Superluminal Drive

Superluminal propulsion systems - most commonly referred to as the superluminal drive or as the FTL drive - are a vital component of ships that allows them to traverse the vast distances of space at faster than lightspeed.

Any vessel, regardless of size, that is equipped with a superluminal drive is referred to as a starship.

Any starship which is within superluminal space - also known as warpspace - is said to be in "superluminal maneuvering". Ships going into superluminal maneuvering are referred to as "transiting warpspace". Any starship coming out of superluminal maneuvering is "dropping from warpspace".

Operation
After receiving commands from the pilot station of a starship, the process of transiting warpspace begins with the superluminal motivator drawing a gamma radiation charge off of the ship's main reactor and looping the energy through the superconductor coil, which is then funneled through the horizontal boosters of the superluminal drive. The boosters, in turn, ionize the gamma radiation to an extreme level which ignites the release charge from the motivator to create time-space matrix ripples which the starship will ride as it transits into warpspace.

At this moment, the inertial dampeners kick in to protect the ship, its crew and its aboard equipment and cargo against the crushing forces of the ships tremendous acceleration. Once in warpspace, the null field stabilizes the vessel, and the stasis attunement coil prevents the relativistic passing of time. The deflector shields of the vessel also will serve to protect the ship from collisions with dark matter or highly concentrated interstellar gases.

To drop from warpspace, a starship achieves this by reversing the superluminal motivator and similarly cuts off the energy feeds to the superconductor coil. As the motivator reverses, the ship slips from warpspace and rides a wake rotation "down" from warpspace transit. Detection of the burst of Cronau radiation created by dropping from warpspace is one of the key methods used to pick up on the presence of vessels entering an area.

When vessels drop out of warpspace, anyone who happens to be physically observing the area into which said vessels make their drop will see a swirling corona of multicolored energy, which is the ship's superluminal motivator bleeding off the remaining energy from the high level used to enter and maintain warpspace transit.

Safeguards
To protect a starship against the risk of gravitational shear, produced by transiting warpspace too close to the gravity mass of a celestial body, all superluminal capable ships are equipped with a failsafe that will automatically trip the process for dropping from warpspace and return the vessel to realspace.

Whie transiting warpspace, starships employ a warpspace shunt as a means to prevent overheating of the superluminal drive, while alluvial dampeners help regulate the highly ionized particles which provide superluminal thrust.

Rating
The superluminal rating of a starship is a marker of its capability in terms of the speeds with which it can travel when transiting warpspace. A lower number indicates a more powerful and more efficient drive design. All vessels are rated on a scale of Grade 1 to Grade 5.

While the Grade of a starship's superluminal drive indicates its maximum velocity, all starships are capable of moderating their speed if they wish to travel any velocity between their capability and the lower end of the scale. For example, all Antaran military starships are equpped with a Grade 1 drive, but they commonly cruise at speeds closer to Grade 3 level.

To gain an understanding of capability, a starship equipped with a Grade 1 superluminal drive would be capable of traversing the entire width of the Great Spiral - 120,000 light years - in 72 hours (3 days). A Grade 2 drive equipped vessel would do the same in 215 hours (9 days). A Grade 3 does so in 648 hours (27 days), a Grade 4 in 1,944 hours (81 days), and a Grade 5 in 5,833 hours (243 days).

This scale translates thus -


 * Grade 1 - 16.66 (1,666 LY per hour)


 * Grade 2 - 5.56 (555.56 LY per hour)


 * Grade 3 - 1.85 (185.18 LY per hour)


 * Grade 4 - 0.61 (61.72 LY per hour)


 * Grade 5 - 0.205 (20.57 LY per hour)

Risks
Occasionally, the superluminal drive of a starship will malfunction while in operation. When this occurs, many things can happen, however most consequences are largely unknown and usually fatal.

One uncommon malfunction is a failure of the relativistic shielding provided by the stasis attunement coil. In this case the ship and its passengers are exposed to the altered time-space of warpspace, and results in severe time distortion. A journey which should have been hours can take centuries in realspace.

Due to poor maintenance, a superluminal drive can slip from its casing, resulting in the destruction of the engines. The incident can also result in the entire ship being destroyed. Damaged superconductor lines can cause a power drain that will seriously affect the ship's performance while in warpspace.

If the failsafes preventing superluminal transit while close to a celestial mass do not operate correctly, the ship can experience severe gravimetric shear, which puts immense stress on the ship's frame and also burns out the superluminal drive. If the ship is actually physically within the gravity well of the celestial mass, the gravimetric shear usually tears the vessel apart. On most ships, in the event gravimetric shear, a failsafe sensor that monitors the drive will disengage it from the main reactor to prevent gravimetric feedback that could cause the ship's power plant to "flare out". This helps to preserve life support, shields and artificial gravity.

In the event a vessel enters warpspace but its superluminal drive becomes damaged, depending on the severity of the damage one of three things usually happens - (1) the ship is destroyed, (2) the ship is trapped in warpspace until repairs are affected to the superluminal drive or (3) the ship automatically drops from warpspace.