Hyper Flight is the name Rlkitterman has given to The 'Verse in which he has imagined science fiction stories. The premise is that humanity does not contact aliens until 200 years in the future, and the first contact is with an aggressive civilization, which makes humanity aggressive toward aliens in return.
The primary setting is the Galactic National Republic, the government created in the mid-2200s to protect the human planets from alien threats. Its main enemy, the first alien civilization that humans encountered, is the Khad Empire, populated by humanoids whose homeworld is 1000 light-years away.
The name refers to how people travel between stars and planets, using a primitive hyperdrive to enter the dimension of hyperspace which, being "above" normal space, will take the traveller less time to cross.
Tropes used in Hyper Flight:
- Agony Beam: An ion gun can disrupt the electrical signals of the nervous system, inducing pain, paralysis, or unconsciousness. Preferred weapon of riot police, torturers, and some mafiosi.
- All Planets Are Earth-Like: Averted. Some, such as Segh, Zarmina, Freya, Fortuna, Kantaria, or Ziu, are pretty Earthlike, but still have strange weather, temperature, or geography. Others, such as Erebus, Mars, or Pluto, require the use of enclosed habitats and space suits for walking on the surface.
- Asteroid Miners: Asteroids are mined for ore to make metal, gas giants are mined for gas to be turned into fuel, and comets are mined for water. Most of the mining is run by large corporations.
- Command Roster
- Encounter on Saturn
- The Captain: Gerard Schneider
- Number Two: Officially Commander Dupont, but in practice Feiwan Zhou.
- Mr. Fixit: Lieutenant Commander Jung, Ensign Alexei Dudinsky.
- Communications Officer: Lieutenant Chen.
- The Medic: Ensign Larissa Salko.
- Ace Pilot: Collins, Yagami.
- The Security Officer: Trampetti (weapons officer), Zhou (commands the troops).
- Encounter on Saturn
- Color-Coded Characters: Similar to in the Russian military, servicemen wear a telnyashka (striped undershirt), and the stripe color denotes the branch of service. In the Galactic National Defence Forces, this is expanded on, and the stripe color is matched by the color of the tabs on the uniform and the band on the Commissar Cap.
- Red: Military command staff, and the special forces (under the command of the general staff).
- Dark green: The army.
- Black: The space forces.
- Navy blue: The navy, the actual navy on the sea.
- Sky blue: The aviation-related forces, such as pilots and paratroopers.
- Light grey: Cadets.
- Turquoise/Aquamarine: Medical forces.
- Tyrian purple: The State Guards.
- Commissar Cap: The older, less radically peaked version. Different colors on the hat band denote where the wearer is serving. See Colour-Coded for Your Convenience.
- Deflector Shields: One application of the electromagnetic fields that spaceships project. Deflector shields may also be used to protect planets and important cities. In the latter case, they can only be breached by a metal object on the ground, such as a tank or armored car, making flying platforms inadvisable in these scenarios.
- Energy Weapon: Lasers, ion projectors, and plasma projectors. Lasers have the best range and power, and work by heating the target. Ion projectors are useful for disabling electronics or stunning people, and plasma projectors have very short range, so they are best for blasting doors down...or as flamethrowers. But these weapons work best in the vacuum of space, where they are faster than shells, rockets, or missiles.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Hyper flight is achieved by using the hyperdrive to create a black hole that leads to hyperspace. The black hole is extended around the ship by the ship's electromagnetic fields, pulling it into hyperspace, where it can then fly at what is faster than light in our universe, but only appears to be close to the speed of light in hyperspace.
- The Federation: The Solar Union, though it is short-lived and replaced by the Galactic National Republic.
- Generican Empire: The term Galactic National Republic would appear to be so at first, but the intended meaning of "national" here is not "of the country" but "of the human people."
- Glory Hound: Private Fred Perry, who wanted to be a hero.
- Home Guard: The National Militia. Derided as the "fun forces" by the regulars, but useful for planetary defence, local space patrols, and other duties the regulars are too big or busy to handle.
- Humanoid Aliens: The Khad are seven to eight feet tall with pale grey skin, big eyes, and long thin limbs, but at least they have two eyes, a nose, four limbs, and five fingers on each hand. This is because their homeworld, Segh, is fairly close to Earth conditions.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: For combat on planets, where soldiers need to fire over obstacles, which lasers cannot do. Each kind of combat demands a different weapon.
