History Main / HyperSpaceIsAScaryPlace

* '[['VideoGame/ToeJamAndEarl ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron]]''[='=]s Hyperfunk Zone is a most totally ''jammin''' version of this.

* ''VideoGame/ToeJamAndEarl 2''[='=]s Hyperfunk Zone is a most totally ''jammin''' version of this.

* ''Webcomic/{{Outsider}}'': Faster-than-light travel involves jumping between solar systems' gravity wells. Miscalculating the jump can result in colliding with the star whose system you're targeting, bouncing off of real space until you eventually re-embed, being stranded in hyperspace, or being liberated into negative hyperspace. There's also the side effect (in non-Soia-Liron organisms, such as humans) of [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking bad dreams and nausea]] after a jump. The risk inherent in each jump tends to vary depending on the system you're jumping into -- dense celestial bodies have deep, "steep" gravity wells, which are very difficult to jump into safely without overshooting and diving right into the central body. In the comic, [[https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/outsider129.html an Umiak force seems to deliberately attempt a deep jump into the Leido system]], whose primary is a white dwarf; [[https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/outsider130.html Talon can't believe they'd be dumb enough to try something that risky]].

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In settings where this trope applies, authors will often take the time to point out that hyperspace or subspace is hazardous and fraught with peril, both for the characters and the ships that have to make passage through it. Long dissertations on it are sometimes inadequate for establishing this, however. As such, to [[{{ShowDontTell}} really make a point about how dangerous and scary hyperspace is,]] they throw some really weird, scary stuff into their vision of it.

See also VoidBetweenTheWorlds, EldritchLocation, AlienGeometries, AcidTripDimension, LudicrousSpeed and TimeIsDangerous.

** The most common way of FTL travels utilize a kind of hyperspace known as the Warp. It is a parallel dimension where there is no time as we understand it (so one can reach destination hundreds years into the future -- or into the past), but more importantly, it is a sink of all emotions and ideas (and probably souls) for all races of the galaxy. Guess what? The mix isn't very nice, it is downright nasty. Traveling through the Warp means traveling through a very literal hell, complete with demons, dark gods and so on. Gellar Fields maintain a pocket of "normal" space in and around the ship, but sometimes natives leak through. In the setting the Warp also fuels magic, so local mages (psykers) are always under risk of being possessed and often hear voices, offering... things.

** Last but not least, the Necrons utilize impossibly advanced technology so they can simply ignore the Warp. Their take on FTL works by ''actually'' going faster than light rather than taking a short-cut, plus as a civilisation whose people are made of living metal, they have much less problems related to warp sickness. Of note are their attempts to get the warp to influence their bodies and flawlessly combine metal and flesh (something only Chaos has managed yet) which seldomly go lucky. However, it seems easier for them to just use the Webway.

* In the cosmology of ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the space between planes (sometimes called the Blind Eternities) will instantly kill anyone other than a Planeswalker or someone without serious magical protection (either fundamentally transforming the nature of the traveler, or bringing along a pocket or tunnel of normal space to ride in or pass through). The constantly-shifting currents of metaphysical energy look pretty bizarre, but at least they don't drive people insane... of course, that could only be because even Planeswalkers will be killed by it before they have a chance to go nuts. The ''Zendikar'' block introduced the Eldrazi, [[EldritchAbomination otherworldly horrors]] that originated from and live in the Blind Eternities. As denizens of the Blind Eternities, the Eldrazi are suitably maddening to mortals. In the conclusion of ''War of the Spark'', we see what happens when a non-planeswalker travels through the Eternities without suitable protection. [[spoiler:The de-sparked Nicol Bolas is utterly ravaged by the ordeal even while his brother Ugin does his best to shield him with his wings.]]

*** 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 her 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.

** The entire DC Multiverse is basically contained by an enormous wall at the end of everything called the Source Wall. It is an enormous screaming mass of writhing flesh, possibly composed of everyone who's ever tried and failed to discover the secrets hidden on its other side. Exactly what it looked like at the start is a good question, then.

* In ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'', both the wormhole and [[spoiler: the interior of the black hole]] are incredibly freaky. Both places cause the spaceship's internal electronics to go haywire, and both render the ship's maneuvering thrusters completely useless due to both places ''not being physical space.'' [[spoiler: The black hole takes it UpToEleven with the Tesseract, a three-dimensional construct at the center that manages to represent all instants of time for a given location ''simultaneously''.]]

** With the introduction of [[TheMultiverse parallel worlds]] in ''Shadowbringers'', there is also the [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds Interdimensional Rift]], a dark vacuum between the Source and its reflections. [[spoiler:When the Crystal Exarch tried to summon the PlayerCharacter from the Source to the First, he failed the first several times, his spell locking onto their companions and pulling their souls over, leaving their bodies in the Source comatose. Once the player is finally successfully summoned, though, the game quickly justifies a means by which they can travel freely between the parallel worlds. The Exarch, himself, intended to take the power of the [[EldritchAbomination Lightwardens]] after the player absorbs them, then go into the Rift to die so that all of the released Light aether wouldn't unbalance things on the First or any other shard, but the ArcVillain of the expansion thwarted that plan. The endgame story revolves around efforts to safely transport the player's companions' souls back to their bodies in the Source, with the danger coming from the fact that such a feat had never been attempted before, so there was no telling what could happen.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': The Shroud draws clear inspiration from ''Warhammer 40K''[='=]s Warp, though no strong ties with FTL is implied. Jump Drive technology, on the other hand, can be obtained by studying the remains of the Space Horror, a very powerful space monster found inside a black hole, described as only partially existing in our universe. [[spoiler: However, even just researching Jump Drives, or in particular, Psi Jump Drives, puts the entire galaxy at risk of invasion by The Unbidden.]] Psi Jump drive technology can make the connection more overt; one way to discover it is for your explorers to be rather surprised when an alien ship of unknown design flies by in what they had previously thought was a purely mental realm.

* ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'': FTL travel ([[AppliedPhlebotinum and a lot of the setting's technology in general]]) involves tapping into or outright entering Cherenkov Space using the [[FormulaicMagic Patterson Equations]], which describe FTL physics the same way one might describe gravity or relativity. The scary part? [[spoiler:Cherenkov Space is where [[EldritchMonster the Monsters]] come from. It's a parallel dimension closely aligned with ours, and the use of Patterson tech in normal space has [[ToxicPhlebotinum the effect of a constantly exploding atomic bomb in Cherenkov Space]]. The Monsters are members of the ethereal natives of this dimension, given artificial bodies to manifest in our space and eliminate the threat to their world by destroying Patterson tech, its creators, and anything else they deem necessary, even if it means [[ApocalypseHow nucleating the entire dimension into an absolute vacuum]].]]

** [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Supplementary materials]] show that most people get nauseous from staring into hyperspace too long while a ship is in transit, as [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm their minds can't quite comprehend the empty dimension]]. There's an old superstition claiming that this can also drive people insane, which has persisted for millennia despite lacking real evidence. Though on a slightly more concerning note, [[NightmareFetishist a number of Sith or other dark-siders actually find the nothingness of hyperspace relaxing]].

