| 1 | [[quoteright:330:[[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Hyperspace_exit_7041.jpg]]]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:330:Up yours, [[UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein Einstein]]!]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->''"There was a young woman named Bright\ |
| 5 | Whose speed was much faster than light.\ |
| 6 | She set out one day\ |
| 7 | In a relative way,\ |
| 8 | And returned on the previous night."'' |
| 9 | -->-- '''A. H. Reginald Buller''' |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Faster-Than-Light Travel is a staple of SpaceOpera that allows an "out" to the unfortunate fact that [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale space is honking big]], making it impossible (within physics as we understand it now) to get anywhere remotely interesting within the average lifetime of a civilization. This has been an issue for writers since TheFifties or so; [[ScienceMarchesOn before then]] you could get away with having your aliens come from [[Film/InvasionOfTheNeptuneMen Neptune]] without totally losing the audience. Nowadays, we know that the rest of our solar system is almost certainly devoid of other life forms -- so we've got to go to other stars. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | And that's where the "space is honking big" part comes in. Other planetary systems are so far away from us that it takes even the fastest thing in the universe -- light itself -- years, decades, or millennia to reach them[[note]]Even the closest system to our own, Proxima Centauri, is about 4 light-years away and would take about 6,300 years to reach with current space travel technology[[/note]]. Thus, in order for {{the protagonist}}s to be able to plausibly visit a new PlanetOfHats every week, they need to travel through space at speeds faster than that of light. The problem is that as far as present-day science is concerned, going faster than -- or even just as fast as -- the speed of light is, for all human intents and purposes, impossible. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | There's a whole bunch of stuff about this on [[Analysis/FasterThanLightTravel the analysis page]]. For even more information, see UsefulNotes/RocketsAndPropulsionMethods. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | For the record, ''c'', the speed of light in a vacuum, is defined as 299,792,458 metres per second. [[note]]It's the same everywhere, so the metre is actually defined by reference to ''c'' rather than the other way around.[[/note]] This works out to about a billion km/h. If light is not in a vacuum, it gets a little slower in certain cases (see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation Cherenkov radiation]]). It's the speed of light in a vacuum that's the limit. It's not just a good idea, it's the law! |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Use of this trope is an absolute requirement for the employment of CasualInterstellarTravel. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | No relation to ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'', although it does use the trope heavily. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Used during establishing shots as per SciFiFlyby. |
| 24 | ---- |
| 25 | !!Examples: |
| 26 | [[index]] |
| 27 | * FTL/{{Literature}} |
| 28 | * FTL/VideoGames |
| 29 | [[/index]] |
| 30 | |
| 31 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 32 | |
| 33 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 34 | * ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' had the portal variety called Gates, which were apparently dangerous because something called the [[NoodleIncident "Gate Incident"]] made the [[DetonationMoon moon explode]]. They created subspace of some fashion where things went faster and ships could get stuck in if they didn't leave in time. Like a lot of things in Bebop, it was [[ShrugOfGod never fully explained]]. |
| 35 | * In ''Anime/SpaceDandy'', it is explained that the warp drive on Dandy's ship doesn't actually move the ship at all. Rather, it [[GeneticMemory transfers the consciousness]] of whoever is inside the ship into their same body in an alternate universe, with the only difference in the entire universe being that the ship and the people inside happen to already be where they wanted to go. |
| 36 | * In ''Manga/OutlawStar'', as a clever nod to science fiction's past, the "sub-ether" drive is powered by a "Munchausen reactor". This is a type of hyperdrive. |
| 37 | * ''Anime/{{Macross}}'': |
| 38 | ** The original ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' (and its ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' adaptation) uses the title spaceship's jump drive as a major plot point, and actually demonstrated that if you had an FTL drive and could safely use it within a star system, you probably would, because even interplanetary distances can be inconveniently large. The SDF-1 travels from Earth to Pluto's orbit in minutes, but needs ''two years'' to get back to Earth using a gravity-assist technique through normal space. The latter is quite plausible, as the outer Solar System is ''big''.[[note]]For comparison, the real life probe New Horizons was launched off of Earth at extremely high speeds and used a gravity slingshot around Jupiter, and it still took ''nine and a half years'' to reach Pluto.[[/note]] |
| 39 | ** FTL travel in the series itself seems to be a combination of Jump and Hyperdrive types. Space folding is done by going into "superdimension space." Later series introduce "Fold Faults", which are obstacles in superdimensional space (implied to be warped space-time of some sort), and establishes that space folds have limited range: long distance (on the order of thousands of light years) folds eat up a ''lot'' of power, such that ships need to spend ''weeks'' recovering the resources to make such a jump again. |
| 40 | ** ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' reveals that all Fold technology in the series is derived from a space-faring species known as the Vajra, who are able to do it naturally, without the aid of technology. Their living Fold systems are still much more advanced than the ones in use by humanity and Zentraedi: fold faults don't seem to be as big a problem for them, and they can make extreme long-range jumps in a fraction of the time. |
| 41 | * In ''Anime/SpaceRunawayIdeon'', the Solo Ship and Buff Clan ships had the DS (Dimension Space) Drive as a way of performing faster-than-light travel. However, it functioned more in the likeness of wormhole travel (in which one uses or creates a tunnel through space-time that creates a normally physically impossible "portal" between two points in space) than hyperspace. |
| 42 | * The Yamato in ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato'' is outfitted with a Wave Motion Engine (also powers their [[WaveMotionGun Super-Cool Giant Laser Beam]]) but abusing it could screw them over (meaning they can only use it for limited amounts of time in short intervals). Warping is a mind-blowing experience for the uninitiated, and may lead to either hallucinations or oddly specific existence failures (Yuki's clothing briefly disappears during the first warp; this ''never'' happens to any of the male characters; and of course it doesn't happen at all in the American version). |
| 43 | * ''Literature/StarshipOperators'' has a warp/jump drive. It operates like jump drive/wormhole, and normally cannot be used in area with high gravity. |
| 44 | * ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann''. |
| 45 | ** Used by default by the eponymous mecha. It's ten million light years tall but moves and fights normally on a human timescale, so every part of it moves much, much faster than light every time it so much as budges. The method used is ''pure HotBlooded badass''. |
| 46 | ** The Super Galaxy Dai-Gurren also has something akin to a hyperspace drive. Its guidance and power requirements are taken care of by the main character's flaming awesomeness (read: HotBlooded badass). |
| 47 | * In the ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'' [=OVAverse=] [[spoiler:when fighting Z, Tenchi travels from Earth to Saturn within a fraction of a second. This is {{justified|Trope}} in that he is the ''being that made the three Goddesses that made the universe''.]] |
| 48 | * Generally not present in ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' due to the franchise's more "realistic" take on science fiction, but the idea has popped up a few times: |
| 49 | ** The ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' as well as its protypes like the Testbed Turn A are capable of instantaneous teleportation, generally over short distances around Earth to Moon. The FTL system could also be used to replace weapons and bringing in ammunition according to background material. The prequel Wind of the Moon manga reveals that the main city of the Moonrace is built on a gigantic ancient interstellar ship and they are trying to salvage usuable tech. Luckily for the Earthlings 99% of the ship has decayed but the 1% left has advnaced tech such as artificial gravity but most importently a [[PortalNetwork transfer gate]] [[spoiler:which is activated connecting to somewhere outside of the solar system which freaks out the Moonrace but worse an {{Eldritch Abomination}} which appears to be a gooey mass peaks out from the portal but the gate is finally closed and the entity remains a mystery]] |
| 50 | ** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'' first introduced FTL with the 00 Raiser which can teleport around extremely short distances but the function was not intentional and the teleportation was a total accident. [[spoiler:The 00 Raiser's successor, the 00 Qan[T], was then designed to use this for full-scale faster than light travel and is fully capable of interstellar travel. The same system was installed in the ship Sumeragi and mass produced Sakibure MS. The alien ELS also have their own type of FTL]] |
| 51 | ** The Universal Century entirely rely on STL ships however [[spoiler:as shown in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamNarrative Gundam NT]]'' newtype powers allow the law of physics to be bent to allow the Phenex to travel at or higher than the speed of light among other weird powers]] |
| 52 | ** There is a little known manga called Enhanced Human Tale: MAD WANG 1160 which is supposedly in the far future of the Universal Century in UC 1160 although its more of an {{Alternate Timeline}}. Mobile Suits have been replaced by mecha called Armed Material and nanomachines are everywhere. FTL is achieved by warp drives which can even be fitted to Armed Material and Humans have built a galactic civilization. However the old cycle repeats and its Earth vs Colonies again but this time on an interstellar scale. It is notable for introduction of concepts such as Nanomachines and FTL. |
