History Main / HyperSpaceIsAScaryPlace

* Downplayed in ''Franchise/StarWars'': using hyperdrives is relatively safe if you know what you're doing. If you ''don't'' know what you're doing, you're liable to crash into something at relativistic velocities and die horribly. In ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Vice Armiral Holdo actually uses her ship's hyperdrive as a weapon, pulling off a SuicideAttack by [[RammingAlwaysWorks ramming into a giant battleship at FTL speed and cleaving it in half while ripping the fleet behind it to shreds]].

** In the old ''[[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]]'' continuity, [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperspace/Legends Hyperspace]] is rather less dangerous than some of the other examples, but there are risks. A ship in hyperspace doesn't properly exist in realspace, but can be brought out by gravity wells. In the case of planets and asteroids that means appearing in realspace in time to safely change direction and go into hyperspace again; in the case of stars, black holes, and powered-up Imperial Interdictors it doesn't. That's why it's considered dangerous to stray out of established hyperspace routes, and mapping new ones is hazardous.

** A later update adds another portal which leads players to another dimension called "The End", a dark world which consists entirely of a single FloatingContinent suspended over an endless void, inhabited solely by Endermen and a single Ender Dragon.
*** Notably, the End becomes a lot less scary once you realize that 1) a simple bow with a sufficient quantity of arrows will keep you safe from the Dragon as you gradually reduce his health, 2) Endermen are effectively inert if you're wearing a pumpkin or will be distracted easily by Snow Golems, 3) you can farm them in very efficient structures that'll level you from zero to level 30 in less than a minute,

* In ''Film/MonsterHunter'', the process of being thrown from Earth into the New World is ''very'' unpleasant for Artemis and her team, as they get thrown around in their vehicles as it tumbles through a nasty-looking storm with weird glyphs.

-->“This is a video recording taken from the Observation decks.”The screen changed. Now they were looking at what the Wanderer crew had seen in their last days. No one, not even Spock, could handle more than a quick glimpse of that view (Kirk had, after a couple of minutes spent staring at the recording back on the Wanderer, spent the next few minutes being violently sick )– a swirling, multicolored mist was how Uhura would later explain it to Christine Chapel, but it was more than that, something for which even she couldn’t find the right words. It was made of light. Light that could think. Could blend in dizzying, nauseating mixes. It was a living thing, that mist, or so it seemed.
“If they had to look at that thing 24/7, I don’t think we need to look at any other motives for suicide.” McCoy muttered.

-->“This is a video recording taken from the Observation decks.”

The screen changed. Now they were looking at what the Wanderer crew had seen in their last days. No one, not even Spock, could handle more than a quick glimpse of that view (Kirk had, after a couple of minutes spent staring at the recording back on the Wanderer, spent the next few minutes being violently sick )– a swirling, multicolored mist was how Uhura would later explain it to Christine Chapel, but it was more than that, something for which even she couldn’t find the right words. It was made of light. Light that could think. Could blend in dizzying, nauseating mixes. It was a living thing, that mist, or so it seemed.

* The Infinity Corridor in ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'' is a magical tunnel that enables travel to several different worlds. We see during a flashback/dream sequence, a character from 15th-Century Europe manages to glimpse universes with spaceships, giant mechas, advanced Mayan societies and etc. However, the corridor is very fickle and it opens portals to these distant worlds at random, making very easy for them to be lost. During Season 3, one of the characters' quest is to find the corridor so they can reunite with their loved one who got lost inside it and [[spoiler:it's revealed that a Dracula-worshiping cult is trying to open a portal to Hell so they can bring the vampire lord back to life]].

** The Quantum Realm, as shown in ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'', is a psychedelic EldritchLocation that can only be accessed by shrinking down below the atomic level, which is a one-way trip, if Hank Pym's lost wife is any indication. [[spoiler:Thankfully, she emerges from it with Scott's help by the end of the movie, only for Scott to be trapped in it with no way out when his friends and crew in the real world get [[Film/AvengersInfinityWar snapped]]. He emerges from it by complete happenstance thanks to a stray rat, and discovers that he barely sensed the passage of time in the Quantum Realm while five years passed outside, leading to the realization that the Quantum Realm can be used to travel through time. While the first test-jumps through time go a bit weird, eventually it becomes safe.]]

** ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' adds "the Mycelial Network," which is essentially hyperspace accessed via the spores of a fungus that bridges the gap between our reality and the Network. ''Discovery''[='=]s Spore Drive allows it to travel the Network, basically teleporting anywhere in the universe nearly instantaneously, though this requires ''prototaxi stellavoris'' spores as fuel, a navigator who can intuit the Network, and a giant metal spaceship popping in and out of two different dimensions wreaks havoc on at least one of those dimensions. It's not explained particularly well in the series itself, but ''Discovery''[='=]s core premise is basically "what if hyperspace was a gigantic fungal ecosystem?" The Network is also home to some really weird StarfishAliens who [[InvertedTrope invert this trope]]; to them, normal space is an incredibly hostile DeathWorld and HumansAreCthulhu.

** ''[[Franchise/StarWarsTheHighRepublic The High Republic]]'': The main villains are a group called the Nihil, who can do strange things with hyperspace. They have the "Paths," unique jump calculations that allow them to dodge and weave through hyperspace, jumping in or out from normally impossible spots too close to a planet's gravity well or doing short skips of just a few kilometers. They cause "the Great Disaster" when a freighter nearly crashes into a Nihil ship ''in hyperspace'' and destroys itself trying to avoid them. An entire chapter with hyperspace experts explains how completely ''impossible'' this is; every time someone enters hyperspace they are essentially creating a new AlternateDimension empty of everything except themselves, meaning there is absolutely nothing to ever collide with. What the Nihil are doing is entering and exiting those hyperspace lanes at odd angles, which lets them move in ways no one else can. The Supreme Chancellor shuts down hyperspace travel for a significant portion of the Outer Rim for an extended period because it's too dangerous when terrorists would crash any freighter and cause a multi-system disaster at any time.

