Altspace

An alternate dimension used for faster than light travel. Ships “skip” along the surface of altspace to traverse long distances. An altspace drive has multiple variables – size of the field, “Depth” into which it pushes into Altspace, and efficiency. The more immersed a ship is in altspace, the less of a traceable signal it shows in realspace, but the more likely it is to become lost. Altspace travel is risky and exposes the crew to dangerous levels of radiation, so shielding is necessary to survive. The deeper the immersion, the more dangerous it becomes.

Ships traveling in altspace have difficulty operating any kind of sensor equipment, since they’re traveling FTL in realspace. Ships in realspace can detect ships in altspace. There’s a minimum IMMERSION level required to avoid collisions wwith micrometeors and other objects. Theoretically, a sufficiently powerful immersion drive could allow a ship to fly through massive objects, like stars and planets.

Altspace travel is still powered by conventional engines – the Immersion Drive simply modulates the degree to which the ship exists in each dimension, it doesn’t provide thrust.

Altspace travel is limited by navigation and overheating – immersion drives generate large amounts of dangerous radiation that must be vented. If an immersion drive overloads, it not only causes thermal and radiation damage to the insides of its ship (up to and including explosion), it also collapses the waveform, forcing the ship either entirely into realspace (in which case it experiences severe relativistic effects), or altspace (it is never seen again).

For this reason, the majority of altspace travel consists of hops from one system to another along known routes. Altspace routes are constantly shifting, not only due to galactic drift but to the enigmatic changes of altspace itself, called "currents." Navigation information is therefore highly valuable and often hidden, sold, or carefully regulated.