| 53 | * In ''Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'', faster-than-light travel is achieved via "warp drives", which actually function more like "jump" drives. |
| 54 | * In ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'', played straight in episode 145 after Yusei defeats [[spoiler:Antinomy/Bruno]] they both end up being trapped within the black hole created earlier (which is itself impossible). After an emotional speech by [[spoiler:Antinomy/Bruno]], he proceeds to adjust his D-wheel and push it into Yusei's to gain enough escape velocity (also impossible once inside the event horizon) and/or open up a hyperdrive window. The title of the episode itself ("Faster than Light!") perhaps lampshaded this trope. |
| 55 | * ''Anime/LilyCAT'' still has the journey to their destination taking twenty years both ways, thus necessitating a SleeperStarship. |
| 56 | * ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' has Dimension Space where ships, both civilian and military, go if people want to travel between planets. This place also where the TSAB Navy and Precia Testarossa's lair is located. There is also Precia's theory that the path to the legendary lost city of Al Hazard is located within Dimension Space. |
| 57 | [[/folder]] |
| 58 | |
| 59 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 60 | * In Creator/WarrenEllis' ''ComicBook/{{Orbiter}}'', [[spoiler:the shuttle's FTL drive is heavily implied to be AlcubierreDrive (the name's not stated, but the picture of the warp field and the name Alcubierre was mentioned, and the theoretical explanation fits Alcubierre drive, except that starting and stopping is far easier)]]. |
| 61 | * Franchise/TheDCU uses this every so often. |
| 62 | ** ''Franchise/GreenLantern'': Kyle Rayner has traversed the entire universe in a span of a few months, as well as traveling back and forth between Oa and Earth multiple times. Other Lanterns -especially Hal Jordan- have done the same, but not nearly as much as Kyle has. |
| 63 | ** The Zeta Beam is primarily ComicBook/AdamStrange's method of FTL travel. |
| 64 | ** In the ''ComicBook/NewGods'' there's the [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Boom Tube Gauntlet]], that allows instantaneous travel to planets as far away as [[PollutedWasteland Apokolips]] and [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas New Genesis]]. |
| 65 | ** Franchise/TheFlash and any speedster is able to run faster than light at any time he wishes. |
| 66 | *** Special mention goes to his RoguesGallery, who at some times at least can be even faster than ''him'', most notable being Reverse-Flash. Even '''more''' extreme examples might be [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoTD7kW0tPY&t=273s Godspeed and Black Racer.]] |
| 67 | ** Franchise/{{Superman}} [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} and]] [[ComicBook/PowerGirl his]] [[ComicBook/KryptoTheSuperDog Kryptonian]] [[ComicBook/{{Superboy}} family]] routinely could fly faster than the speed of light between [[MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks the late Golden Age]] through the end of MediaNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}, usually to travel across space. Said ability was also used (similar to the Flash's means) to allow them to travel through time. ComicBook/PostCrisis, Superman was usually limited to sublight speeds, though writers began to ignore this early on and write stories where he flies across vast distances of space without anyone on Earth noticing an absurdly-long absence. |
| 68 | *** An 80s Superboy story shows him making use of a wormhole early in his career to fly across space. |
| 69 | *** In another 80's story, [[ComicBook/Supergirl1982 "Blackstar"]], Supergirl takes one day to make her way to Earth from the center of the universe. |
| 70 | *** Similarly, Kal-El's ship that brought him to Earth was equipped with a warp drive engine. |
| 71 | ** ''Franchise/WonderWoman'': |
| 72 | *** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': While Diana generally uses the teleportation device Paula invented the Saturnians explicity have ships capable of faster than light travel, as Diana and ComicBook/SteveTrevor steal one to get back home after being abducted. |
| 73 | *** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Diana and Natasha end up lost very far from home after the modified New God tech Di was using to save Natasha from the space station is sabotaged and sends them flying out of the Milky Way into space, where they end up in Sangtee Empire territory. |
| 74 | * The 1980s British science fiction comic ''Starblazer'' had a wide variety of star drives in its stories, including warp drives and warp gates, traveling through hyperspace with hyperdrives, using natural wormholes, Worm Hole Drive (creating artificial wormholes) and Omega Drive (artificially created black holes). |
| 75 | * In ''ComicBook/TankVixens'' the "Credibilty Drive" relies on the crew being [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum gullible enough to warp the universe]]. It's really just a dressed-up VCR that plays a video of hyperspace lines on the monitors followed by their destination. However, when a tape of ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' is played by accident they end up TrappedInTVLand. |
| 76 | * In ''ComicBook/{{Pouvoirpoint}}'' the ship Entreprise-2061 makes use of FTL jumps several times during the journey from Earth to Alpha Centauri, producing each time psychedelic effects and giving space sickness to the main character. |
| 77 | * Franchise/MarvelUniverse's, ComicBook/{{Quasar}} wears the Quantum Bands which were created by [[CosmicEntity Eon]] for the Protector of the Universe. Eon would routinely bestow the bands on each new agent she chose to act as Protector. Among other things, they enable him to quantum jump or create small apertures between the fabric of space/time in the actual world of matter and energy and the potential world of matter and energy that is the quantum zone. He can then travel through this trackless featureless zone and emerge at a different point in our physical space. His quantum-bands enable him to keep his bearings while in the zone and thus emerge where he wants to. He can cross countless light years in a single jump, if he so desires. Important note, however, he cannot quantum-jump in an atmosphere without ripping a huge hole in its ozone layer. Thus using it for teleportation on Earth is out of the question. |
| 78 | * The ComicBook/DisneyMouseAndDuckComics have a few versions, though they rarely go in detail: |
| 79 | ** Super Goof, being a parody of Superman with powers to match, is occasionally shown flying through interstellar distances with ease. He just rarely bothers because he normally has no reason. |
| 80 | ** The Time Machine series once introduced a teleportation technology, essentially a version of the time machine that moves objects in space with a temporal variance of a fraction of a second in the future. A few alien races have it, and professor Marlin, inventor of the time machine, developed his own version... Only to mothball it because if the experiment failed in a way ''he'' couldn't understand then [[TheWorldIsNotReady the world is even less capable of handling it]]. |
| 81 | ** Gyro has occasionally made FTL ships with such ease Donald would later take CasualInterstellarTravel for granted. A few, developed for Scrooge, used Dollarite and its improved version Super Dollarite, a fuel made from dollars on Scrooge's reasoning that "If money moves the world then a fuel made out of cash can move a rocket better than conventional fuel" ([[CrazyEnoughToWork it actually worked]], much to Donald and the Triplets' shock). |
| 82 | ** Both Rebo and the Jovians have extremely advanced FTL technology, with the Jovians casually moving through the solar system and Rebo's ships being able to attack Jupiter from Saturn with ease. The ultimate example came when Rebo was hit by the Virtual Duck, Jupiter's ultimate jamming and perception-altering weapon, and not only he accidentally moved his flagship from near Jupiter to close to the Sun in seconds, the Virtual Duck even made him mistake the Sun for ''Earth'' and he didn't suspect anything was wrong until his ship started melting. |
| 83 | ** ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'' examples: |
| 84 | *** Most ships use some form of AlcubierreDrive, usually referred to as "warp", even to move inside solar systems, as space is indeed enormous (and Donald, used to CasualInterstellarTravel thanks to Gyro, was surprised when One pointed this out). Notably this doesn't mean they have FTL ''sensors'' or ''communications'', and in fact most races have neither (only the Evronians and the En'to'mek have developed either with anything but very short range). |
| 85 | *** For larger distances there's a PortalNetwork, important enough all spacefaring races (including apparently dangerous races as [[PlanetLooters the Evronians]] and the En'to'mek) respect them as neutral. Misuse or incompetence can result in extreme danger, to the point that when one of the few factions that ''don't'' respect their neutrality seized a portal node they accidentally connected the system to the Sol System and endangered both systems, resulting in the collective spacefaring races hiring [[PrivateMercenaryContractor Colonel Neopard]] to free it without any one of them taking control and breaking its neutrality for even a second. |
| 86 | *** The Evronians, being space nomads and extremely warlike, normally stay away from the network... And have developed the habit of building [[BidDumbObject ships the size of a small moon]] to cross greater distances, even having [[PlanetSpaceship turned the moon of their original homeworld in a spaceship]], and doing the same to Earth in a BadFuture. [[spoiler:They do it periodically, as whenever their numbers grow beyond their ability to prevent a civil war they create a new emperor, put him and half their population on the new planet, and send them away to make a new Evronian Empire somewhere else]]. |
| 87 | *** Xadhoom can cross interstellar distances through unknown means, [[CasualInterstellarTravel explicitely much faster than with warp drives]]. It works only for her because she accidentally gave herself godlike powers and, being the best astrophysicist of a planet that highly prizes science, was intelligent and knowledgeable enough to figure out how. |
| 88 | [[/folder]] |
| 89 | |
| 90 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 91 | * In ''Fanfic/ThousandShinji'', the explicit lack thereof due to [[spoiler:the C'tan's machinations closing off the Warp -an alternate dimension that was used to travel faster than light-]] and the consequences of this is what forced [[spoiler:the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' gods to work together.]] |
| 92 | * In ''Fanfic/NeitherABirdNorAPlaneItsDeku'', Kal-El's spaceship is equipped with a powerful [[ThinkingUpPortals warp drive]] that allowed it to arrive on Earth shortly after his birth. It is also the reason why it was able to land on Earth at all, as [[AbsoluteXenophobe Alan Scott]] would have blasted it out of the sky otherwise. |
