Stim-Drive

The stim-drive is the main method of transporting humans interstellar distances using spacewarp. 'Stim-drive' is a generic term for a technology made by thousands of different manufacturers of varying quality. FTL travel works by creating a space-warping stim field around a ship and keeping space inside the field untouched. Because the ship isn’t moving in this still space, ships in FTL fields only experience the time dilation of where they started, and don’t feel it from observer velocities. Space outside is warped to pinch the back of the field to propel the ship forward. Ships cannot turn during a jump, maneuvering has to be done before or after. Capacitors on most ships can only reserve enough power to supply for one jump, and take up to an hour to charge for large battleships. Jumping into a larger gravity well of 0.2 Gs or more, or an atmosphere thicker than 0.3 atm, can cause the field to destabilize. Warp field destabilization like this often causes the ship to disintegrate. The stim-drive was first developed by earth scientists in 2064 during the earth-mars war. United Earth ships used their superior speed to quickly get into the middle of martian flotillas and attacking from inside. Today stim-drives are ubiquitous through human space. While most civilians don't own an FTL capable ship, they have access to pay for the use of one. The prohibitive cost factor keeping the drive from civilian hands is the sheer amount of materials required and size of ship needed. Civilian transports, ultra-wealthy yachts, and military vessels are all large enough for FTL travel, but even racing ships owned by the ultra-wealthy cannot be made FTL capable because the size of fusion rector that would be required.

Parent Technologies