Superluminal

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Traveling faster than the speed of light. This is not possible in a physical medium, so, in Solar Storms, humanity and others cheat through various means.

Tachyons were the first method so discovered by humans, enabling faster-than-light communications over vast distances. This is immensely energy intensive, but works outside of the Milky Way halon, and is easier to secure, so it is still used. Carefully arranged, it is actually possible to build an array capable of warping space. Only ships such as those of the Void Fleet are capable of this kind of energy production and management.

Stargates were the second method engineered by humans. These use immense amounts of energy to warp a region of space between two stars, such that a distance in light-years is reduced to that of several kilometers. Humans built a few dozen such pairs before the purge, and the seven gates that once linked to Sol are now known as the Dreadskearns. Most of the Three Empires use those gates that were previously constructed by other races, though the Procyon Concord build more.

Gravitic drives, properly constructed, can be used as a kind of warp-field drive in a similar manner to tachyons, though without a source of imaginary mass, the physical construction is far more difficult. As with tachyon-based propulsion, making superluminal travel out of these drives requires levels of control present only in ships such as those of the First.

Hyperspace conduits can stretch out into one or more of several dimensions, creating a complex maze of sorts that crisscrosses over the surface of the Galaxy. These are actually artificially constructed - originally by the Renlai, and later expanded upon by the Sorenen. Humans and primii occasionally add new links to the network, or strategically alter current ones. Using current networks takes little technology, though moving through hyperspace has many odd effects. Hyperspace nodes must be anchored in a halon, near a stellar mass. Ships capable of forging their own hyperspace conduits can end up anywhere, but the conduit instantly closes behind them unless it has a valid anchor.

The Halon is the primary means of travel and communication inside the Milky Way. Travel is slow, bulky, and limited to a certain amount of distance from meaningful gravitational wells, but it is the easiest means for less advanced races to roam and communicate freely around the Galaxy. It essentially works like tachyonic and gravitic methods, but does not require such absurd amounts of energy, enabling limited travel and communication around these regions. Humans did not discover halons for so long primarily because there was a mysteriously empty pocket around Sol, which remained even after Eve made the Solar System vanish.


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