| 93 | * In ''Fanfic/APrizeForThreeEmpires'', the Starjammers and every alien empire use [=FTL=] drives to zip across the galaxy. [[Characters/MarvelComicsJeanGrey Jean Grey]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsCarolDanvers Carol Danvers]] as Phoenix and Binary, respectively, can zip across the cosmos under their own power. |
| 94 | * A lot of characters in ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy'' have the power to travel faster-than-light, which they use to move quickly through time, space and even other dimensions: ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}, her EvilTwin Satan Girl, her Kryptonian boyfriend, ComicBook/{{Superman}}, ComicBook/PowerGirl, ComicBook/{{Superboy}}, Mon-El... |
| 95 | -->She pushed herself off of nothingness, and speeded towards one of those moons, quickly passing light velocity several times over. |
| 96 | * ''Fanfic/{{Origins}}'': Everywhere. On an intergalactic scale, no less. Its use averts to some degree Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale. Galaxies really far apart? Here's a really, really, big engine! Turns out there are problems with it though—see HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace and TemporalParadox. |
| 97 | * In ''Fanfic/AForceOfFour'', villain Badra and her Kryptonian allies use their faster-than-light flight to quickly fly between Earth and Mars over and again. ComicBook/PowerGirl is the only hero who can equal their speed. |
| 98 | -->In the reaches of outer space, a green-glowing globe floated, undisturbed for 31 years. The three beings inside it were numb, in suspended animation, as they had been for almost all of their imprisonment.\ |
| 99 | A female figure appeared, lancing in from a point unknown, laying her hands on the globe, and propelling it before her in the direction of Earth's sun. She was black-haired, beautiful, and colder than the emptiness about her. She wore a strange green dress with red trim, had Roman-style sandals on her feet, and wore ornate jewelry on her neck, her wrists, and her earlobes.\ |
| 100 | Her top speed was far in excess of light. |
| 101 | * Averted in ''Fanfic/FriendshipIsOptimal''. It takes a long time for Celest-A.I.'s probes to reach nearby star systems/galaxies in order to harvest their resources. As an immortal A.I. this doesn't bother her in the slightest, and she already has plenty enough resources to run Equestria adequately in the meantime. |
| 102 | * Several characters in ''Fanfic/KaraOfRokyn''. [[Franchise/GreenLantern Hal Jordan]]'s Power Ring allows for interstellar travel between Rokyn and Earth without being bothered by Rokyn's spaceport's customs officers. |
| 103 | * The Scrin from ''Fanfic/TiberianEclipse'' develop this as a workaround of Threshold Towers limitations. The late GDI/Unascended Brotherhood Of Nod Alliance/early ISDI reverse-engineered this. |
| 104 | * In ''Fanfic/SupermanOf2499TheGreatConfrontation'', Superman's ability to travel faster than light lets him build a base near from Jupiter which he and he alone can reach easily. |
| 105 | * In ''Fanfic/TheVampireOfSteel'', Supergirl uses her ability to fly faster than light to leap into another dimension in order to dispose of an EldritchAbomination. |
| 106 | * In ''Fanfic/ScepterOfDarkness'', the time-travellers have FTL ships. |
| 107 | * ''Fanfic/HereThereBeMonsters'': Thanks to the Speed of Mercury, the [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Marvel Family]] can fly faster than light and reach Venus in under three hours. |
| 108 | -->Earth had shrunken to a bluish dot behind them. There was only the star-dotted blackness, the sun blazing before them, and another world growing nearer by the second. Their speed exceeded that of light. Only their great power could move the mass their bodies had accumulated now. They did it without seeming effort. |
| 109 | [[/folder]] |
| 110 | |
| 111 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 112 | * ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': The kids apparently manage to travel 3 million light years in what amounts to about a day. |
| 113 | * The whole plot of the anime short subject ''Anime/VoicesOfADistantStar'' stems from the fact that the first United Nations space armada (where the protagonist serves) has faster-than-light drives but no means of faster-than-light communication. The dub very slightly implies that it's some kind of time dilation instead, because they failed to translate the newspapers, prominently displayed on the table, where headlines, basically, explain it all. (And, indeed, one newspaper's side-column contains the particularly mean-spirited revelation that FTL communication was actually invented shortly after the armada jumped out of range.) |
| 114 | [[/folder]] |
| 115 | |
| 116 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 117 | * ''Franchise/StarWars'': |
| 118 | ** The hyperdrive of course. Among the most typical around. It's also fairly fast; [[CasualInterstellarTravel one could travel from one end of the galaxy to the end in about one week]] (although it's established you need sufficient ''fuel'' to do so). |
| 119 | ** This is weaponized in ''Film/TheForceAwakens''. The super cannon can fire through hyperspace, removing the need to send a Death Star flying about the galaxy. |
| 120 | ** In the ''Film/TheLastJedi'', we find what happens when [[spoiler:a ship going at warp speed is used to deliberately ram a target. The answer? Admiral Haldo takes out the First Order mothership in a single strike]], which InUniverse is acknowledged as a "one in a million" shot. |
| 121 | * ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' spoofs the aforementioned ''Star Wars'' with the LudicrousSpeed drive, which instead of the star trail line effect, creates a plaid effect around the ship and is often seen to overshoot its destination. The speed indicator lights showed another speed, "Ridiculous Speed", nestled in between Light Speed and Ludicrous Speed. One is given to wonder what would have become of our heroes in the Winnebago had Dark Helmet opted to chase them at ''only'' Ridiculous Speed. The heroes themselves user Hyper Jets to go into "Hyper-Active." |
| 122 | * ''Film/ErnestSavesChristmas'' spoofs ''Star Wars'''s hyperdrive -- Santa's sleigh is capable of travel that's a direct homage to the first jump to hyperspace scene in ''Film/ANewHope''. |
| 123 | * ''Film/EventHorizon'' is about a spaceship whose main system of FTL apparently can't decide whether it wants to be a jump drive or a warp drive in terms of TechnoBabble, but in practice, it turns out to be a hyperdrive that [[spoiler:took its crew into a [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace cosmic horror dimension]] that killed them all, and then came back... [[EldritchLocation changed by the experience]].]] |
| 124 | * In ''Film/{{Contact}}'', the alien plans create a device that allows Jodie Foster to travel to their world via a self-generated wormhole. James Woods' character goes to great pains to try to disprove her claims of travel because on Earth [[spoiler:her elapsed time was immeasurable]], but [[spoiler:the elapsed time on her recording device was several hours]]. |
| 125 | * In the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' films, the ships must have some sort of FTL propulsion since Ripley expected to attend her daughter's 11th birthday on Earth and it doesn't make much sense to deploy Colonial Marines to assist a colony if it going to take them years or decades to arrive. The funny thing is that there are also stasis modules for space travel, which would be unnecessary if the ships achieved a high enough relativistic speed (due to TimeDilation). |
| 126 | ** According to the Colonial Marines Manual, the Conestoga-class uses a Romberg-Rockwell Cygnus 5 tachyon shunt hyperdrive, which causes the ship to shift part of itself into tachyon particles and accelerate faster than light. The thing about this drive however is that using it causes the people and other lifeforms inside to age rapidly. Hence the need for stasis pods to avoid the rapid ageing. |
| 127 | * Similarly, in the ''Film/TheFifthElement'' we see a commercial starship that "jumps to lightspeed" in order to travel to another solar system, and like the Alien films, they put the passengers to sleep during the voyage. Also [[spoiler:the mass of evil manages to travel from another solar system to Earth in ''just 2 hours''. Mind that the heroes also manage to arrive to Earth from lightyears away ''just'' a little earlier...]] The sleeping-while-in-hyperspace thing is {{Hand Wave}}d as being "for your comfort," so perhaps in the Fifth Element 'verse HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace for the conscious mind? Though the crew, Ruby Rhod, and Cornelius seem unaffected. Or the company operating the spaceship was too cheap to include consumables for passengers for a flight of a few hours. |
| 128 | * In ''[[Film/TheNeverendingStory The Neverending Story II]]'', the evil empress Xayide and her minions go underground, while the narrator explains that they will be traveling at "at the Speed of Darkness, which is faster than light". |
| 129 | * In ''Film/MoscowCassiopeia'', they manage to achieve this when the local troublemaker accidentally sits on the controls, traveling a 200+ year journey in less than a minute. The people on Earth have 27 years passing normally, except for being unable to contact the ship the entire time. It is suggested they entered some form of [[SubspaceOrHyperspace subspace, hyperspace]], or “tachyon spiral”. However in real life physics, that's exactly what you get when you travel at a very relativistic but still subluminal speed. |
| 130 | * The ''Film/LostInSpace'' film has the Robinson family ship equipped with a hyperdrive. However, it's impossible to set a destination without using a [[PortalNetwork set of gates]] that guide a ship at FTL. Their original plan is to travel the slow way to the planned colony and build a receiving gate there for subsequent ships to travel to via FTL. It doesn't work out for them. |
| 131 | * It is the subject of ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'', where humanity ventures on a newly discovered wormhole. |
| 132 | * The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse's FTL system is unexplained in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'', but ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'' reveals that FTL travel uses a PortalNetwork with limited distance; destination is based on the number of jump points travelled. Some jump points are within planetary atmospheres, which can result in damaged ships crashing right into the planet, while others are in space. As for the number of jumps, the fewer the better; any sequence exceeding 50 jumps is known to be harmful to the occupants, to say nothing of the sequence of ''700'' jumps Rocket accidentally initiated. The relative speed of this travel method is never mentioned, with the only hint being featured in ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' where Valkyrie mentioned that traveling this way from Xandar to Asgard would take around 18 months. |