* 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 Admiral 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]].
** [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Supplementary materials]] show that most people get nauseous from staring into hyperspace too long while a ship is in transit, as their minds can't quite comprehend the empty dimension. There's an old superstition claiming that this can also drive people insane, which has persisted for millennia despite lacking real evidence. Though on a slightly more concerning note, a number of Sith or other dark-siders actually find the nothingness of hyperspace relaxing.

** In the Marvel ''[[ComicBook/TheTransformers Transformers]]'' comics, there's also at least one instance of [[EldritchAbomination monsters]] living in the void between dimensions used as transport medium. When they got their hands on Ramjet, they tortured, unmade, and remade him until they got bored and tossed him back. The result: a not-all-there Ramjet who is simultaneously CursedWithAwesome and BlessedWithSuck: Being "tormented" at the hands of these creatures resulted in his becoming Unicron-class powerful, and keeping a connection to the void that gives him all kinds of RealityWarper tricks (above and beyond what he had during his time as an agent of Unicron). Thanks, evil extradimensional god dudes! On the other hand, he ''isn't'' quite sane, and it's all he can do to hold his own atoms together. His presence is poisonous to reality around him. Not much fun.
*** In the IDW Comics "Infestation 2" crossover arc, ''[[OhCrap they get loose]]'' and are every bit as horrible as they sound. And are apparently the inspiration for the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. It doesn't seem especially clear that the creatures from this IDW megacrossover are the same as the ones from the much earlier ''Anime/TransformersCybertron'' based story, but Wiki/TFWiki seems to be sure about it.

* Franchise/TheDCU:

** The PhantomZone, also known as the Still Zone or the Ghost Zone. It's complete whiteness in which you can get lost forever. [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica Zauriel]], an angel, even called it "limbo" once.
*** And, according to Steve Gerber's early 80's ''Phantom Zone'' miniseries, it's the physical manifestation of the mind of an EldritchAbomination. A perfectly safe place unless you [[SchmuckBait go trying to attract the creature's attention.]]
** The entire DC Multiverse is basically contained by an enormous wall at the end of everything called the Source Wall. As seen in [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/Source_Wall.jpg one panel,]] the Source Wall is an enormous screaming mass of writhing flesh, possibly composed of everyone who's ever tried and failed to discover the secrets hidden on its other side. Exactly what it looked like at the start is a good question, then.
** And just for fun, Comicbook/{{Lucifer}}, [[ExiledFromContinuity who may or may not be in the DCU]], once opened a gate into the Void, stated as being beyond the Multiverse. It was completely white, which doesn't sound that worrying until one considers that it goes on forever and literally the only landmark is the gate, which is going to get harder and harder to see... Note: the Void and the Source are definitely not the same thing. Lucifer also once got to the Source... and ignored it as completely irrelevant.

* In ''Film/EventHorizon'', the experimental hyperdrive on the eponymous ship takes it to [[spoiler:a dimension of "pure chaos and evil"]], according to one of the people who winds up spending a short while there. What's worse, [[spoiler:''something'' comes back to ''our'' world as the [[EldritchStarship ship]] itself]]. It's a recurring joke among some ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' fans that ''Event Horizon'' is a prequel, while other fans point to [[spoiler:Weir]] as an unnamed [[Franchise/{{Hellraiser}} Cenobite]]. At any rate, there's certainly a lot of similarity to both.

* ''Fanfic/TheMountainAndTheWolf'': Euron Greyjoy gets to experience the joys of unprotected Warp travel firsthand, being tied to the prow of a ship as it sails through the Warp to go from King's Landing to the Iron Islands in less than a day. Various horrible things keep trying to eat him and are driven off at the last second by [[spoiler:Theon Greyjoy]], [[PayEvilUntoEvil who you'd better believe is enjoying every minute of it.]]

* Star Trek usually plays subspace as safe, but there are some ways in which it can go really really wrong. The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' fanfic [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27084541/chapters/66133225 Something Wicked This Way Comes]] shows the aftermath of a ship that used an AlternateDimension to get back home -problems began with cases of space sickness, suicides, and only went downhill from there. By the time the ship returns to normal space, there's only corpses (and an EldritchAbomination from the hell dimension) aboard, which is what the Enterprise team finds and has to deal with. The Hyperspace itself is described:

** ''[[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 of ''[[Literature/StarWarsLightOfTheJedi Light of the Jedi]]'' 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 could crash any freighter and cause a multi-system disaster at any time.

** This [[AlternateUniverse Multiverse]], between [[FireAndBrimstoneHell the Fourth World]], the [[EnergyBeings Anti-Monitor]], and [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere Mr. Mind]], is a scary enough place as-is (assuming [[ReplacementArtifact it even exists]]). But then it was officially stated that the ''Creator/{{Wildstorm}}'' universe was set there too, which brought in "The Bleed", the red gap between worlds (named for the space outside the panels of a comic book, of course).

* Star Trek usually plays subspace as safe, but there are some ways in which it can go really really wrong. The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' fanfic [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27084541/chapters/66133225 Something Wicked This Way Comes]] shows the aftermath of a ship that used an AlternateDimension to get back home -problems began with cases of space sickness, suicides, and only went downhill from there. By the time the ship returns to normal space, there's only corpses (and an EldritchAbomination from the hell dimension) aboard, which is what the Enterprise team finds and has to deal with. The Hyperspace itself is described

** The Eldar Webway is a labyrinthine set of tunnels and passages through what is essentially an artificial dimension between Realspace and the Warp. While the Webway is nicer than the Warp, it's still quite nasty and host to its own brand of weirdness. Whereas the Warp is pure chaos, the Webway is more akin to AlienGeometries; rational and internally consistent, yet utterly alien. One of the Primarchs was lost trying to navigate it, and Commorragh, capital city of the Dark Eldar hidden deep within the webway, is an EldritchLocation with architecture that makes ''Film/{{Inception}}'' look reasonable.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', fast-travel is accomplished via the Teleport and Return spells, which sends a person's body and aether through TheLifestream to an aetheryte. Travel via these spells, as well as between smaller shards making up an "aethernet" covering a short distance (such as within a city), is safe. There exists, however, another teleportation spell called "Flow", which allows one to enter and exit the Lifestream at any point in the physical world -- at least in theory. In practice, without aetherytes to serve as beacons, using "Flow" carries the risk of a person becoming lost in the Lifestream until their bodies and souls break down completely into aether. [[spoiler:Even in cases where people emerge from using Flow, they rarely ever do so unscathed: Thancred was rendered completely incapable of using magic after his time in the Lifestream, and Y'shtola - who only even came back thanks to Gridanian conjurers managing to find her and pull her out of the Lifestream - was rendered blind. While she can now see aether around her to compensate, doing so [[CastFromLifespan gradually reduces her remaining lifespan]].]]
** With the introduction of [[TheMultiverse parallel worlds]] in ''Shadowbringers'', there is also the [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds Interdimensional Rift]], a dark vacuum between the Source and its reflections. [[spoiler:When the Crystal Exarch tried to summon the PlayerCharacter from the Source to the First, he failed the first several times, his spell locking onto their companions and pulling their souls over, leaving their bodies in the Source comatose. Once the player is finally successfully summoned, though, the game quickly justifies a means by which they can travel freely between the parallel worlds. The Exarch, himself, intended to take the power of the [[EldritchAbomination Lightwardens]] after the player absorbs them, then go into the Rift to die, but the ArcVillain of the expansion thwarted that plan. The endgame story revolves around efforts to safely transport the player's companions' souls back to their bodies in the Source, with the danger coming from the fact that such a feat had never been attempted before, so there was no telling what could happen.]]

