Hyperdrive

Hyperdrives are the resonance shift engines that allow for travel across spacetime at apparent velocity greater than the speed of light: an essential technology for interstellar civilizations. To do this, these engines utilize magnetic-driven Kaluza-Klein resonance to move through the extra dimension of hyperspace. There are two classes of resonance shift field projectors: hyperdrives and hyperdrivers, internal and external engines respectively.

Operational Principles

A hyperdrive engine, whether internal or external, requires a considerable amount of energy to generate and maintain a resonance shift field. This energy cost is proportional to the mass being shifted, and the power must be provided continuously or else the resonance shift field will collapse and the vessel will return to a fourth-dimensional resonance state -normal space, as it were.
Because of the energies involved and the nature of Kaluza-Klein theory, the generation and collapse of the field create minor electromagnetic and gravitational shockwaves. This also means that making a hyperspace jump too deep within a gravity well will cause the craft to suffer energetic overload, though this is a rare occurrence; making a system-to-system jump requires reaching escape velocity from the present system and matching the target system's relative proper motion, which requires the vessel to build up the required velocity with sublight (reaction drive) propulsion. This is referred to as "hyperspace relative velocity," and is an essential part of the jump procedure.

Engine Types

Hyperdrive

A resonance shift field projector, when configured to produce a shift field around itself, is referred to as a hyperdrive, as its most common and practical use is as an augmentation for spacecraft in transit. By manipulating supergravity resonance, the drive and its host vessel can be projected into hyperspace, allowing it to use the higher dimension as a "shortcut" for its realspace trajectory. In effect, this allows a ship with a hyperdrive to traverse space "faster" than light.

Hyperdriver

Hyperdrivers are an older version of this technology that utilizes a much larger and differently configured projector to generate a hyperspace field around a separate spacecraft, which would be maintained by onboard field nodes for the duration of the jump. Because of their size, power consumption, and overall inefficiency, these machines are generally seen as rather primitive by most modern spacefaring cultures, but they are an important stepping stone needed to achieve the more compact and efficient hyperdrives.

by CERN

Hyperdrive assemblies typically look very much like particle accelerators: large arrays of superconductors, capacitors, and electromagnets.

History & Discovery

In the annals of galactic history, the Tel Azor were the first known civilization to achieve hyperspace travel, approximately two thousand metric years before the Klex did the same. The original Azoradi inventors of hyperspace technology are long lost to history, but the Klex invention of hyperspace travel is a well recorded event attributed to an independent engineering team lead by Maestro Daxen Makostri, and used as the historical reference point for the Hyperspace Era dating system. The human invention of hyperspace travel is attributed to a human named Saint Mercurion, adopted as the patron saint of the Mercurion Order.

Manufacturing

Hyperdrive engines, like artificial gravity generators, are among the most complex machines built by any spacefaring civilization, thus they are usually built to shipwright specifications by entirely separate contractors who specialize in supergravity resonance technology. For most of known space, the hyperdrive engineers held in highest regard are Klekon Hyperdyne Systems and, in Solar legacy space, the Order of Saint Mercurion.

Related Organizations