| 133 | ** A couple of other examples are shown: The Asgardians' Bifrost which seems to be some form of wormhole travel. Not much is said about it other than that it involves dark energy. [[Film/CaptainMarvel2019 Mar Vel]] developed a true [=FTL=] drive by researching the Tesseract. Carol Danvers, a.k.a Capt. Marvel, seems to have a similar ability after being infused with the stone's power and breaking free of the Kree blocks on her powers. |
| 134 | [[/folder]] |
| 135 | |
| 136 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 137 | * ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' uses slipstreams, a kind of portal drive, which requires a [[HumansAreSpecial human pilot]] --well, an organic lifeform, anyway (a computer can only navigate slipstreams accurately if it has access to a [[MacGuffin one-of-a-kind perfect and complete map]] of all slipstreams, or the willingness to use [[BrainInAJar less savory tactics]]) and is described as "not the best way to travel faster than light, just the only way". The series is also notable for having a complete lack of reliable [[SubspaceAnsible FTL radio]], meaning all messages have to be delivered by couriers. [[AllThereInTheManual Background material]] mentions attempts at using slipstream to send messages, but packet loss was ridiculously high, and the attempts were abandoned. |
| 138 | * ''Series/BabylonFive'': |
| 139 | ** The show allowed ships to travel faster than light using hyperspace, envisioned here as an alternate dimension in which travel is much more rapid. Most ships use a [[PortalNetwork network of stationary Jump Gates]] which had been positioned throughout the galaxy, as while it's possible to fit a jump drive to starships the technology has two inherent limitations, extremely high power consumption (to the point only the Minbari, the Yolu, and the Centauri have even bothered to develop miniaturized jump drives), and the use of [[{{Unobtainium}} Quantium-40]], an extremely rare material (never found in inhabited star systems, according to the ExpandedUniverse). Since everywhere almost everyone wants to go has fixed Jump Gates anyway, and anywhere that gets lots of traffic can have on installed readily enough, in practice only larger military vessels, special purpose ships (such as couriers, explorers, and ships that have to install Gates), and a very small number of luxury ships have Jump Drives. |
| 140 | ** The First Ones, being [[{{Precursors}} far more ancient and technologically advanced than the Younger Races]], have their own methods to enter hyperspace, almost invariably different from the vortex-generating jump drives used by the Younger Races. In fact only the Vorlon use the vortex... And not only are directly responsible for installing gates that the Younger Races would eventually discover and reverse-engineer, "The Lost Tales" reveals they have a superior method, quantumspace, that is much faster than hyperspace. The Interstellar Alliance has managed to install a quantum space drive on a simple ship, though at least this version is extremely disconcerting to the traveler. |
| 141 | --->'''John Sheridan''': (''to a reporter suffering her first visit to quantumspace'') Was that a new dress? |
| 142 | ** "Thirdspace" involves the discovery of an ancient gate to the formerly-unknown eponymous dimension, which initially looks like a faster version of hyperspace. Pity it happens to be inhabited by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s bent on finding a way into our universe and destroying it. This one too was originally built by the Vorlon, who were barely able to close it and hide it away. |
| 143 | * ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': The new series uses jump drives, which require complex calculations, and can leave a ship hopelessly lost if a jump is mistimed. The use of jump drives is actually critical to the plot of the whole series - since sensors are limited to light speed, it is impossible to detect a ship as it jumps, allowing any ship to instantly escape from its pursuers, or to appear and attack without warning. It also seems to work from anywhere: ships often jump mere feet from a planet's surface immediately after lifting off[[spoiler:, or in one notable case immediately before pancaking on the ground after an orbital burn-in]]. |
| 144 | ** The Powers That Be tried to explain ''BSG'''s jump drives as non-FTL technology. Something about the ships not actually traveling faster than their normal speeds, but shortening the distance between the two points. However, this pretty much defines most drives in this trope - in that they aren't really moving you beyond light speed, but just make it so that you ''effectively'' are, usually using a wormhole/hyperspace/gravitational warping effect. |
| 145 | * The original 1978 ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|1978}}'' drive systems weren't FTL in the traditional warp style. In fact, they weren't really FTL at all. [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale The writers simply didn't understand the difference between interplanetary and interstellar distances]]. Once, Adama ordered the Galactica to accelerate ''to'' the speed of light, but nowhere did they claim to exceed it... Not that accelerating a ship ''to'' the speed of light is any less impossible with physics as we know it. |
| 146 | * ''Series/BlakesSeven'' gave the Federation "Time distort" drives, which appear to be a kind of warped space drive. The Liberator and Scorpio both employed even more exotic propulsion systems whose principles were different and unknown. However, [[BellisariosMaxim the show never really made a big deal]] of these mechanics. |
| 147 | * In ''Series/{{Defiance}}'', the Votan SleeperStarship arks lacked faster than light travel, but the Omec Harvester possesses a faster-than-light drive, allowing them to hunt down the Votan ark to Earth after their own sleeper ark was sabotaged and the race left to die in the dying solar system because the Omec [[ToServeMan weren't very nice]]. In the series finale, [[spoiler:Nolan hijacked the Omec ship and throws it on a BlindJump to avert the genocide of the still sleeping Omec. The drive shoots out blue plasma toruses as it accelerates at sublight until a faster-than-light drive is spooled up, which uses converging beams to shove increasingly longer wormholes at the ship]]. |
| 148 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 149 | ** The TARDIS usually simply "materialises" at one location or another in space and time (sometimes even where it's meant to). It's also been observed to fly in normal space [[TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot at the speed of plot]], although this isn't as cheap on the effects budget. Travel outside our universe is also not unheard of. A fact which has been {{lampshaded}} by the Doctor himself on more than one occasion. |
| 150 | *** The [=TARDISes=] are literally aeons ahead of any other ship type anywhere, ''ever''. To put this in perspective, the Doctor's TARDIS was already a museum piece when he first acquired it hundreds of years ago, and it's still "the technology of the gods" compared to almost anyone else. After all, the Time Lords were "the oldest civilisation" who had "turned time travel into a game for children" before humans had discovered the wheel; they also developed effectively unlimited teleportation technology "when the universe was less than half its present size". It's been implied several times in the show (and outright stated by the expanded universe) that the reason the Doctor's TARDIS looks comparatively primitive, with its reliance on mechanical switches and levers and tendency towards steampunk clunkiness, is a combination of the Doctor's preferred "desktop theme" and because it just makes it easier to interact with. |
| 151 | ** It seems that there are other methods of faster than light travel in the universe. [[SubspaceOrHyperspace Hyperspace]] is mentioned occasionally, as is warp drive. The Slitheen used a more exotic slipstream engine. |
| 152 | * The later seasons of ''Series/{{Eureka}}'' reveal that Fargo and Zane have been working on an FTL drive after the arrival of the relativistic ship sent out by Henry decades ago. The principle is unknown, but it appears to require a "catcher's mitt" at the destination to avoid slamming at the target at lightspeed (same as Henry's ship). Later, the technology is enhanced to the point where the object being sent doesn't actually need to have a drive (Deputy Andy is accidentally sent to Titan). Despite this, GD builds a ship, the ''Astraeus'', with the FTL drive to explore Titan. It's not clear if there is ever a plan to send a ship to another star, as the show ends before any large-scale construction takes place. |
| 153 | * ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' has all three; [[HandWave "Hetch Drive"]] is [[CasualInterstellarTravel dirt cheap and available to everyone]], [[{{Teleportation}} "Starburst"]] is available to [[LivingShip Leviathans]] such as [[CoolStarship Moya]], but [[OurWormholesAreDifferent wormholes]] - which act as a metadimensional PortalNetwork - can only be utilized with the assistance of {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s, which they [[YouAreNotReady don't give lightly]] for [[ApocalypseHow really]] [[WeaponOfMassDestruction good]] [[RealityBreakingParadox reasons]]. |
| 154 | * In ''Series/TheOrville'', Union vessels like the Orville are powered by quantum drive engines. For Troping purposes these seem to function as a "warp drive", i.e. travel is ''not'' instantaneous, the ship can stop or change direction at will, and the ship can still interact with the rest of the universe (sensors, communications, and so on) while in transit. This is appropriate, as the series is an homage to Franchise/StarTrek, and so FTL travel here works much as it does in the Trek 'verse. The actual technology behind the drive is not explored in depth (beyond use of the word "quantum", anyway). |
| 155 | * Varies in ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' depending on the season. They use Jump travel when not using a ship (Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers, Series/PowerRangersZeo, Series/PowerRangersTurbo), and Warp travel ''with'' a ship (Series/PowerRangersInSpace, Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy). Occasionally they use slower than light craft and wormholes. |
| 156 | * In ''Series/RedDwarf'', the ship explicitly breaks the light barrier at least once, and implicitly does so many times (as they are seen traveling between star systems in very short periods of time), but no attempt is ever made to explain how this is done. |