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* ''ComicBook/XMen'': The times we've seen the dimension Nightcrawler passes through, it resembles hell. This plot was also used in the comics with Illyana Rasputin's "stepping-discs", which moved the users through the demon-filled Limbo.

** And beyond that is the nothingness, a completely dark space which is even more hostile. The quintjet breaks apart in a matter of seconds, and according to Galactus - dispatched to bail them out by Eternity - even he couldn't survive there very long.

* When facing off against a shadow-wielding enemy, ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' and his foe get dragged into the shadow dimension. He is warned that there are unseen, horrifying things lurking in there and they make their escape as soon as possible. (These things are likely why the enemy, formerly the sidekick of one of Invincible's father's friends, went insane.)
* Fleetway's ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'' treats the Special Zone in a similar manner as the literature example below. It's a weird place where physics don't really apply, and a planet and an asteroid belt and some swirly things can comfortably be the same place. The characters originally considered it to be some kind of insane 'other place' you really didn't want to spend too long in, and are shocked to later discover [[spoiler:it's inhabited. Of course, the locals aren't exactly ''normal'', either.]]
* The 1976 short comic "Approche Sur Centauri” from the French magazine ''Metal Hurlant'' (translated as [[http://theairtightgarage.tumblr.com/post/17976485394/snakebomb-approaching-centauri-philippe "Approaching Centauri"]] when published in the American version of the magazine, ''Magazine/HeavyMetal'', in July 1977), scripted by Philippe Druillet and illustrated by Creator/{{Moebius}}, featured a hyperspace pilot who briefly experienced a hellish dimension when the generator overloaded and he was "thrown outside the T/S continuum". Upon return, he insisted "I saw nothing...nothing..."

* In ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable'', a rare type of ''BagOfHolding'' opens not into extradimensional space but into "Bag Wurld," an endless desert that connects all ''bags of holding'' of that type. It's not much good for storage, but with a very good map and a decent-sized caravan you can use it to travel to and out of any other open bag. Of course, if you ''don't'' have a very good map, or someone closes your destination bag, you may be there a long time -- entire cities and fortresses have sprung up around adventurers' caches.

* In ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBuckarooBanzaiAcrossThe8thDimension'', The Oscillation Overthruster allows vehicles to pass through solid matter, through a [[AcidTripDimension bizarre dimension filled with weird creatures]]. One of the first scientists to experiment with it ends up with his head phased into a wall, and gets possessed by an 8th-dimensional nasty, turning him into the [[BigBad main villain of the film]].

* While the infamous boat scene from Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory isn't set in hyperspace, it certainly follows the trope to a T: the boat gradually gets faster and faster (to the guests' dismay), psychedelic flashing colors over disturbing images, [[HellIsThatNoise strange noises]], and Wonka singing like [[SanitySlippage he's losing what little grip he has on reality.]]

* In ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'', the "Stargate" sequence after making contact with the Jovian monolith. The montage is interspersed with quick cuts of the astronaut's various horrifying facial contortions, just to drive the point home. When the sequence is done and the astronaut is in the "hotel", his face is covered in wrinkles, and he looks as if he's going insane. In the [[AllThereInTheManual novel]], the latter effect is explained as the result of Dave being kept in a kind of "alien zoo" until he falls asleep, and then they run his memories backwards while transforming him into the Starchild. It's only in the movie that he goes through the process of aging a couple of decades every time the camera pans around to show him looking at an older version of himself in the next room, then becoming that older self when in the next shot. (Yes, it's just as surreal as it sounds.) If anyone was being weird in the movie, it was Kubrick.
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** In ''Film/{{Thor}}'', travelling through the Bifrost is usually safe (although, as shown in ''Film/ThorRagnarok'', getting thrown out of the Bifrost in mid-transit is not a pleasant experience). The danger comes from the fact that the Bifrost causes a buildup of energy when used continuously that can potentially tear planets apart. Loki tries to essentially use the Bifrost as a planet-busting WaveMotionGun to destroy Jotunheim in the film's climax.
** Creator/TomHiddleston has implied that this is part of what pushes Loki from TheResenter of ''Film/{{Thor}}'' to the full-blown BigBad of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'': his previous FreakOut was exacerbated by [[spoiler:things he saw between universes after trying to commit suicide by wormhole at the end of ''Thor'']].
** ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'' introduces the concept of "jumps", which are essentially wormholes that connect to otherwise distant locations. In moderation, they're fine -- doing 50 at a time is about the limit a human body can take, and most locations are never more than a few jumps away -- but when you do 700 at once (like Rocket, Yondu, Groot, and Kraglin do), things get [[BodyHorror really weird]].
** 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 in ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', 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.]]
* In ''Film/LostInSpace'', hyperspace travel requires a stable conduit or passage to keep ships on-route, it's impossible to determine where you're going to come out. [[{{Foreshadowing}} "There's a lot of space to get lost in out there."]] The reason the Robinson family went to space was to help supervise construction of a route to Alpha Centauri, via Hypergates, which would provide that route. But terrorists sabotage the mission and send their craft hurtling into the sun, forcing the crew to use the hyperdrive to the other side of the galaxy.

