it just means a decades if not centuries-long journey.

Most Slipstream vessels accelerate at 0.5–1g. Smaller ships lack gravity plating, so g-forces directly impact crew endurance. Larger vessels that can power both gravity plates and Slipstream Drives simultaneously can counter some of the g-forces, but the plates also cause degradation of the Albrecht-Gray Field. At higher g-forces, gravity plates become increasingly ineffective, with the practical ceiling around 1.5g of compensation.

Navigation & Hazards

Space may be vast, but it is far from empty. At Slipstream velocities, encountering even microscopic debris can be disastrous.

To avoid collisions, ships rely on a Gravitometric Array (GA)—a forward-scanning system that detects gravitational fluctuations in the Slipstream path. When a threat is identified, the ship will either adjust course or drop out of Slipstream entirely.

Entering the Slipstream is not instantaneous. The ship’s Gravitometric Array requires several minutes to scan and plot a viable path ahead.

Example Travel Times

Destination	Distance (AU)	Speed	Travel Time
Pluto	39 AU		8 days to 2 weeks
Heliosphere Edge	~100 AU		20 days to 7 weeks
Proxima Centauri	268,770 AU		9 to 18 years

Interstellar & Intergalactic — Jump Drives & Wormholes

Jump Drives enable faster-than-light travel by accessing wormholes found at the termination shock boundary of a star’s heliosphere. Wormholes are naturally occurring spatial bridges forming stable, fixed point-to-point links in an intergalactic network.

The duration of a journey through a wormhole has nothing to do with physical distance. A short hop might take weeks, while a leap across half the universe may last minutes. The factors that govern transit include alignment timing, drive calibration, and the wormhole’s stability itself.

Jump Drive Technology

Jump Drives consist of two components: the Bloom Extraction Core (BEC) and the Newtonian Frame Generator (NFG).

Until activated by a ship’s BEC, wormholes are latent, with no observable effect on nearby craft. The BEC defines the event horizon and aligns the vessel for safe entry into jumpspace.

When transiting a wormhole, ships exit Newtonian space and enter jumpspace, which has discordant physics. The NFG creates a localized zone of Newtonian physics, shielding the ship from jumpspace’s strange effects.

Both the BEC and NFG are provided by the alien Grays. Unlike Slipstream Drives, these devices come with strict prohibitions against reverse engineering. Despite this, some have tried, with each attempt ended disastrously. Some speculate the devices are rigged to self-destruct if tampered with, while others believe they resist observation on a fundamental level. Either way, the outcome is always the same: spectacular, megaton-scale explosions and residual reality instability.

Wormhole Astronomy

Wormholes behave differently depending on their position in a heliosphere. Those near the leading edge of a star’s heliosphere (heliosheath) tend to be the most stable, however travel to them can be difficult and slow due to the turbulence created there. Wormholes elsewhere in the heliosphere have more variability in behavior, but travel to them is less difficult.

Wormholes are created when fusion begins in a protostar. Once established, they do not drift, decay, or collapse—though new ones may still appear as stars are born. When a star dies, its wormholes typically dissolve. However, some persist as rogue wormholes, shifting to new heliospheres.

Upon formation, wormholes “lash out” until they find a connection with another heliosphere. These links are not limited by proximity. Roughly half connect to relatively nearby stars (on a galactic scale), while the others reach into more remote regions—even bridging intergalactic distances.

While they may appear as normal, rogue wormholes are notoriously unpredictable. Some exhibit unstable transit behavior; others defy known patterns entirely. A few are even rumored to connect to alternate universes within the broader metaverse—though such claims remain unverified.

Wormholes are classified as:

• Stable — Mapped wormholes with reliable destinations and tolerable transit times.
• Unstable — Mapped routes, but they have greater risk of Jumpshock Syndrome and fluctuating travel times.
• Unmapped — Unexplored or newly formed wormholes with unknown endpoints.
• Dead — Lead to catastrophically hostile environments.
• Rogue — Unstable and unpredictable wormholes. Highly dangerous despite appearing functional.

Jumpshock Syndrome

Jumpshock refers to a range of cognitive and sensory effects experienced during wormhole transit. While typically mild and temporary, symptoms can vary in severity. Espers and void-touched individuals are particularly susceptible. Most symptoms subside upon returning to Newtonian space.

The cause remains poorly understood, but leading theories suggest exposure to non-local spacetime geometries or incomplete shielding by the NFG.

Common symptoms:

• Acute Synesthesia — Sudden sensory cross-talk, such as seeing sounds or tasting light. Most often triggered during transit through a wormhole’s event horizon, less common during jumpspace travel.
• Biphase Dissociation — The sensation of existing in two places at once, with dual sensory input and thought streams.
• Chrono-Lag Syndrome — Distorted perception of time, where seconds feel like minutes or even hours, depending on severity.
• Empathic Bleed — Intrusions of others’ thoughts or emotions. Frequently seen in latent espers.
• Residual Void Sensitization — A post-jump ability to sense nearby void-touched entities. Effects usually fade within hours, though in some cases can persist for days.
• Temporal Apparitions — Brief hallucinations of people, voices, or environments, often perceived as echoes from the past or future.
• Temporal Dislocation — Severe déjà vu, contradictory memories, or overlapping recollections of alternate realities.
• Transient Aphasia — Temporary disruptions in language function, including language comprehension and even the ability to read, write, or speak.
• Vestibular Dysfunction — Sudden episodes of imbalance or spatial distortion. Particularly challenging during zero-G maneuvers (floatwork).