| 157 | ** The novel goes into a bit more detail: namely, it comes about from the fact that the ship has been slowly accelerating for the past three million years. |
| 158 | ** Also in the second series finale Holly invented what he thought was a jump drive, but actually took them to an AlternateUniverse. |
| 159 | * ''Series/{{Space 1999}}'' was entirely due to SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The MOON gets blasted out of not only Earth orbit, but the Solar System due to a frickin' EXPLOSION (somehow without being blasted apart by it), and is left TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot, such that it hangs around in the vicinity of an interesting planet just long enough for the crew to fix whatever is wrong with it and fail to settle there, and STILL get to the next star system by next week's episode. |
| 160 | %%* The Nickelodeon show ''Series/SpaceCases'' has a similar premise, although the journey time was estimated to be 10 times shorter. It is also implied that their home civilization has access to faster ships than the one featured. |
| 161 | * ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'': |
| 162 | ** ''Series/StargateSG1'': |
| 163 | *** The gates themselves act as portals, generating wormholes between planets. Ships too large to fit through a gate usually travel through hyperspace. However Earth-made hyperdrives are the textbook examples of TimTaylorTechnology,[[note]]and ExplosiveOverclocking...[[/note]] due to their use of highly unstable [[MadeOfExplodium Naquadria]]. |
| 164 | *** Season 9 introduced supergates (really big stargate, needs a planet-mass black hole to power it) that were used to send ships from one galaxy to another quickly. |
| 165 | ** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' had introduced the wormhole drive in the series finale. Apparently the Ancients have mounted an experimental drive system onto Atlantis that can generate a wormhole and cross interstellar distances in ''seconds''. The downsides are that it uses insane amounts of energy and doing even a slight miscalculation will completely vaporize the ship. The follow-up novel ''Homecoming'' reveals that using the drive (not to mention the battle with the super-hive after) has resulted in heavy damage to the city's systems. |
| 166 | ** The starship ''Destiny'' from ''Series/StargateUniverse'' seems to use a different method of travel that is slower/faster than normal hyperspace travel as the plot demands. The characters don't know much about it, so they just call it FTL. |
| 167 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'' uses 'warp drive', which actually shunts part of a vessel's mass into subspace, then causes 'ripples' in subspace, which the vessel then 'surfs' on. The vessel itself remains stationary, and the space around the ship is shifted. [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Warp_drive See this link]] for more information. In ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'', Kirk claims that going to warp within a solar system is a risky proposition only ever attempted in emergencies. Wormholes also exist, but are extremely unstable and unpredictable. |
| 168 | ** While this explanation is backed up by supporting materials, no explanation this technical is ever given on-screen, though a ship propelled by a drive system which ''is'' described in very similar terms (in "New Ground") is emphatically ''not'' a warp drive. |
| 169 | ** It has also been explained in later series that older designs of warp drives are capable of damaging subspace at higher speeds. The [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Intrepid Class]] was one of the first ship classes designed to avoid causing this problem, along with subsequent ships, although it is implied that older ships were eventually refit to mitigate this. |
| 170 | ** One fun fact: in the pilot episode it was referred to as 'Time Warp' and 'breaking the time barrier', suggesting that the drive had some sort of time distorting effect rather than anything to do with subspace. This was dropped by the time they made the second pilot episode. |
| 171 | ** Interestingly, a conversation between the ship's navigator and one of the (illusory) survivors of a crashed ship in the first pilot suggests that the ''Enterprise'' is one of a few new ships that "broke the time barrier" but that older Drives involve time dilation. Obviously later ''Star Trek'' contradicted this by introducing Zephram Cochrane, the inventor of Warp Drive, a 21st century human. |
| 172 | ** The Federation itself was born thanks to warp drive. When Zefram Cochrane invented and tested humanity's first warp-capable ship, a ship of [[spoiler:Vulcans]] detected it and decided to make First Contact. |
| 173 | ** The reason Omega Particles are deemed so dangerous that the Federation is willing to [[GodzillaThreshold ignore the Prime Directive]] to prevent them from appearing is that an unstable exploding Omega Particle (Omega Particles almost never remain stable for longer than a nanosecond) will permanently damage subspace (which makes warp travel impossible) in a region the size of a Borg Fleet. If this happened enough times, warp travel would become impossible and galactic civilization would be ruined. What makes things worse is that people still try to create them anyway because even a single stable Omega Particle could provide unlimited power. |
| 174 | ** It's demonstrated in ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'' that two ships flying alongside each other at warp speed can see and fire upon each other as though they were moving at sub-light speeds--debris and unfortunate crewmembers get left behind compared to the ships but are still traveling at FTL speeds--and a ship can be violently knocked ''out'' of warp if it strays too far off course, forcing it to instantly decelerate once it re-enters regular space even if its warp drive is still engaged. |
| 175 | * In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', the planet Bajor is nearby the only known stable wormhole in the galaxy. It gives a portal between the Alpha Quadrant (where all the major players in the Trek universe live) and the Gamma Quadrant some 70+ thousand light-years away. Starships sometimes transit through this wormhole, though at relatively low velocities as can be seen from the apparent speed of ships entering and exiting the wormhole relative to nearby objects. There are various unstable wormholes, which shift endpoint from time to time, or may trap objects inside them. An early TNG episode featured a wormhole that was stable at one end but moved periodically at the other. |
| 176 | * ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': |
| 177 | ** As they were stranded on the other side of the galaxy, Voyager sought various means of getting home faster than possible using its (already highly-efficient) warp drive, ranging from transwarp and quantum slipstream technology, to a graviton catapult which can catapult a vessel across space in the time it takes to say "[[BuffySpeak catapult a vessel across space]]." |
| 178 | ** In the episode "Course: Oblivion", the duplicate ''Voyager'' succeeds in creating an enhanced warp drive that is capable of bringing them to the Alpha Quadrant in two years. Unfortunately, because that ''Voyager'' and its crew were made of "silver blood" from the Demon-class planet they had left, warp core radiation is proven to be ToxicPhlebotinum for them, causing them to demolecularize and ruining their chances of ever reaching their destination (or even letting the real ''Voyager'' know about their amazing discovery). |
| 179 | * ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' introduces a unique method of instantaneous travel called the "displacement-activated spore hub drive", frequently just shortened to "spore drive". The drive navigates the so-called "mycelial network" that permeates not only our universe, but the entire multiverse (thus, it can be used to cross into other universes as well). Using the drive requires first growing special kind of fungal spores. In addition, it's discovered that a living navigator is necessary to correctly plot the course. Otherwise, only short jumps are reliable. They initially used a spaceborne tardigrade-like creature, but then the drive's creator Lieutenant Stamets used gene therapy to give himself some of the creature's DNA (which is illegal under Federation law, thanks to the Eugenics Wars), allowing him to be used as the navigator. Currently, only a single ship in Starfleet is equipped with the drive, as the ''Discovery''[='s=] sister ship ''Glenn'' was destroyed. [[spoiler:At the end of Season 2, information on the spore drive, the ''Discovery'' and its crew are made classified at Spock's suggestion to prevent anyone from trying to bring back the [[AIIsACrapshoot dangerous AI Control]]. The technology is deemed lost until the ''Discovery'' ends up in the 32nd Century.]] |
| 180 | [[/folder]] |
| 181 | |
| 182 | [[folder:Pinball]] |
| 183 | * In ''Pinball/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the player can accelerate the ''Enterprise'' from Warp 1 to Warp 9. At that, "Warp 9 Mode" begins, and there's a TimedMission where additional shots can be made to advance the ship to Warp 9.9. [[BeyondTheImpossible "Encounter at Farpoint" states that Warp 9.7 was the extreme upperlimit and only achieved during one of Q's games.]] |
| 184 | [[/folder]] |
| 185 | |
| 186 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 187 | * ''Radio/JourneyIntoSpace'': Space travel is limited to the inner planets and takes a very long time, until the Time Travellers show up in ''Journey to the Moon'' / ''Operation Luna''. |
| 188 | [[/folder]] |
| 189 | |
| 190 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 191 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': |
| 192 | ** The most common form of FTL is achieved by traveling through the Warp, [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace a nightmarish dimension]] [[TheHeartless where the thoughts and emotions of sentient creatures give rise to]] [[GodOfEvil dark gods]] [[TheLegionsOfHell and hordes of]] [[EldritchAbomination gibbering monstrosities]]. As such, ships require {{force field}}s to (hopefully) keep the crew from being eaten by daemons during Warp-jumps, and it takes members of a caste of psychic mutants called Navigators to pilot ships through the Immaterium. Since the Warp doesn't obey the laws of physics, vessels traveling through it move much faster than they would in realspace, but the exact ratio is fluid - sometimes a day in the Warp is equal to just under two weeks' travel in the material universe, while in other cases starships are lost for thousands of years, or [[TimeTravel emerge before they've left]]. Some charts even indicate that it's faster to travel across the galaxy than it is to hop to an adjacent sector. Further complicating matters are "currents" or "storms" in the Warp that can displace or destroy vessels, and unfortunately the only navigational aid is a psychic beacon on [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Holy Terra]] [[PoweredByAForsakenChild powered by the souls of thousands of psykers]], which has been known to flicker and dim on occasion. |