* In ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'', both the wormhole and [[spoiler: the interior of the black hole]] are incredibly freaky. Both places cause the spaceship's internal electronics to go haywire, and both render the ship's maneuvering thrusters completely useless due to both places ''not being physical space.'' [[spoiler: The black hole takes it UpToEleven with the Tesseract, a three-dimensional construct at the center that manages to represent all instants of time for a given location ''simultaneously''.]]
* In ''Film/MonsterHunter2020'', 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.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' is very explicit about the "scary" part.
** The most common way of FTL travels utilize a kind of hyperspace known as the Warp. It is a parallel dimension where there is no time as we understand it (so one can reach destination hundreds years into the future -- or into the past), but more importantly, it is a sink of all emotions and ideas (and probably souls) for all races of the galaxy. Guess what? The mix isn't very nice, it is downright nasty. Traveling through the Warp means traveling through a very literal hell, complete with demons, dark gods and so on. Gellar Fields maintain a pocket of "normal" space in and around the ship, but sometimes natives leak through. In the setting the Warp also fuels magic, so local mages (psykers) are always under risk of being possessed and often hear voices, offering... things.
** For bonus logical headaches, there's a story about accidental time-travelers who were responding to a distress signal (also sent through the Warp) from a ship that was surrounded by enemy vessels... when they popped out, the ship they were aiding was nowhere to be seen, but they were in the middle of an enemy fleet, so they sent out a distress signal...
** It was mentioned a few times that Gellar Fields can only protect from small predators. The only thing that saves the ship from bigger fish is that they don't notice or don't care about puny humans. Occasionally they do take notice, and then a lifeless husk will join thousands ships that were lost in the warp.
** The Tau, due to lacking a strong Warp presence, don't have psykers, and thus no analogues for the Imperial Astropaths and Navigators. This leaves them with very limited access to the Warp, and next to no way to explore its nature and applications. Despite having advanced technology otherwise, the Tau are very primitive when it comes to psychic and warp-based technology, including their FTL drives. The Tau are restricted to the "shallows" of the Warp, "skimming" it instead of immersing their vessels any "deeper" (apparently SpaceIsAnOcean metaphors are plentiful when describing the Warp, but metaphors are the only effective method of describing a realm of illogical thought). While this means painfully slow FTL travel, even by the standards of the setting, it's a much safer and more reliable method of travel, although it still has its dangers. Unfortunately this also means that the Tau have less understanding about the ''dangers'' of the Warp than just about every other faction too, and even less understanding about the forces in it. Supposedly, they tried to duplicate the Imperium's Warp technology, but eventually decided "Screw this. Too many tentacles."
** 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 -- [[UnusualEuphemism 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.
** The Eldar Webway is a labyrinthine set of tunnels and passages through what is essentially an artificial dimension between Realspace and the Warp. While the Webway is nicer than the Warp, it's still quite nasty and host to its own brand of weirdness. Whereas the Warp is pure chaos, the Webway is more akin to AlienGeometries; rational and internally consistent, yet utterly alien. One of the Primarchs was lost trying to navigate it, and Commorragh, capital city of the Dark Eldar hidden deep within the webway, is an EldritchLocation with architecture that makes ''Film/{{Inception}}'' look reasonable.
** Of course, being ''40K'', some factions just don't care about the mind-breaking horrors inherent to the Warp. The Orks coat their vessels in "teef" to scare off daemons (which works [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve because Orks believe it should]]), but even if that doesn't work, daemonic incursions are treated as a way of [[BloodKnight breaking up the tedium of long trips]]. Chaos followers have a much easier time navigating the home realm of their patron deities, but they still need Gellar fields to prevent daemons from coming to [[DealWithTheDevil collect on their pacts]]. And the sheer might of the Tyranid HiveMind plays havoc with the Warp and its denizens, meaning only the most powerful daemons can go anywhere near them, and they can't fight an entire hive fleet by themselves anyway.
** Last but not least, the Necrons utilize impossibly advanced technology so they can simply ignore the Warp. Their take on FTL works by ''actually'' going faster than light rather than taking a short-cut, plus as a civilisation whose people are made of living metal, they have much less problems related to warp sickness. Of note are their attempts to get the warp to influence their bodies and flawlessly combine metal and flesh (something only Chaos has managed yet) which seldomly go lucky. However, it seems easier for them to just use the Webway.
** The Warp used to be a relatively peaceful afterlife dimension called the Realm of Souls. The cataclysmic war involving the Old Ones + Eldar + Krorks (Orks) vs the Necrons and C'tan left behind so much devastation, bloodshed, and ill will that it permanently corrupted the Realm of Souls into the nightmarish Warp. The birth of Slaanesh sealed the deal and led to the creation of the aforementioned Eye of Terror, a ''permanent'' Warp/realspace overlap, in the process. A somewhat niche wild guess is that humans also had some influence, and if they didn't, they definitely did as the 40th millennium came to a close. Nobody fed the Dark Gods like humanity did, and the 13th Black Crusade proved this. Abbadon's destruction of Cadia produced so much chaos that what was once a few pockets of concentrated chaos turned into a Great Rift tearing across the entire Milky Way from one end to the other, spawning a new age dubbed ''Noctis Aeterna''.[[note]]Though not stated explicitly in canon, it's pretty safe to assume it means "eternal night".[[/note]]
** Ships aren't the only thing traveling through the Warp. Any teleporter in the 40k universe works by essentially ''firing people and things through Hell and hoping they're still sane/intact when they come out again''. The Orks' Shokk Attack Gun weaponizes this, firing a Snotling through a short Warp tunnel to drive it irrevocably mad before it rematerializes.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' features the Paths of the Old Ones, a series of pocket dimension "hubs" connected to each other and to real-world gates by "tunnels" through the realm of magic. Since the Old Ones disappeared, the Paths have been tainted by Chaos. The tunnels are even worse, containing "reality bubbles" that travelers can be trapped in. These may vary from alternate timelines to a daemon's personal playroom. And if you take a wrong turn in the Paths, you may just end up in the Realms of Chaos. Or worse, what is heavily implied to be Warhammer 40K's Warp.
* The game ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'' uses an inversion: hyperspace (what is between the Stargates) actually is the ''safe'' way. The real problem is that interstellar space (the traditional boundary is the orbit of system's Stargate) is filled with shapeless Cthulhoid monstrosities going by the lovely name of [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Void]] [[SpaceIsAnOcean Kraken]]. (Something about the star, at least for some part of the star's life cycle repels the Void Krakens. The size of this safe zone varies with each system.) Still, spaceships jumping through hyperspace need to be protected by special shields, because otherwise people experience a strongly addictive quasi-religious epiphany. And fun stuff: before the discovery of Sol System's gate, there were several [[HumanPopsicle sleeper ships]] sent out. One of them was referenced in canon. The rest... Well, the general assumption is [[FridgeHorror it's better not to think of what could have happened to the passengers]].

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' different cultures have different customs and/or superstitions about it. Among them, Vilani dim their lights (from when having enough power to go into jump was an issue), Aslan clans light a sacramental candle, Vargr, as the [[ChaoticNeutral violent types]], beat up one of their crewmates chosen for the honor, and the Droyne use special coins. Jump space is not so much feared as it is weird. If a jump works wrong one could be misjumped to a random point, which could mean anywhere. If it works really wrong, one stays in jumpspace, and no one knows what happens. Technically, one only stays in Jumpspace for a few trillion (subjective) years. Long enough for protons, stable as they are, to decay and, 168 objective hours or so later, all that emerges is a flash of hard radiation.
* And the utterly forgotten 80's RPG ''TabletopGame/SpaceQuest'' had N-Space filled to the bursting with Voidsharks, "Temblons" (think kraken with tractor-beam tentacles) and other horrors that all seemed to find carbon based life a tasty treat.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'': Regular FTL travel is fairly simple and straightforward, if somewhat anemic as regards speed. Phase drives, however, are derived from the same technology and magic that the Prometheans use. They use this technology to shut portals and gates down on top of ships that are coming in, a fairly horrific action. But then there are the Rift drives. Though they normally travel through a dimension called the Flux Dimension, anyone who has played Rifts know that they're prone to all sorts of horrible things happening...