Famous Lost Expeditions

Despite centuries of mapping known wormholes, the vast majority remain unexplored or unmapped. Many vessels have vanished attempting to chart these unknown routes—some becoming cautionary tales, others near-legend.

Official policy discourages unauthorized entry into unmapped wormholes, though privateers and rogue explorers continue to take the risk—sometimes in search of fortune, other times simply for the story.

The Tantalus Reach

An exploration vessel that vanished exploring a wormhole in the Coreward Drift. No wreckage, signals, or escape pods were ever recovered. The Tantalus was later located a month later on the opposite side of the galaxy, and the ship’s logs reported it had been drifting for 152 years. The crew were never found.

The Split-Line Incident

A single jumpship made a misaligned event horizon transit, but two identical vessels emerged two years later—heavily damaged and with inconsistent logs. Even the crew were mirrors of themselves. However both crew rapidly experienced a declining cognitive state, and ultimately all died within a year.

Expedition 914: The Rosette Rift

During an exploration into a high-energy wormhole trailing edge of the Rosette system’s termination shock boundary. The ship never returned, but years later, fragments of the ship and crew were found fused into a mountainside on Marik V.

Space Ship Classes

Ships are classified by their propulsion systems and roles, falling into one of three categories: Stream-Class (non-jump-capable), Star-Class (jump-capable), or Gate-Class (infrastructure-scale vessels that shape interstellar logistics).

Stream-Class Vessels (Non-Jump-Capable)

Stream-Class vessels have no Jump Drive. Some Stream-Class vessels may also include Boost Drives for planetary ascent and descent, though these are typically found only on smaller hulls.

In civilian use, these ships range from planetary shuttles and private yachts to small cruise liners, freighters, and lightly armored civilian exploration vessels.

In military service, similar hulls are classified by role and loadout:

• Fighters - Small, short-range craft for dogfighting and interception.
• Transports – Light logistics ships for moving troops, cargo, and supplies within a star system.
• Cutters – Smaller and lightly armed, used for patrol, scouting, customs enforcement, and courier work.
• Corvettes – Fast ships designed for interdiction, recon, and escort duties.
• Destroyers – The heaviest armed Stream-Class ships, built for system-level defense.

Star-Class Vessels (Jump-Capable)

These ships possess their own Jump Drives, allowing autonomous interstellar travel without relying on Jumpships

In civilian use, Star-Class vessels include long-range cruise liners, corporate freighters, private interstellar yachts, and deep-range science vessels. These ships are used for exploration, commerce, and travel beyond the reach of regular Jumpship routes.

In military service, Star-Class hulls form the core of most fleets. They are used for strategic strikes, fleet coordination, and long-distance deployment:

• Tenders – Large support vessels used for fleet logistics, troop deployment, and infrastructure delivery between systems.
• Frigates – Light, fast warships capable of independent long-range missions and deep patrols.
• Cruisers – Balanced, multi-role combat ships used as long-range patrol vessels, or strike platforms.
• Carriers – Mobile platforms that deploy Fighters and other small craft used in fleet actions.
• Battleships – Heavily armored capital ships designed for system-level dominance.

Gate-Class Vessels

Massive vessels central to the interstellar network. Gate-Class ships reshape trade, travel, and warfare.

Jumpships

Mobile spaceports capable of ferrying dozens—sometimes hundreds—of Stream-Class vessels through wormholes. Much like space stations, they feature a wide range of amenities and public spaces, allowing passengers and crew to trade, socialize, and find entertainment during transit.

Since the Arrival, these vessels have evolved into micro-cities, serving as one of the last bastions of civilization. For many worlds, Jumpships are the only connection to the broader galaxy. With no Kraal sightings in Jumpspace, Jumpship transit is one of the few places where people feel truly safe.

Most Jumpships follow fixed circuits of interconnected wormholes, forming loops nicknamed gravelines by long-haulers.

While equipped with both Jump Drives and Slipstream capability, their massive size and complex docking arrays make them slow and unwieldy. As a result, they generally favor routes where wormholes lie relatively close together.

Colony Ships

Immense, self-sustaining vessels originally built to seed new worlds. Designed to carry thousands of passengers, modular infrastructure, and planetary deployment systems, they were once central to expansion-era missions.

Unlike Jumpships, they do not have the option to carry more than a few smaller vessels, and since the Arrival, most have been abandoned. The few that remain have become refugee arcs, drifting from system to system and spending as much time in Jumpspace as possible.

Starbases

Immense command platforms used as military Jumpships, fleet anchors, and sector control points. Outfitted with devastating weapons arrays, they serve in roles ranging from orbital bombardment to deep-space dominance. In some navies, they are called Dreadnoughts.