| 193 | ** It's no surprise that other races have found alternatives to this form of travel. The [[SpaceElves Eldar]] have the Webway, a PortalNetwork that links points in realspace by tunnels through a dimension somewhere between the Warp and reality; however, this network is ancient and decaying, making some passages unusable or dangerous, while the Eldar's {{evil counterpart}}s have built an entire civilization within it. [[TheGreys The Tau]], who lack a real psychic presence and therefore cannot fully enter the Warp, use special drives to briefly "dip" into it to boost themselves forward, which though much slower than proper Warp travel is much safer. [[HordeOfAlienLocusts The Tyranid hive fleets]] use a special bio-ship capable of slingshotting the fleet through space by harnessing a planet's gravity well, and the swarm typically goes into hibernation during the trip between systems. [[TheUndead The Necrons]] use inertialess drives and large-scale teleportation technology eons more advanced than other races' FTL. And [[OurOrcsAreDifferent the Orks]]... use the Warp anyway, because either the metal teeth they've riveted to their ships' hulls [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve will scare the daemons off]], or they'll have a [[BloodKnight pretty entertaining fight]] on the way to their next conquest. |
| 194 | * The role-playing game ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' equipped its starships with the Jump Drive. In terms of this trope, Jump Drive was really a warp drive, moving ships through "jump-space" or "hyper-space." The catch? No jump could cover a distance of less than one parsec, so Jump Drives were useless for in-system travel. Also, the time spent in jump-space was independent of the distance travelled. Each jump lasted about one week (subjective and objective times were the same), no matter how far one jumped. |
| 195 | ** Some of this was changed in later editions: You could travel less than a parsec; the jump still takes about 168 hours. However, you retain your speed-vector when you arrive, so you actually continuously accelerate to the point where you jump, and decelerate upon arrival, which burns a lot of fuel. And even more fuel if your calculation isn't perfect and you need to adjust the course. And still more fuel is used by the jump itself. And you need to be about 100 diameters away from a body because of gravitation (which would make for a safe jump 1,274,000 km away from Earth, somewhat more than 3 times the distance to the Moon). And due to the fact that in the Traveller-universe normally only one planet per system is interesting, this isn't really useful in most cases. |
| 196 | * Inverted in the ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' D&D setting, where game designers made up their own cosmic structure and laws of physics ("Everything you know about space is wrong.") instead of trying to talk their way around our universe's. Even then, superluminal travel happens only out of "normal" space -- in-sphere spelljamming speed is "merely" 100 mln miles/day (4,166,666.7 mph), so even "double spelljamming speed" (a ''very'' rare case) shouldn't cause visible blue/red shifts. |
| 197 | * The hex-map wargame ''TabletopGame/{{Starfire}}'', which [[Creator/DavidWeber David "Honor Harrington" Weber]] has used as the setting for four novels, features "warp points" -- naturally-occurring portals through space that allow FTL transit from one star system to another. Strategic maps of known space look more like a text-adventure-game map than a star map, because it's warp links, not physical distance, that determines how "far" two systems are "apart." If more than one spacecraft tries to transit through a given warp point at the same time, there's a chance that they will "interpenetrate" and blow each other apart. |
| 198 | ** There are also "Closed" warp points that are only detectable from one end, [[spoiler:which the Bugs exploit to sneak attack Alpha Centauri]] |
| 199 | * The Void Engineers of ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' had jump drive technology that was ''incredibly'' finicky to use. Odds were that a ship using it would leave pieces behind just as often as it came through intact. |
| 200 | * ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: Spaceships'' telescopes all FTL into two groups. First the Stardrive system which can be Jump or Warp and secondly the Jump Gate system which creates whatever the local equivalent of wormholes is and is a portal drive. |
| 201 | * The RPG ''TabletopGame/TwentyThreeHundredAD'' (made by the same company as ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'', but in a different setting) used the "stutterwarp", a method of going between stars (and traveling in-system) by making instantaneous micro-jumps. The faster the engines could cycle, the faster you could "move" through real space, up to 3.5 light years per day). The system was limited because the engines built up a technobabble charge that had to be discharged in a sufficiently steep gravity before the ship traveled a maximum of 7.7 light years. This meant that you couldn't directly get anywhere more than 7.7 light years away without having to stop somewhere around a sufficiently massive object. In addition, stutterwarp efficiently [[GravitySucks dropped off rapidly in a gravity well]] - if you got too close to a planet or star, you wouldn't be able to maintain orbital velocity. The game used a more-or-less accurate local star map around Earth, and the distance limitation meant travel was restricted to set routes, which sometimes formed choke points that were worth fighting over, and colonies at the end of their routes who were literally the ass-end of nowhere because explorers had nowhere else to go. |
| 202 | * The ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}: Phase World'' expansion setting has FTL drives directly affected by gravity, with the drives' maximum speed increasing the fewer gravitational influences there are on the trip. This has the effect of making travel between three local ''galaxies'' just as fast as traveling through the galaxies themselves, since there aren't as many stars slowing you down on the way. |
| 203 | * The ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' universe features [[WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture JumpShips]] capable of somehow creating and magnifying a 'rip' in the fabric of space-time and thereby jumping distances up to thirty light years in an instant...but which are otherwise generally (there are exceptions) only equipped with station-keeping drives that allow them to hold their position at the jump point while recharging, a process that generally takes a week or more. (Occasionally an enterprising military leader will arrange for faster travel by setting up a 'command circuit' with passengers and cargo transferring to a new and fully charged [=JumpShip=] immediately upon arrival, possibly several times in succession.) The Kearny-Fuchida Drive is highly sensitive to local gravity gradients and thus [[NoWarpingZone not generally usable within several astronomical units of something as massive as a star]], though suitably daring crews can take advantage of "pirate points" (or [=LaGrange=] Points in other parlance) in the system, where the presence of other celestial bodies results in their respective gravitational influences cancelling out ''just'' right, to jump in closer than that. (Incidentally, the vast void of interstellar space is in theory perfectly safe to jump around in. One reason this isn't usually done, aside from the obvious one of no crew wanting to casually risk even a hypothetical drive failure stranding them light-years away from any human help all by themselves, is that most ships' primary method of recharging their K-F drive depends on ''solar sails''...) |
| 204 | * ''TabletopGame/StarDrive'': The titular Star Drive allows faster than light travel. How does it work? It just does.[[note]]It uses a ship's gravity drive to generate a black hole to get into or out of drivespace, according to the description in the TabletopGame/{{Alternity}} rulebooks.[[/note]] |
| 205 | * ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'': Travel between solar systems is accomplished through [[PortalNetwork a network of Jumpgates]] left behind by [[{{Precursors}} the Ur]]. No other method is possible, since any ships traveling through interstellar space is inevitably eaten by [[TheLegionsOfHell Daemons]] and [[EldritchAbomination Void Krakens]]. [[FridgeLogic Which of course raises the question]] of how the Gates got there in the first place. |
| 206 | * ''TabletopGame/Space1889'' is technically an aversion, but one article in ''Challenge'' magazine ("Science Marches On" in #68, for those curious) did in fact have an Ether Flyer based FTL drive as a high tier item for players to invent. It works simply by accelerating faster than light, and [[NoWarpingZone won't work within 10k kilometers of a planet]] (in addition to any other limitations the GM deigns to impose). |
| 207 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The rare "Starflight" ability allows a creature to fly between solar systems in a matter of weeks or months. It's possessed by beings like [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Outer Dragons]], some {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and a few Mythic Wizards. That said, Teleportation magic lets people reach other planets instantaneously if they know what they're aiming at. |
| 208 | * In ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'', set thousands of years into Pathfinder’s future, the newly ascended [[DeusEstMachina machine goddess]] Triune provided the specs to a purely technological FTL called “Drift Drive” that goes through a new plane of existence called The Drift and can take a ship anywhere in the galaxy in less than a month. Locations with Drift beacons built by the church of Triune can be reached in a couple weeks and Absalom Station, with the Starstone at its core, can always be traveled to in a week or less. However each jump pulls a small piece of another plane into the Drift and there’s a chance the ship will run into angry Outsiders, especially when jumping into deep space. |
| 209 | [[/folder]] |
| 210 | |
| 211 | [[folder:Theme Parks]] |
| 212 | * In the ''Ride/ETAdventure'' ride at Ride/UniversalStudios, E.T. sends the "bicycles" the guests ride on into hyperspace in order to reach E.T.'s homeworld, which was previously said to be over three million light years away from Earth. |
| 213 | * ''Ride/SpaceMountain'' at [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland]] ends with the riders going into hyperspace in order to get back to the loading station. |
| 214 | [[/folder]] |
| 215 | |