* ''TabletopGame/EldritchSkies'' lives and breaths this trope. As it turns out, the reason why people tend to go mad in the future of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos is ''not'' because of [[GoMadFromTheRevelation secrets man was not meant to know]]. Rather, it's due to exposure to the [[EldritchAbomination hyperspatial entities]], and hyperspace itself is TheCorruption. As per ''[[LovecraftLite Eldritch Skies]]'', however, the [[CosmicHorrorStory expected role]] this would play is averted: the mental effects don't get really bad until Level 4 exposure, Level 1 gives you PsychicPowers and anything lower than [[WasOnceAMan Level 5]] is treatable.
* The canal network in Heaven's Reach, one of the alternate ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' settings in ''Shards'', is a sufficiently nasty place that it contains TheFairFolk, who dwell in the crazy-world that is the Wyld in the core setting, and all ships come with anima circuits to keep them from meeting horrific and bizarre fates. While most of the heavily travelled routes have had the evil kicked out of them over the years, the routes that were forgotten after the Malfean War have not.

* Fasa's old ''TabletopGame/RenegadeLegion'' setting was an interesting example. Tachyon Space wasn't scary per se, but normal matter wasn't capable of coping with it. If a jump lasted too long, you'd melt into a puddle of base elements before exploding into a shower of tachyons.
* ''TabletopGame/StarsWithoutNumber'': trying to use a spike drive without someone on duty at all times is a ''really bad idea''. In the sense that you will likely never be seen again.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'', the Hunting Grounds (the astral plane or the afterlife) double as hyperspace; the one and only human starship designed by Dr. Hellstromme used it for interstellar travel. If you are thinking Warhammer 40K or Event Horizon, you are right. The ship, unlike the Event Horizon, did have some form of Gellar field, but shabby and inefficient, which makes a trip aboard it terrible but survivable. Except for [[spoiler:the poor sod sacrificed to activate the demon-powered warp drive.]]
* Swedish RPG ''TabletopGame/CoriolisTheThirdHorizon'' plays it straight twice over. While on the surface it inverts it in the same manner as ''Fading Suns'', it turns out that just because the Portals are the less dangerous route doesn't mean they're automatically ''safer''. In fact, Portal jumps require the crew to be in hypersleep as whatever makes the Portals work isn't exactly compatible with human perception or biology. The book makes it clear that, if the jump doesn't kill you outright, you'll need a new character as your old one will now be too crazy and maimed to be playable.
* Creator/{{Modiphius|Entertainment}}' ''TabletopGame/ColdAndDark'' is, for a horror game, a bit of a surprising majority aversion of this. Despite some weirdness (Visible color switching to greyscale, shadows taking a couple seconds to fade), ghostline jumps don't carry any odd risks in and of themselves beyond the usual risks in scifi works. Repeated jumps in a short time, however, increase the risk for Void Psychosis Syndrome.

* The ''Videogame/{{Warcraft}}'' universe has the Twisting Nether, a realm that connects every world to one another. To those who know how to use its powers, it can act as a doorway between worlds. In its natural state it is the opposite of worlds, with mutable laws of physics defined by each individual and little sense of reason. Recently, however, it has become a major haven for the [[TheLegionsOfHell Burning Legion]], who use it to punch holes into new worlds or intercept travelers passing through it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein|2009}}'' has The Black Sun Dimension, which is basically a small-ish pocket Universe being kept from collapsing by a source of unlimited power at its center, The Black Sun. The Veil is a barrier between our universe and the Black Sun dimension, through which Black Sun energy occasionally leaks in the form of energy pools. Oh, did we mention that the energy has the property of horrifically... ''altering'' whoever comes into contact with it, unless they use a precisely harmonized portal? There's even a sort of fauna, native to the Veil: the Geist, a species of monstrous insects that exist out-of-phase with our dimensions and can only be interacted with in the Veil... Unless you're really stupid and attract their attention, at which point all bets are off.
* ''VideoGame/StarControl''
** In this universe, Hyperspace is quite nice. Quasispace (Hyperspace's Hyperspace) is even nicer! But God help you if you use "Dimensional Fatigue" technology wrongly. The Androsynth tried it, and they all disappeared overnight. There are no more Androsynth, only Orz. [[StarfishAliens Strange creatures]] who are [[StarfishLanguage difficult to understand]], implied to be merely projections of some greater being from Hyperspace's or Quasispace's MirrorUniverse, and will happily kill you if you persist in asking about the Androsynth. Merely trying to research the fate of the Androsynth is enough to attract the attentions of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.
** Also of note is the fact that Hyperspace isn't a total walk in the park; according to the [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]], the shift between dimensions causes intense nausea, much like a hyperactive [[SpaceIsAnOcean space seasickness]]. The eerie background music playing while your ship travels through Quasispace really helps get the "scary place" feeling across. Some of it sounds like the screams or yells of... [[EldritchAbomination something]]. As some of the aliens describe it, Hyperspace is "above" regular space, and Quasi-space is "above" Hyperspace. The Orz come from "below".

* The first warp zone in the original ''VideoGame/StarFox1'', the black hole, is kind of like the warp gates in the later ''VideoGame/StarFox64'', except you can choose where to go and it's a looping level. The second one, however, sends Fox into an alternate dimension filled with grinning moons, demonic paper airplanes, classical music, and giant slot machines. This would be a zany joke level if it weren't for the fact that General Pepper asks over the intercom where Fox and his team is, and the inability to complete the level. This implies that the entire Star Fox team is trapped in an alternative dimension, flying until they either run out of fuel or are shot out of the sky, while Corneria is obliterated by Andross and his army.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'', a trip into hyperspace (or witch-space, as the game calls it) puts you at risk from ambush from Thargoids, who have a technology which allows them to lurk there. In some versions of the game you can force a hyperdrive failure by holding full pitch and roll while jumping, but you'd have to be either suicidal or very well armed to attempt it.
** In ''Frontier: Elite II'', mis-jumps sometimes occur, which usually just results in your ship emerging from Hyperspace too early but still with enough fuel to complete the jump. A severe mis-jump could have you emerge from Hyperspace in uncharted space thousands of light years from any inhabited system while simultaneously turning your hyperdrive into a pile of useless scrap metal. Fun.
** In ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'' Hyperspace works in such a way that you can't judge speed or direction in it, and you pass unidentifiable cloud structures and points of light while travelling in it. You can also hear some truly bizarre sounds in it, possibly coming from the Thargoids (mentioned above). Oh, and whatever you do, ''don't look behind you''. [[spoiler: And in case you think it's all just atmospheric, the Thargoids can still yank you out mid-jump.]]
** ''The Dark Wheel'' TieInNovel says the hyperspace lanes are protected from the two dangers of hyperspace travel. You can be turned inside out, turned into a deformed blob or sent millions of years back in time, though the latter is treated as more of an in-universe urban legend.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', the UMN, source of faster than light travel and communications, is also the source of the nightmarish creatures known as the Gnosis. This turns out to be because [[spoiler:[[DreamLand it is actually humanity's collective unconscious]].]]