** Upcoming multimedia project ''[[Franchise/StarWarsTheHighRepublic The High Republic]]'' has as its villains a group called the Nihil that can do unusual things with hyperspace, and first demonstrate this by orchestrating the "Great Disaster", an event that is implied to force ''every single'' non-Nihil starship in the ''entire galaxy'' out of hyperspace simultaneously.

** Even staying out of the Warp doesn't mean escaping this trope. Sometimes, a [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Warpspace/realspace overlap]] (known as a Warp Storm or Warp Rift) is generated that can swallow planets, star systems, or even entire sectors of space: the largest, the Eye of Terror, is roughly the size and shape of a dwarf spiral galaxy, meaning it's ''thousands of light years'' in diameter. It's never a good idea to be on any planet caught anywhere near one of these. While the exact effects [[GreenRocks vary on a case-by-case basis]], the gist of it is that the rules of physics [[RealityIsOutToLunch take an extended vacation]], creating a lovely little WorldOfChaos in which denizens of the Warp can freely manifest, leaving them with plenty of time for -- to quote many VideoGame\DwarfFortress players -- [[UnusualEuphemisms Fun]]. As luck would have it, warp storms sometimes have beneficial effects as well. At one point the Imperium of Man found a Stone-Age alien species on an uncharted world, and as per normal procedure tasked forces to exterminate them. A warp storm blew up and rendered the star system off limits for about 6,000 years. Then the storm dissipated and the Imperium tried again, only to discover that in the interim the aliens in question, the previously mentioned Tau, had become a spacefaring culture more technologically advanced than the Imperium and fended off the incursion quite handily.

** Even staying out of the Warp doesn't mean escaping this trope. Sometimes, a [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Warpspace/realspace overlap]] (known as a Warp Storm or Warp Rift) is generated that can swallow planets, star systems, or even entire sectors of space: the largest, the Eye of Terror, is roughly the size and shape of a dwarf spiral galaxy, meaning it's ''thousands of light years'' in diameter. It's never a good idea to be on any planet caught anywhere near one of these. While the exact effects [[GreenRocks vary on a case-by-case basis]], the gist of it is that the rules of physics [[RealityIsOutToLunch take an extended vacation]], creating a lovely little WorldOfChaos in which denizens of the Warp can freely manifest, leaving them with plenty of time for Fun. As luck would have it, warp storms sometimes have beneficial effects as well. At one point the Imperium of Man found a Stone-Age alien species on an uncharted world, and as per normal procedure tasked forces to exterminate them. A warp storm blew up and rendered the star system off limits for about 6,000 years. Then the storm dissipated and the Imperium tried again, only to discover that in the interim the aliens in question, the previously mentioned Tau, had become a spacefaring culture more technologically advanced than the Imperium and fended off the incursion quite handily.

*** ''ComicBook/MarvelStarWars'' introduced "otherspace", a dimension ''beyond'' hyperspace, a weird place with its own inhuman inhabitants; the effect is spoiled when said inhabitants are pretty much just big (read: Wookiee-sized) mean [[InsectoidAliens bugs]], who later turned out to have come from realspace to begin with.

** ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' adds "the Mycelial Network," which is essentially hyperspace accessed via the spores of a fungus that bridges the gap between our reality and the Network. ''Discovery''[='=]s Spore Drive allows it to travel the Network, basically teleporting anywhere in the universe nearly instantaneously, though this requires ''prototaxi stellavoris'' spores as fuel, a navigator who can intuit the Network, and a giant metal spaceship popping in and out of two different dimensions wreaks havoc on at least one of those dimensions. It's not explained particularly well in the series itself, but ''Discovery''[='=]s core premise is basically "what if hyperspace was a gigantic fungal ecosystem?"

* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' the Trail of Souls that links [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Mira]] to the rest of the world. The "wavey" black void is liable to get you lost forever in a monster filed dimension if you get lost, and it even freaks out characters who regularly travel it. Creator/MotoiSakuraba's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKe8k8P2FNw music]] sets the tune perfectly.

There are very few things about space that are not freaky. Contemporary space shuttles ride pillars of fire and launching one involves spraying 1100 cubic meters of water on the pad as a muffler to keep the craft from being damaged by the ''noise''. Works such as Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'' and Creator/LarryNiven's short stories have pointed out that (barring {{teleportation}}) convenient real-space travel between planets has energy requirements on the same order as [[WeaponizedExhaust making significant holes in them]]. And let's not even get started on the whole 'infinite void of nothingness between the stars' [[SpaceMadness aspect]]. Anything with the power to thrust people across light-years rightly should scare their [[SpaceClothes astropants]] off.

Should something go wrong during hyperspace travel, results vary. If the crew are lucky, the ship will simply be returned to normal space, or be destroyed instantly and relatively painlessly. If they're not, the [[{{NothingIsScarier}} ship won't come back at all.]] Sometimes, it will, [[{{CameBackWrong}} and you'll]] [[{{GhostShip}} wish it]] [[{{EldritchStarship}} hadn't.]]

* Appears in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrVqD67zils this spoof ad]] for a medicine called Herpex, which treats the symptoms of genital herpes... and causes the person taking it to teleport. One guy notes that "that place you go to between places can be a little... intense", and as we see when he takes his camcorder with him as he teleports, said place is basically Hell.