Origin Drive

The Idea

Faster than light travel has been a concept humanity has chased for generations, once thought pure science fiction, the first successful test of FTL travel revolutionised Earth technology. The Origin Drive was devised by NASA scientists as Earths first terraforming project was beginning to be thought of. The idea was that the drive would be the only thrust capability whilst traversing space, outputting high speeds to reach Mars in a matter of weeks rather than months. Once Mars' terraforming began NASA turned its aerospace development teams to work on increasing the capability of the Origin Drive, achieve as close to lightspeed as possible. A space shuttle would be docked at the second international space station, and work would begin on the Origin Drives capabilities there. The idea that launching the ship from orbit rather than the Earth surface meaning that the energy needed to break through the atmosphere wouldn't be needed and all energy could be focused on achieving the high speed goal. There were a few mistakes and failed attempts, but the theory was sound. The speed output by the Origin Drive grew greater and greater. It didn't take long for Martian Terraforming teams to be able to reach the planets surface in a few days. NASA, Roscosmos and JAXA took this accomplishment to go to their respective governing bodies (United States, Russian, Japan) to petition them to come together with the ESA (The European Space Agency) to form a singular space agency for future interplantery missions, reconnaissance and discovery. The United States, Japan and ESA all came together, Russia was more reserved leading to many Russian Aerospace Engineers and Astronomers to leave their home and seek scientific asylum in the EU to begin this new organisation. United Earth Space Agency, or UESA, esablished control over both international space stations, whilst retaining other space agencys to land and work aboard them and set about their first collective mission. Break the speed of light.

Breaking the Speed of Light

The UESA worked tirelessly to improve the speed of the Origin Drives, soon travel to Saturn and Juipter could be done in months. But the agency began to hit a limit, the Origin Drives as they were building them could not break the light barrier. It was only through a moment of luck did the technology reach a successful moment. In one of the exploration jounreys made by the UESA, by the UESS Venture, to the very edges of our solar system, they discovered a vessel. A long abandoned ship built by an unknown extra terrasital group. Humanities first encounter with aliens. The ship was empty, with no life present, and seemed that the crew had left the ship after it sustatined some damage, a large hole in the vessels hull. The crew of the Venture bound the vessel to theirs and began towing it back towards Earth. The journey was long, the crew not wanting to risk high speed flight in case the tow broke or the high speeds exacerbated the damage to the hull. The journey that took a couple months initially took 4 years to return. Additional ships were launched to support the Venture's journey home, sending food and supplies for the crew; when the UESA attemped to relieve the crew and bring them home, establishing a rotation so that the astronauts home lives weren't too disrupted, every crew member aboard refused. They had found this ship, and they would see it home. After docking the ship in the ISS2, the news was out. With UESA not being beholdant to any governments or world order that would attempt to hide away the discovery, the people on Earth learnt that they we're definitively not alone in the universe. The information about the extent of the vessels damage was kept dark until a more official report and assessment could be conducted. But among the UESA scientists and engineers, the answer was clear, not only was humanity not alone. They were no longer the apex predator. Something had clawed its way into the ship. After the vessel, dubbed the Entity, was docked and sealed inside the interal airlock, the weightlessness of the ISS2's interior disappeared. Not only was the Entity humanitys way to break light speed, but false gravity. The engineers and scientists worked tirelessly, cataloguing every inch of the ship. Every scratch, every rivet, every piece of technology. They determined component E045 to be the ships light speed engine. Strangely aboard the ship was very similar to Earth's, the design and structural materials varied, but an engine is an engine. The understanding of how to overcharge engines to produce enough energy to break light speed came down to one element. Named after the UESS Venture, Ventureon. A heavy gaseous element, that could be fed into the reaction engines aboard space shuttles, in addition to its traditional rocket fuel, combusted with incredible power. Now they had access, and more importantly, knew what it was composed of, the UESA created dection senors to find more to harvest. Sending out the senors to every gas giant in the system, every nearby nebula and cloud belt. Saturn. Ventureon was found on Saturn. Thus inducted Earths first space station orbiting a different planet. Three years to construct the Saturn Orbital Colony. Two years of harvesting and figuring out how to store the gas safely. And a year and a half testing and perfecting the injection of Ventureon into the thrusters through the Origin Drives. And Humanity had done it. Through luck. Through discovery. Through science. Research. Engineering. And most importantly, an ever present dream to explore the stars. Humanity had broken the speed of light. The last frontier to discover was open.

Utility

The Origin Drive is humanities answer to faster than light travel, or FTL travel. It is an injection engine to an aerospace ships thrusters, that super charge the outputting thrust to the engines, achieving speeds faster than the speed of light.

Parent Technologies

Chemical Rockets

Access & Availability

Origin Drives are freely available to any captain with their own ship. Though originally after its perfection and FTL capabilities only available to UESA ships and shuttles, as humanity began its first colony mission outside the solar system, Genesis, manufacturing companies on Earth began producing ships and shuttles for the everyday person. And with that everyone had access, provided they could afford it.

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