Guardians Lore: FTL Systems

Story by Akutenshi Ishimura on SoFurry

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#7 of Lore

This is a general rundown in regards to Faster Than Light Travel within the Guardians Universe.


FTL Systems

Within the Guardians Universe there are two main FTL uses, Jump and Warp. There is a difference in how the two are used. Warp uses the actual Warp theory of generating a bubble behind a vessel that pushes it forward, allowing it to travel at Faster Than Light speeds but also allow it turn while traveling at those speeds while Jump is like folding the universe to allow you to instantaneously get from point A to point B. Warp is used in-system when exploring uncharted systems to avoid Jumping directly into a sun. Jumping requires coordinates for the ship to exit at point B and without proper mapping of the system or a buoy relaying coordinates to a ship, they could accidently Jump right into a star, a black hole, or collide with other ships or a planet therefore, when exploring a new system and mapping it, Warp is used. Warp allows the ship to quickly map the region at FTL speeds and is generally a cheaper option to place onto a ship compared to a Jump Drive and uses less power overall. Hence why most UGSM starships have both FTL systems onboard at all times. If they are in-system and need to quickly respond to the next system, they use Jump drives to travel over to where they are needed allowing a rapid response but, if their Jump Drives fail, they can use Warp to get to their destination, granted at a slower speed. The general theory to the UGSM is redundancy, one system fails, another takes over. Now, the UGSM is experimenting with Wormhole Generation to allow a single ship to allow an entire fleet to Jump through without the other ships needing FTL which is useful during salvage operations or rescue operation. One ship enters the area and opens a wormhole allowing the disabled ships to limp through them. There is one issue with Wormhole Generation however, it consumes far more power than a Jump or Warp FTL system and is still experimental. The UGSM Serenity has used a wormhole FTL system in the beginning of the book and, as it was explained, they stopped using it for a time because of the power consumption. The issue is most ships can use a wormhole generator however once they exit they find that a majority of their systems are offline upon exiting. No shields, no weapons, at times even no engines and or life support and that their cores would need to be Jump started. So, until the UGSM figures out a stable power source for Wormhole Generation, the use of them is only for emergencies as of June 2776 and the distribution of the FTL system is placed on hold until they can find a way to make it more feasible. Now, Humanity primarily used Warp Speed to travel while the Pelzigans heavily relied upon Jump FTL and scout ships to give coordinates. Once the UGSM Coalition was made, both species placed their FTL systems together to create the redundancies we see today. With that, I do hope that clears up Faster Than Light Travel within the Guardians Universe.