| 216 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 217 | * ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' has both a set of "[[PortalNetwork Wormgates]]" monopolized by an ancient mega-corporation and [[AncientConspiracy conspiracy]], and the relatively new [[spoiler:- or rather, rediscovered -]] "teraport" (jump drive/[[{{Teleportation}} teleporter]]), which forces a subject through trillions of tiny wormholes instead of one big one. The latter is a receiverless teleporter in a military SF setting, with all that implies. |
| 218 | ** Among other things, it implies a desperate research project to find a way to jam the teraport drive, preventing ships from entering or leaving a region via teraport. Fortunately for the survival of galactic civilization, though often unfortunately for the survival of the eponymous mercenaries, the project succeeded. |
| 219 | ** As far as communications goes, there's communications through [[SubspaceAnsible hypernet relays]] - a Galaxy-Wide-Web. The signal explicitly takes less time to travel across the light-years than through the copper circuitry of the machinery, but there are still no FTL sensors. This is used for dramatic effect at least twice: once to facilitate learning about what happened in a LateToTheTragedy situation (fifty-two minutes late, specifically, so they park a sensor fifty-two light-minutes away to get a look), once in a situation where Kevyn realizes that the enemy, whom he is parleying with (and who is about a light-minute away), had fired missiles at him ''while they were negotiating''. |
| 220 | ** The comic implies at a few points that causality holds throughout the galaxy ''because'' of all the teraporting and wormgates. Notably, when they start going to Andromeda, they're initially out of sync. |
| 221 | * ''Webcomic/{{Starslip}}'': Originally, the starslip drive worked as a jump drive that shifted the ship into a nearly-identical AlternateUniverse where it was ''already'' at the desired location. Eventually [[spoiler:it was discovered that one can, with sufficient slips, wind up in a substantially different timeline; this was the Starslip Crisis that gave the comic its original name.]] |
| 222 | ** After narrowly escaping the destruction of the universe, the crew of the Fuseli end up in another one where the starslip drive has just been outlawed and replaced by the stellar superlinear propulsion ([[FunWithAcronyms STARSLIP]] for short) drive, which exploits the fact that there's no shorter distance between two places than a straight line, by finding an even ''straighter'' line. This functions as a Warp Drive, rather than a Jump Drive. |
| 223 | * ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'': The aliens have specifically stated that they do ''not'' have FTL. The Nemesites are extremely long-lived and ''do'' have ubiquitous relativistic-speed travel. Their empire's capital orbits a brown dwarf star "near" Earth's solar system [[note]]Yes, ''that'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(hypothetical_star) Nemesis Star]][[/note]] -- hence, our solar system sees a lot of traffic. There are at least two inhabited worlds in our system besides Earth; Butane, an undetected world in the Kuiper Belt colonized by a prehuman Earth civilization (the [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]]), and Fleen, an asteroid inhabited by [[SpacePolice Officer Zodboink's]] people (whether or not their race is native to Fleen has not yet been revealed). |
| 224 | * ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' has FTL travel, although the author admits to being uncomfortable about including it in an otherwise fairly hard series. According to [[https://web.archive.org/web/20150513053942/http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Freefall/Freefall_Backstory.html the manual]], "The starships in Freefall make pockets of lower space time density, increasing the rate at which they go through time." Thus, they move very fast in real time but at a normal rate in subjective time, necessitating [[HumanPopsicle cold sleep]] for the passengers and most of the crew. When live cargo and/or timeliness are not at stake, they simply accelerate a cargo vessel to a decent fraction of light speed and fling it at the target system. The fact that it's called the DAVE ([[FunWithAcronyms Dangerous And Very Expensive]]) Drive should tell you all you need to know. |
| 225 | * ''Webcomic/{{Spacetrawler}}'' offers one of the most ridiculous {{technobabble}} explanations for FTL travel ever. Spaceships travel at [[http://spacetrawler.com/2011/06/21/spacetrawler-148/ Greased Light Speed]], "which is attained when you slip between light particles and go much faster than them". Friction between light particles cancels out time dilation. Also, the Mirrhgoots are on the verge of perfecting Greased Dark Light Speed, which promises to be even faster. It works on the principle of riding the darkness inside the light particles (since light particles are about 97% darkness). |
| 226 | -->'''[[TheRant Christopher Baldwin]]:''' Hahahaha! Man, that was a fun stupid idea to write. |
| 227 | * ''Webcomic/{{Westward}}'': The [[VehicleTitle eponymous]] CoolStarship travels through Escherspace (named after [[Creator/MCEscher Maurits Cornelius Escher]]), which functions as a variety of Jump Drive. It is a BlackBox technology that no-one quite understands, except for the mysterious alien Phobos. As a result, some characters [[ClarkesThirdLaw prefer to think of it as a kind of magic]]. |
| 228 | ** While an Escherspace jump itself is nearly instantaneous, many weeks of travel using conventional engines are still required as part of every trip, to ensure that the ship is at a safe distance from any massive astronomical body -- if used carelessly, Escherspace jumps can release enough energy to alter the orbits of nearby planets. |
| 229 | ** During a jump, everyone aboard must take shelter in special "normalization booths"; the author has stated that this "creates a good separation between travel that's normal — adhering to the laws of physics — and travel that's abnormal, unnatural, and dangerous." |
| 230 | * ''Webcomic/AmongTheChosen'' requires psychic operators connected with hypertech for FTL travel. |
| 231 | * ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' has beings of sufficient psionic power being able to push vessels into FTL travel with their mental abilities (though it [[HeroicRROD ends badly]] for psionics due to the massive amount of energy it requires). The [[EvilOverlord Condesce]] exploited this method of bypassing the laws of physics to turn her fleet of starships into a galaxy-conquering army. This is one of the more realistic portrayals of FTL travel, as even at sublight speeds jumps still take quite a bit of time (the biggest jump seen in the comic takes over ''three years'', though time dilation was reversed in that case). Jade even gives a LampshadeHanging on this in Act 6, noting that FTL travel is a completely different concept from teleportation. |
| 232 | * ''Webcomic/{{tinyraygun}}'': Warp Drives seem to be the order of the day, since its activated by a BigRedButton simply labeled "Faster", ''and'' ends up getting knocked off course by strange space egg colliding with the ship. |
| 233 | * The nature and possession of the Ring Drive is one of the main plot concerns of the sci-fi comic ''Webcomic/DriveDaveKellett''. Humans didn't invent it, they copied it from a crashed alien ship. As a result, it's something of a BlackBox to anyone other than the race that created it, but it seems to be a mix of Warp and Jump drives, making many tiny jumps along a path in such a way that you still need to worry about navigational hazards or pursuit. [[spoiler:One of the Makers who do know how it works called it a "Singularity Drive".]] |
| 234 | * ''Webcomic/CaptainUfo'': The [[CoolStarship Widowpunisher]] (and supposedly all other spaceship in the universe) FTL speed is called "hyperblur" in-universe. The ship opens a wormhole to it's destinations and travels through it. In season two we see that the inside of the wormhole is a tunnel-like place, and that travelling through it is not instant, so it's a kind of hyperdrive, |
| 235 | * ''Webcomic/{{Outsider}}'': Ships travel faster-than-light using a hyperspace jump drive [[note]]so-named in-universe; in this trope's terms, it's actually a hyperdrive[[/note]] which nearly instantaneously propels them to their destination via positive (+)hyperspace. A successful jump requires precise alignment and calculations, as vessels cannot direct themselves in hyperspace and are completely reliant on the speed and direction imparted by their launches, and any misstep usually leads to the loss of the ship. Jumping is only possible between neighbouring star systems -- attempting to "jump over" a star is essentially impossible due to its gravity affecting the ship -- and conventional intra-system space travel is required to move between the best launching-off points. Travelling a distance of approx. 200 light years in this way takes weeks or months. The author provides an in-depth explanation of how FTL works in this universe on a special [[http://www.well-of-souls.com/outsider/forum_ftl_tech.html page]]. |
| 236 | * ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'' has a portal network that ships can use, and there's atherium causeways; notably, due to destination-based technology restrictions, a ship could be barred from using at least one method at any particular time.[[note]]Essentially, if you're carrying cargo (or even personal items) of a higher level that your destination's society is expected to reasonably handle, you can't go there. "Don't give a caveman a gun."[[/note]] [[spoiler:It turns out that Sydney's orbs can get her barred from the portal network at ''all'' times; even thought one of them can produce a standard atherium causeway, the fact that it can fit in a pocket is a problem -- the only two known/understood ways involve either capital ships, or large-scale sacrifices of 1000+ psykers. In the 'caveman' analogy... it makes EVERYBODY look like a caveman.]] |
| 237 | * ''Webcomic/BinaryStars'': The Falconer is explicitly mentioned to have a warp drive. |
| 238 | [[/folder]] |
| 239 | |
| 240 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 241 | * ''WebVideo/NatOneProductions'''s story-line ''Denazra'' both invokes and averts this trope. A [[PortalNetwork gate network of artificial wormholes]] allows FTL travel between settled worlds, but there is no other known way to travel faster than the speed of light. When the Coalition wants to [[TechnologyUplift recruit a new species]] to join the fight against the [[RobotWar denazra]], they have to send space ships on lengthy journeys across the interstellar gulf. |
| 242 | * The Jump Drive and Jump Gates enable this in ''Roleplay/NexusGate''. |
