Alternative FTL Drive

Alternative FTL Drives are interstellar transport technologies.

• The canon Traveller FTL Drives are the Jump Space Drives (the Jump Drive in particular).
• All other FTL transportation methods are Alternate.

Description (Specifications)

Some sophont species employ other technologies enabling interstellar FTL flight:

Alternative Technologies

• Hyperspace Drive or Subspace Drive: A Hyperspace Drive is based on entering a different space (AKA Hyperspace or Subspace) and using conventional propulsion.
• Keyhole Drive: A Keyhole Drive harnesses technology to either artificially create and open or expand an existing pinched-off naturally occurring wormhole in order to create a stable Einstein-Rosen Bridge, permitting safe passage through to the far side of the spacetime structure.
• Singularity Drive: A Singularity Drive (or Degeneracy Drive) utilizes the immense potential energy released by the infalling matter of a carried on-board massive artificial singularity to generate propulsive power either from directed and focussed Hawking radiation and/or controlled microquasar formation, or by virtue of the implementation of a photonic Halo Drive.
• Space Folding Drive: A Space Folding Drive is a hypothetical form of FTL travel which causes space to be folded between the point of origin and the point of destination, creating a momentary portal between the origin and destination points through which the ship travels.
• StutterDrive or Stutterwarp: A StutterDrive is a rapidly pulsed jump drive with the jump taking microseseconds, and the jump distance only a very short distance forward - such as less than a light second. Doing this 100 times a second creates the illusion of rapid FTL movement in normal space, although doppler reflections indicate the object is at rest; thus this is a pseudo movement. Traveller2300 depends exclusively on stutterdrive.
• Teleport Drive: A Telpeort Drive is a drive in which the ship immediately teleports itself from one point to another, with or without passing through some kind of gate.
• Warp Drive: A Warp Drive is one of a class of drives that achieve FTL propulsion either by warping spacetime or a subspace field in some fashion, one of the most common configurations of which is an Alcubierre Drive based on creating a contraction of spacetime in front of the ship while simultaneously expanding spacetime behind it, so that the speed of light is effectively circumvented without actually changing the momentum of the vessel.

This classification is based on the 'effect', not on the cause or the scientific theory behind it.

History & Background (Dossier)

No information yet available.

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Library Data Referral Tree

Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information:

Starships:

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Speed-of-Travel

• Speed of Travel

• NAFAL (STL) - (Not As Fast As Light) / (Slower Than Light)
• Light Speed (c)
• FTL - (Faster Than Light) - "Superluminal"

• Astronomical Unit (AU)

» Imperial Standard Astronomical Unit

• Light-second (ls)
• Light-minute (lm)
• Light-hour (lh)
• Light-day (ld)
• Light-week (lw)
• Light-year (ly)
• Parsec (pc)

» Solomani Parsec

» Vilani Parsec ("Deshi")

» Imperial Standard Parsec

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Impulse-Drives

• Spacecraft Drives (Interplanetary Drives)

• Reaction Drives:

• Reaction Rockets:

• R-Drive (Rocket Drive)
• O-Drive (Orion Drive)
• H/P-Drive (HEPlaR Drive)

• Impulse Drives:

(Field Drives / Propellantless Drives)

• Z-Drive (Lifter / <1.0 D)
• G-Drive (Gravity Drive / <10.0 D)
• M-Drive (Maneuver Drive or Thruster Plate / <1000.0 D)
• N-Drive (NAFAL Drive / <¹/₈ ly)

• Reactionless Drives:

• T-Drive (Reactionless Thruster: Gyroscopic Inertial Thruster (GIT) or Dean Space-Thruster Drive)

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Interstellar-Drives (Advanced)

• Starship Drives (Interstellar Drives)

• N-Drive (NAFAL Drive / < ¹/₈ ly)
• Jump Space Drives

• Jump Space
• Jump Drive History

• Jump Governor
• Nexus Linkage Device
• Nth Order Jump Space Drives

• J-Drive - Jump Drive ("0th" Order Jump Space Drive / > 100 D)
• H-Drive - Hop Drive (1st Order Jump Space Drive / > 1000 D)
• S-Drive - Skip Drive (2nd Order Jump Space Drive / > 10,000 D)
• L-Drive - Leap Drive (3rd Order Jump Space Drive / > 100,000 D)
• B-Drive - Bound Drive (4th Order Jump Space Drive / > 1,000,000 D)
• V-Drive - Vault Drive (5th Order Jump Space Drive / > 10,000,000 D)

• 6-Drive - Six Drive (6th Order Jump Space Drive / > 100,000,000 D)
• 7-Drive - Seven Drive (7th Order Jump Space Drive / > 1,000,000,000 D)
• 8-Drive - Eight Drive (8th Order Jump Space Drive / > 10,000,000,000 D)
• 9-Drive - Nine Drive (9th Order Jump Space Drive / > 100,000,000,000 D)

• Hieronymous Device ("Jump Potentiator" / "Jump Exponentiator")

• Conjectural Drives

• "Inertialess Drives":

» Inertialess Drive ("I_M -Drive")

» Triplanetary Drive ("I_T -Drive")

• Improbable Drive
• Hieronymous Drive
• Alcubierre Drive ("Albuquerque Drive")
• Reality Drive

• Alternative Interstellar Drive Technologies

• Alternative FTL Drive

» Hyperspace Drive

» Keyhole Drive

» Singularity Drive

» Space Folding Drive

» Stutterdrive

» Teleport Drive

» Warp Drive

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References & Contributors (Sources)

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This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• T5 Core Rules
• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science