* The Shadow Shard in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' is like this, if only because almost all the monsters found in the place are DemonicSpiders. Of course, the landscape is trippy as hell, and that does a lot to turn it into one of the most unused zones in the game.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', fast-travel is accomplished via the Teleport and Return spells, which sends a person's body and aether through TheLifestream to an aetheryte. Travel via these spells, as well as between smaller shards making up an "aethernet" covering a short distance (such as within a city), is safe. There exists, however, another teleportation spell called "Flow", which allows one to enter and exit the Lifestream at any point in the physical world -- at least in theory. In practice, without aetherytes to serve as beacons, using "Flow" carries the risk of a person becoming lost in the Lifestream until their bodies and souls break down completely into aether. [[spoiler:Even in cases where people emerge from using Flow, they rarely ever do so unscathed: Thancred was rendered completely incapable of using magic after his time in the Lifestream, and Y'shtola - who only even came back thanks to Gridanian conjurers managing to find her and pull her out of the Lifestream - was rendered blind. While she can now see aether around her to compensate, doing so [[CastFromLifespan gradually reduces her remaining lifespan]].]]
** With the introduction of [[TheMultiverse parallel worlds]] in ''Shadowbringers'', there is also the [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds Interdimensional Rift]], a dark vacuum between the Source and its reflections. [[spoiler:When the Crystal Exarch tried to summon the PlayerCharacter from the Source to the First, he failed the first several times, his spell locking onto their companions and pulling their souls over, leaving their bodies in the Source comatose. Once the player is finally successfully summoned, though, the game quickly justifies a means by which they can travel freely between the parallel worlds. The Exarch, himself, intended to take the power of the [[EldritchAbomination Lightwardens]] after the player absorbs them, then go into the Rift to die, but the ArcVillain of the expansion thwarted that plan. The endgame story revolves around efforts to safely transport the player's companions' souls back to their bodies in the Source, with the danger coming from the fact that such a feat had never been attempted before, so there was no telling what could happen.]]

* The scariness of subspace in the ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' series has less to do with subspace itself than the insinuation that using it for FTL travel will cause a horde of enraged StarfishAliens, who may or may not actually live in subspace, with NighInvulnerable spacecraft to come and wipe your species out for their "sin".
* The ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' universe's hyperspace is known as slipspace. In the early days of FTL travel, technicians sometimes had to repair the drives while in mid-jump, exposing themselves to the "slipstream" and risking injury, death, or even being [[RetGone completely erased from existence]] in the process. Even when the engine isn't operating, there's still a tendency for tools and technicians to turn up missing after a shift. Sometimes ships entering hyperspace will simply never reappear. Time dilation effects are present, which can cause unpredictable delays. It's also implied that slipspace travel has adverse effects on your health, thus the cryopods present on all UNSC vessels. Being ThrownOutTheAirlock simply kicks you back into realspace, though you do get bathed in radiation in the process. Opening a slipspace rift while in an atmosphere creates a massive {{EMP}} pulse and shockwave that can knock down a SpaceElevator. Trying to transition from realspace to slipspace when the slipspace drive isn't fully charged (at least on human ships) causes the ship to be blown into atomized bits, and even hitching a ride by following a larger ship through slipspace as the ''In Amber Clad'' does early in ''VideoGame/Halo2'' leaves it with several of its systems offline. Slipspace is significantly less scary for more advanced species like the Covenant and Forerunners, but even for them it can still be treacherous without the proper precautions.
* The ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' expansion ''Apocrypha'' added star systems that are only accessible by wormholes and full of strange, sentient and AlwaysChaoticEvil machines called the Sleepers. This turned out to be a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation: the players found these systems less scary than intended, mapped them, colonized them and deciphered the Sleeper A.I. to safely farm them. {{Canon}}ically, just warping and jumping through stargates are mentally traumatic experiences, to the point where ship crews are either permanently juicing anti-psychotic medication to keep them sane, or else are kept sedated when they're not actually needed for anything. A capsuleer's control pod does grant them immunity to this phenomenon, but considering that it tends to drive the user insane anyway, this could be considered a mixed blessing.
* In ''VideoGame/ImmortalDefense'', ''you'' are the reason hyperspace is a scary place, since you're an immortal disembodied spirit with god powers, and you tend to tear apart fleets.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''
** The Halloween update in 2010 allows players to build a portal to "The Nether", a hellish underworld where every step you take translates to eight steps in the normal world (Notch explicitly compared using it for fast travel to ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''). Where the terrain isn't covered by lava it consists of either a red rock that readily catches on fire or a quicksand textured with ''screaming faces''. The entire dimension is inhabited by herds of zombie pigmen and flying jellyfish who spit exploding fireballs that tear up the landscape and set the rock on fire.
** 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. If you travel out 1,000 blocks (either by making a bridge or after defeating the Ender Dragon) you can find the bizzare and endless Outer Islands.
*** 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 her 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.
* ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'' gives us the Abyss, which is intimately tied to translocation spells; there are translocation spells that send a target to the Abyss, and a translocation miscast can send the mage the same way. It's a constantly shifting branch of hell, filled with demons and ruled over by [[ChaoticEvil Lugonu the Unformed]], who grants powers of, naturally, translocation.
* In the first episode of ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxTheDevilsPlayhouse'', when Sam and Max first use the power of Teleportation (outside the tutorial flashback at the beginning), the two travel through a bizarre multicolored void where Max is a talking skeleton with a creepy voice.
-->'''Max:''' ''Enjoying the ride, Sam? A-ha-ha-ha-ha!''\\
'''Sam:''' Note to self: when traveling through Max's brain, ''keep your eyes shut.''
* ''VideoGame/TheBreach'' refers to this as "the Yellow." It's full of yellow fog, nasty monsters, and strange glowing glyphs, and it's [[PlaceBeyondTime apparently beyond time as well]]. The inhabitants are quite welcoming, but they tend to become [[AxeCrazy enraged]] at people who refuse to [[YouWillBeAssimilated join them]].
* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' the Trail of Souls that links [[{{Cloudcuckooland}} 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=Hy2nfKHNqMM music]] sets the tune perfectly.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Loom}}'' you and a few other characters have the opportunity to tear open the very fabric of reality and go Outside. While it makes for convenient travel by going from tear to tear, it is very much not safe, as Outside is the dwellingplace of the dead, some of whom are not nice people at all. [[spoiler: The climax of the game, after the Rend weave has been used to open a portal to Outside, involves going Outside to find the way to keep it out of the hands of the local Death God, which has the unfortunate side effect of trapping it in normal reality. The game was supposed to be a trilogy, but sadly went unfinished.]]
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the Mass Effect Relays are not entirely mapped out by the species of the galaxy, since they were supposedly designed by the Protheans ([[spoiler: "supposedly" because they were actually created by the [[EldritchAbomination Reapers]]]]) who did not really leave any complete maps as to where they all go, and an explorer has no idea what is really on the other side. Used to be, when a new Mass Relay was discovered the Citadel Council would immediately send out an explorer team to leap to the other side and map out the Relay's destination. This came to a stop however when one exploration team discovered the [[InsectoidAliens rachni]]. The ensuing [[BugWar war]] lasted a century, which was only won when the Council employed the use of the [[ProudWarriorRace krogan]], which in turn lead to Krogan Rebellions. When the turians came across humanity tinkering with an unexplored Relay, it started a small war.[[note]]The First Contact War by the humans as the turians were the humans' first contact with an alien race, and the Relay 314 Incident by the turians who felt they were stopping the humans from doing something stupid; fortunately, the Citadel stepped in to stop it before things got serious.[[/note]] On top of hostile unknown races being at the other side of a Mass Relay, there is also a chance you could run into other nasty things, like black holes or massive fields of space-junk.\\\
Actually an inversion; using the relays by themselves is perfectly safe. Using the FTL drives on the ship is perfectly safe (provided you remembered to discharge the static buildup so it doesn't fry everyone on board). The real dangers come from the ''other'' people using these technologies, such as the aforementioned rachni or the [[spoiler: Reapers]]. The sole exception is the Omega relay, which has a reputation of being a one-way trip. Locals presume it's because it points at the galactic core which is full of black holes that pilots can easily get caught. Though really [[spoiler:the Relay was sabotaged to send any ship without the appropriate software into a killing field.]]

* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' has the Amala Network, a series of Magatsuhi-flowing veins that stretch over the Vortex World that can be traversed via Terminals. Occasionally, travel through the network can get one trapped inside of it; as a result, you'll find the network infested with demons trying to gorge on the Magatsuhi in the network. It is also dangerous for humans to stay in the network for too long, lest they be subjected to BodyHorror, or worse.
** The earlier ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'' had a very ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}''-esque explanation for the sudden demonic invasion of Japan -- a blatant {{Expy}} of Creator/StephenHawking succeeded in inventing teleportation but it connected to the demon world, allowing demons to spill into Earth through his experimental terminals. He eventually fixed the system so [[WarpWhistle it was safe to use]], but not before it was too late to stop the invasion.
* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'' has a location called the Abyss. It has been said that whenever teleportation magic is used, for just a split second that is too short to notice, your body exists in three locations at once, the point of departure, the point of arrival, and in the abyss. When you actually get to see what the abyss looks like, for the purpose of using it as a short cut to the runecrafting altars, it turns out to be BloodyBowelsOfHell and is filled with swarms of highly aggressive monsters than can very quickly kill players who are low level or are not prepared for them.
* Story design documents released from ''VideoGame/EarthAndBeyond'' after its servers were shut down revealed that protagonists of the game, The V'rix, originated from hyperspace. To the players they appeared as terrifying insectoid creatures and ships, but the design documents revealed that this was merely a perception that played on human's primal fears and not their actual forms. They were the guardians of The Ancient Gate System left behind by [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence The Ancients]] and showed up and started attacking humans (and documents revealed they would have ended up [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up the Earth]]) because of our improper use of The Ancient Gates.
* ''VideoGame/{{Outcry}}'': There's the so-called Shimmering World, which certainly fits the bill when you get there. It's implied that this is only due to your brother’s damaged psyche, though, and that the Shimmering World might appear differently for healthier people.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': The Void is described by the Orokin as "...a blinding night. The hellspace where our science and reason failed," and it lives up to this description aptly. Void space seen through the windows of the vacant (kind of) Orokin installations is that of an inverted sky, the emptiness of space becoming blinding white and the stars pitch black. Noble gasses become solid and crystalline when exposed to Void energies, while people exposed to it that aren't killed outright are [[TheCorruption corrupted and broken in nightmarish ways]]. It's even worse for [[MechanicalAbomination the Sentients]]; some unknown property of the Void makes it lethal to them in the same way radiation is to humans, and even with heavy protection they can only survive for a short time in it and are rendered sterile. The Chains of Harrow quest makes it way worse; we find out that [[spoiler:Rell, an autistic child who was exposed to the Void (and ''should'' have become a Tenno, [[AllTheOtherReindeer but was cast out by the other children before he had a chance]]) discovered a "[[GeniusLoci great indifference]]" in the Void, an intelligence that finds life an annoyance that needs to be crushed and destroyed. It drives the poor kid completely insane, and when you manage to free Rell, the Void notices ''you'' and takes a personal interest. Not your character, ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou you, the player]]''.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': The Shroud draws clear inspiration from ''Warhammer 40K''[='=]s Warp, though no strong ties with FTL is implied. Jump Drive technology, on the other hand, can be obtained by studying the remains of the Space Horror, a very powerful space monster found inside a black hole, described as only partially existing in our universe. [[spoiler: However, even just researching Jump Drives, or in particular, Psi Jump Drives, puts the entire galaxy at risk of invasion by The Unbidden.]] Psi Jump drive technology can make the connection more overt; one way to discover it is for your explorers to be rather surprised when an alien ship of unknown design flies by in what they had previously thought was a purely mental realm.
* ''VideoGame/WildArms1'': It's not entirely clear where you go if you use your hammer on a teleporter and it malfunctions but it's called [[BonusLevelOfHell The Abyss]] and it's a very hard BonusDungeon filled with BonusBoss.
* ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'': FTL travel ([[AppliedPhlebotinum and a lot of the setting's technology in general]]) involves tapping into or outright entering Cherenkov Space using the [[FormulaicMagic Patterson Equations]], which describe FTL physics the same way one might describe gravity or relativity. The scary part? [[spoiler:Cherenkov Space is where [[EldritchMonster the Monsters]] come from. It's a parallel dimension closely aligned with ours, and the use of Patterson tech in normal space has [[ToxicPhlebotinum the effect of a constantly exploding atomic bomb in Cherenkov Space]]. The Monsters are members of the ethereal natives of this dimension, given artificial bodies to manifest in our space and eliminate the threat to their world by destroying Patterson tech, its creators, and anything else they deem necessary, even if it means [[ApocalypseHow nucleating the entire dimension into an absolute vacuum]].]]
* ''VideoGame/LibraryOfRuina'': W-Corp runs what are known as warp trains, which can travel to any destination within 10 minutes. However in one instance, it begins to malfunction, and the train never seems to reach its destination. The people riding never feel hunger or thirst, and after several weeks of being stuck on the train, people start committing suicide...except they can't die. People continue to go insane, mutilating themselves and others just to feel something over 2000 years until they're just throbbing piles of flesh. [[spoiler: It's then revealed that the train was never malfunctioning at all, and works exactly as intended. The train travels for 2000 some odd years in another dimension and arrives at its destination 10 seconds later in their original dimension. A cleanup crew puts these mutilated bodies back into their seats, their memories of the events are wiped, and their bodies are restored to normal, none the wiser of the millenium of anguish they just went through. This happens every single time. Rich people pay enormous costs to be put in stasis for these trips so they don't have to live through this hell.]]
* ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'': Hyperspace is relatively safe. Your engine is wrapped in a coat of Hours and accelerated down a relay with the use of Correspondence stones. Sometimes other creatures use these relays, though they don't do anything, and the Burrower Below will start paying attention to you if you use them too often. The reason the relays are needed, however, is that the area outside of the zones you can play in, known as the Graveyard of Stars, is incredibly unsafe. It's a sunless void devoid of light and laws, with freezing temperatures and unceasing winds. ''Things'' live there, it drives people insane, and entering the Graveyard of Stars readily attracts the attention of the Waste-Waif. It appears that other than whatever lives there, the only other things around are foolhardy explorers, ruins of past civilisations, and maybe-sentient, reality-warping Correspondence sigils.

* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': The Void is where both angels and devils live, and is a cold place of ash in the shadow of the flame of Creation. Humans and Servants don't have bodies there, and instead exist only as shades — shadows of their souls, pale imitations of the real thing. Distance is warped, so it is fully possible to ''walk'' to another world. However, those same warping effects can be extremely dangerous if you step off the road, assuming an unbound devil doesn't kill you first.

* The Web in ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'', is a bizarre and disturbing level of Cyber Space that acts as a counterpart to the organized Net. There are no apparent separate systems in the Web, it is simply a continuous flow of energy and data, resulting in constant hurricane looking storms. It can only be accessed by portals and is filled with strange monsters, not to mention exposure to the Web or its creatures [[TheCorruption is corrupting]] without protection. Nobody knows much about the place or how it works, but everyone in the Net fears it. It is the chaotic opposite of the Net and most believe that the Web would destroy the Net if a portal between the two realms was left open too long. In the season 3 finale [[spoiler: Megabyte gets dragged into it by the Web Creature and when [[CameBackWrong he comes back out]] he's been twisted into an insane borderline EldritchAbomination who can mimic other sprites.]]

* The Infinite 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]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Outcry}}'', there's the so-called Shimmering World, which certainly fits the bill when you get there. It's implied that this is only due to your brother’s damaged psyche, though, and that the Shimmering World might appear differently for healthier people.

* The Shroud in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' draws clear inspiration from ''Warhammer 40K''[='=]s Warp, though no strong ties with FTL is implied. Jump Drive technology, on the other hand, can be obtained by studying the remains of the Space Horror, a very powerful space monster found inside a black hole, described as only partially existing in our universe. [[spoiler: However, even just researching Jump Drives, or in particular, Psi Jump Drives, puts the entire galaxy at risk of invasion by The Unbidden.]] Psi Jump drive technology can make the connection more overt; one way to discover it is for your explorers to be rather surprised when an alien ship of unknown design flies by in what they had previously thought was a purely mental realm.
* It's not entirely clear where you go if you use your hammer on a teleporter and it malfunctions in ''VideoGame/WildArms1'' but it's called [[BonusLevelOfHell The Abyss]] and it's a very hard BonusDungeon filled with BonusBoss.

* ''Videogame/{{Library of Ruina}}'': W-Corp runs what are known as warp trains, which can travel to any destination within 10 minutes. However in one instance, it begins to malfunction, and the train never seems to reach its destination. The people riding never feel hunger or thirst, and after several weeks of being stuck on the train, people start committing suicide...except they can't die. People continue to go insane, mutilating themselves and others just to feel something over 2000 years until they're just throbbing piles of flesh. [[spoiler: It's then revealed that the train was never malfunctioning at all, and works exactly as intended. The train travels for 2000 some odd years in another dimension and arrives at its destination 10 seconds later in their original dimension. A cleanup crew puts these mutilated bodies back into their seats, their memories of the events are wiped, and their bodies are restored to normal, none the wiser of the millenium of anguish they just went through. This happens every single time. Rich people pay enormous costs to be put in stasis for these trips so they don't have to live through this hell.]]
* In ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'' hyperspace is relatively safe. Your engine is wrapped in a coat of Hours and accelerated down a relay with the use of Correspondence stones. Sometimes other creatures use these relays, though they don't do anything, and the Burrower Below will start paying attention to you if you use them too often. The reason the relays are needed, however, is that the areas outside those you can play in, known as The Graveyard of Stars, is incredibly unsafe. It's a sunless void devoid of light and laws, with freezing temperatures and unceasing winds. ''Things'' live there, it drives people insane, and entering the Graveyard of Stars readily attracts the attention of the Waste-Waif. It appears that other than whatever lives there, the only other things around are foolhardy explorers, ruins of past civilisations, and maybe-sentient, reality-warping Correspondence sigils.

* In the webcomic ''Bohemian Drive'', one of the characters talks about the rumors he heard about wormhole technology as he steps into the teleportation booth, describing how it's this twisting, freaky experience. Then he subverts it by admitting that it's actually supposed to be quite smooth, as the welcome guy on the other side greets them with nothing else changing to indicate the change. [[http://www.bohemiandrive.com/comics/npwil/18.html Link]]
* FTL travel in ''{{Webcomic/Harbourmaster}}'' involves the A-S drive, which surrounds ships with a field that allows them to slip into another "layer" of space called underspace. Time operates strangely in underspace; two minutes inside of it equals two-hundred light years of movement. Coincidentally, two minutes is also the maximum amount of time that can be spent in underspace before the ship and it's crew just... ''vanish''. Nobody knows what happens to them.

* In ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' hyperspace is fine. It's ''hyper''-hyperspace that might [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/3680.html drive people insane]].

* In ''Webcomic/{{Outsider}}'', faster-than-light travel involves jumping between solar system's gravity wells. Miscalculating the jump can result in colliding with the star whose system you're targeting, bouncing off of real space until you eventually re-embed, being stranded in hyperspace, or being liberated into negative hyperspace. There's also the side effect (in non-Soia-Liron organisms, such as humans) of [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking bad dreams and nausea]] after a jump.
* In a [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons D&D]]-based ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' comic series, the inside of a character's BagOfHolding exists in an infinite void haunted by titanic {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, but when you need to hide a baby, [[https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/04/16/the-dungeon-mistress-part-four you need to hide a baby]].
%%* Parodied (but of course) in [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=113#comic a strip]] of ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal''.

* Not strictly hyperspace but the idea of dangerous extradimensional travel is in ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico''. No ship can safely pass through a Chulip Gate unless at least one member of the crew has a specific kind of nanite in them: the kind that allows this person to perform [[{{Teleportation}} Boson Jumps]], the technology behind the Chulip. The Jovians found LostTechnology that allowed them to infuse these nanites into volunteers, allowing them to use the technology. Which makes everyone scratch their heads when the titular ship, an Earth design, not only jumps through a Chulip Gate but jumps ''eight months forward in time''. [[spoiler:Then it's discovered that the same kind of technology is on Mars, only this one is mixed up with the nanite technology being used to terraform the planet. End result? Anyone born on Mars has a superior ability to the Jovians: able to traverse ''time'' as well as space(on two occasions, a jumper ended up arriving at their destination ''before'' they left). Then it makes sense since the ''Nadesico'' had at least three Mars-borns at the time.]]
* In ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross''[=/=]the first arc of ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'', there is "space fold" technology. The invading Zentraedi armies have little trouble using it, but when humanity first attempted to use it to get the SDF-1 out of harm's way, it didn't quite go to plan: the energy field that enveloped the SDF-1 during the fold also cut out an island underneath the ship and took it into space with it, the SDF-1 wound up in orbit around Pluto instead of the moon, and the space fold device didn't return to normal space with the SDF-1, forcing the ship to take the long route back to Earth.
* In ''LightNovel/OthersidePicnic'' interstitial space is a space between the normal world and the Otherside that, depending on the entrance used, the user will have to pass through for some time before arriving at their destination, and it can be a pretty unpleasant place. The abnormal floors in the elevator Sorawo and Toriko used to cross over are an example. Another time, the two ended up being sent there while dealing with the Ninja Cats.

** ''[[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 could crash any freighter and cause a multi-system disaster at any time.