| 243 | * One of the central tenets of the ''Website/OrionsArm'' setting is the absence of FTL -- except for [[OurWormholesAreDifferent wormholes]]. These are big, expensive, must be deployed to the desired destination at speeds much slower than light before they can be used, and need to be traversed carefully lest the traveller be crushed by g-forces. They must also be located in "asymptotically flat spacetime", that is, a minimum of something like 100AU from the nearest star. That's a hell of a long way (as a sense of scale, Pluto varies between ~29 AU and ~48 AU from our sun). Although theoretically a single wormhole could bridge tens of lightyears, you're still going to take several weeks at least to get from the wormhole to anywhere interesting (and vice versa) using even the best sublight engine technology generally available to humans. A lot of the time it's just easier to go the long way (and since most life-forms and/or AI are effectively immortal anyway, time isn't as pressing an issue as it seems). |
| 244 | ** The main reason a hard sci-fi setting includes wormholes is that they're an AcceptableBreakFromReality -- you can't really have the interstellar civilizations the setting is built around without ''some'' form of faster-than-light infrastructure, so the writers went with the most realistic alternative they could find. Because modern science has yet to demonstrate that wormholes are impossible, ''[=OA=]'' considers them fair game. |
| 245 | ** Causality is protected in the OA universe - if you try to build a wormhole system that can form a closed timelike curve (i.e. allow time travel) the wormholes undergo something called Visser collapse. Given that this destroys both mouths of the wormhole and, from a distance, could be mistaken for a small supernova, you do not want to be within a couple of lightyears of a wormhole if this happens. |
| 246 | ** Most of the wormholes used in Orion's Arm are actually comm-gauge wormholes - microscopic wormholes used to send data but not big enough to send anything material through. These are significantly easier to manufacture and more stable than wormholes ships can pass through, which require enormous resources to build and maintain. They can also be located much closer to gravity wells than traversable wormholes. You still don't want to be standing close by if one collapses though... |
| 247 | * ''TabletopGame/TechInfantry'' gets around the speed-of-light limit via a hyperspace system inspired by those seen in ''Series/BabylonFive'' and ''Literature/HonorHarrington''. |
| 248 | * In ''Literature/ThePentagonWar'', "hyper holes" provide an FTL portal network. They are created by aiming two ''very'' expensive bombs directly at one other from two different star systems, and detonating them simultaneously -- a difficult feat even for a whole government to pull off. At the time of the story, only 5 pairs of linked hyper holes exist. |
| 249 | * The technology is present in the ''Literature/RegistryOfTime'' universe, although not as fast as some other examples. In one story it takes 20 years to reach a destination. |
| 250 | * [[http://www.futuretimeline.net/ [=FutureTimeline.net=]]] [[https://www.futuretimeline.net/beyond-1000000.htm#1000000 predicts]] that humans will achieve faster than light travel using the AlcubierreDrive by the year 1,000,000. But then again, it's clear that by that time they had given up on trying to make accurate predictions. |
| 251 | * ''Literature/{{Phaeton}}'' has photon drives, which are described as the perfect FTL device. |
| 252 | * The gods from ''Literature/BeyondTheImpossible'' can’t travel faster than light, so they [[Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier really need those starships]]. Except Hermes, who can teleport wherever he wants and is even called “the god who makes travel distances meaningless”. |
| 253 | * ''Literature/TheJenkinsverse'' has two main types of FTL: |
| 254 | ** Apparent Linear Velocity (ALV) drive: effectively an AlcubierreDrive with the most dangerous drawbacks fixed. Its velocity is measured in kilolights (and in one case, a ''megalight''), but there is a significant buildup of static energy á'la ''VideoGame/MassEffect'' that has to be discharged into gas giants. On cleared lanes this buildup is significantly smaller, effectively creating HyperspaceLanes. |
| 255 | *** [[TheGreys Corti]] sealed drives are a significantly more efficient and faster version of the [=ALV=]-drive. How this is achieved is a highly guarded secret. |
| 256 | ** Wormholes need a beacon on both ends to work, but the displacement is instantaneous. The rest of the galaxy mainly uses it to relocate space stations, but humans have enthusiastically integrated it into their space combat doctrine. |
| 257 | ** Humans, not being satisfied with the available choices, found a third way in the form of jump arrays. These are capable of jumping a volume of space to a similarly sized array anywhere in the galaxy. |
| 258 | * ''Website/SCPFoundation'', [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2872 SCP-2872 ("A Fast Horse").]] SCP-2872 is a thoroughbred stallion racehorse. After it broke out of SCP Foundation containment it traveled into space and accelerated to faster than the speed of light. It is currently heading for the constellation Equuleus. |
| 259 | ** With clever usage of [=XACT=]s, the Foundation is capable of sending spacecraft to remote regions of space. |
| 260 | [[/folder]] |
| 261 | |
| 262 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 263 | * In ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers'', two aliens give humanity access to a FTL device called the Hyperdrive in exchange for our help in vanquishing the series' BigBad, the Queen of the Crown. |
| 264 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' finale "Star Warners", the Bicentennial Falcon flies past a sign that says LIGHT SPEED STRICTLY ENFORCED. |
| 265 | * Many of the staff writers on ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' have physics qualifications, so they felt uncomfortable allowing spaceships to travel faster than light. Instead, with one exception which was used for a physics joke, they had [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum scientists increase the speed of light]]. In the same episode where lightspeed was mentioned to be greater, the ships are said to move the universe around themselves. |
| 266 | ** One of the Comedy Central episodes had the Professor outfit the Planet Express ship with a short-range "dimensional drift" jump drive that took it through the fourth dimension. |
| 267 | * In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', mankind accidentally discovers "warp speed" when Randy loads a piece of exotic matter stolen from the Large Hadron Collider on a toy car, which propels it outside the Earth at FTL speeds. Unfortunately by the end of the episode [[spoiler:Earth is isolated from the rest of the universe]]. |
| 268 | * Starfire in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' is apparently capable of achieving faster-than-light speeds ''by herself'', if her planet-hopping in "Transformation" is anything to go by. Of course, in the first episode aired (third in production order), she and Robin are just finishing a conversation on this subject as they enter the living room. |
| 269 | -->'''Starfire:''' ...and ''that'' is the secret to traveling faster than light! |
| 270 | ** Then again, this is the Franchise/DCUniverse, so that little tidbit isn't exactly very secret. |
| 271 | * Implied in the ''Literature/TheMagicSchoolBus'' episode "Gets Lost In Space", where the bus flew from Earth to the Sun to Pluto and back inside a school day. Even under ideal conditions (i.e. if all nine[[note]][[ScienceMarchesOn The episode aired before Pluto was decided to not be a planet.]][[/note]] planets were aligned, and they did the trip without stopping), this would require FTL capability. Made explicit in the star life cycle episode, where the bus crosses a distance of a billion billion miles (over 17 million light years, which would put it ''[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale well outside the Milky Way]]'') in minutes. Then again, the bus is described as being ''[[AWizardDidIt magic]]'' for a reason. |
| 272 | * In an Al Brodax ''WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}'' cartoon, Popeye is recruited to spend sixty days in a space capsule by himself in an effort to gauge how long he can sustain himself without going crazy. The capsule gets doused within with aerosol spinach, causing it to blast off into space so fast (sixty times as normal, says one of the scientists) it causes earth time to go backwards. |
| 273 | * In ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'', the Rockhopper, the Penguins' spaceship, has the ability to travel to distant planets in only a few hours. |
| 274 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/IAmWeasel'' episode "The Magnificent Motorbikini", the titular vehicle travels faster than the speed of light and eventually propels Weasel and Baboon into another dimension. |
| 275 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'' special "Back to Bortron 7", the Propulsions convert their house back into a starship for a visit to their home planet. Whereas their usual saucer has used Interplanetary Hyperdrive to bring the kids on tours within the solar system, this much longer journey requires Interstellar ''Super''drive. Details on how it works aren't given, but their journey is accompanied by a flashier, more colorful variant on the light-speed F/X from ''Star Wars''. |
| 276 | * The Lightfold Drive in ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'' allowed starships (including smaller spaceships, and even ''eject pods'') to go from one part of the galaxy to another in a matter of minutes. Usually involves [[SpectacularSpinning spinning]] the Lightfold Drive at hyperspeed, this works by having the Drive "bend" the light it emits at a speed so fast, it literally ''bends'' the gravity and space it occupied, immediately propelling the ship to its destination. This is accompanied by the colorful spinning vortex of light every time the ship "lightfolds", and is noted that the "light" in the Lightfold Drives can vaporizes anything it touches at full charge. Season 2 introduces a second method called Drop Drive, which is even faster. |
| 277 | * In ''WesternAnimation/StarcomTheUSSpaceforce'', starships have warp drives that generate artificial wormholes in order to enter hyperspace. This lets people travel across the solar system fairly quickly. |
| 278 | * In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', all Era 2 Gem spaceships seem to have this capability, by way of Warp drives. This allows them to cover in minutes distances that Era 1 ships would take decades to travel. It should be noted that Gems can't die of old age or natural causes, so technically they don't ''need'' it, but it certainly makes things much faster and practical. Pearl, for one, sees 70 years of space travel (not accounting for the trip back) as perfectly reasonable, forgetting the trip is [[spoiler:to rescue Steven's dad, a human.]] |
| 279 | [[/folder]] |
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