- Meaningful Rename:
- The Apollonian System. We realized the names "Sun" and "Solar System" were too generic, so we renamed the Sun "Apollo" and the Solar System the "Apollonian System" to distinguish them from all the other suns and solar systems. A good test to see where someone is from is to ask what star Earth orbits. If they say "The Sun," they are from the Apollonian System. If they say "Apollo," they are from another star system.
- Planet Ziu. It used to be Ci Yu, Chinese for "magnetic jade," a reference to its green color and strong magnetic field. But when the Khad threatened the GNR, the military moved in and began using Ci Yu as a command post and staging area for attacks on Khad worlds. Eventually, the planet became thoroughly militarized, and its name was changed to Ziu, the ancient Germanic god of war. Ci Yu and Ziu are pronounced the same way, but the spellings and meanings are different, to reflect the change in the perception of the planet.
- MegaCorp: The banking, transport, construction, and weapon companies are usually the largest. The Fortuna Corporation, for example, has 100 million employees, owns 1000 ships, and requires a 1500-foot tower to house its offices. Cosmogas owns 700 stations that extract gas from gas giants. And so forth.
- Naming Your Colony World:
- Named for Earth places: New Earth (capital New Jamestown), Scythia, Parthia, Florida, Oreanda, Sabunchi, Sarmatia.
- Symbolic: Fortuna, Fidelia, Arcadia, Nova Rodinia ("new motherland").
- Mythological:
- African: Adroa, Jengu, Loko, Mawu, Shango.
- Armenian: Aramazd, Anahit, Nar.
- Babylonian: Marduk, Nibiru.
- Celtic: Icovellauna, Olyndicus, Sucellus, Dagda, Laha, Taranis.
- Chinese: Bazha, Guanyin, Henge, Mazu, Nuewa, Suiren, Taiyi, Xihe.
- Georgian: Lamara, Morige.
- Germanic/Norse: Freya, Hodr, Nerthus, Surt, Thor, Wotan, Zisa, Ziu.
- Greco-Roman: Erebus, Polyphemus, Kronos, Momus, Morpheus, Hemera.
- Hindu: Kali, Rama, Sita.
- Japanese: Benten, Bishamon, Daikoku, Ebisu, Fukurokuju, Gama, Hachiman, Hotei, Kudokuten, Raiden, Susanowo, Uzume.
- Marla: Poro, Ilyan, Shochinava, Agavairem, Purysho, Azyren, Shudyr-Shamych, Tunya, Tul, Tutyra, Tylmache, Tylze, Uzhara, Tunyambal.
- Mayan: Backlum, Chac, Gukumatz, Itzamna, Yaluk.
- Slavic: Berstuk, Perun, Svarog, Yarilo.
- Alphanumerical: P-462, P-484, W-85.
- Named for the star: Zeta Leporis Planetoid.
- Named for a person: Kantaria, Oberth, Tsiolkovsk.
- Praetorian Guard: The Civil Guards, the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Their uniforms are marked by purple, and they protect the government facilities and leaders, including the President and the Kremlin. They also enforce border regulations and put down riots. But they cannot be deployed very far, and they get little respect from the GNDF regulars, who call them the "soft forces" and the "museum forces." Except when there is a riot....
- Private Military Contractors: Exist, and have to be registered with the government to be able to receive contracts. Cannot be used as a substitute for combat troops. Some P.M.C.s have deserted the GNR and take contracts from the Khad. Good PMC: Astro Security. Bad PMC: The "Totenkopfs."
- The Republic: The Galactic National Republic.
- Space Pirates: They exist at the edges of civilized space. One of them is Abu Sadaf.
- Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: Mostly compliant.
- Small craft include shuttles, shunters/tugs, interceptors, storm craft (fighter-bomber), and bombers.
- Combat ships include frigates, cruisers, and battleships.
- Other military ships include descent ships (carry regiments or brigades between planets for surface combat), aviation ships (carry small combat spaceplanes), electronic combat ships (project electromagnetic fields around fleets, intercept enemy communications), hospital ships, repair ships, and various transporters.
- Civilians may have personal shuttles, yachts, passenger liners, cargo ships, or small utility craft.
- The Khad ships are able to operate in planetary atmospheres.
- Stealth in Space: Averted. Any spaceship that wants to be worth a damn in a fight, or even move a mile, is going to have to emit a lot of radiation. The best way to avoid detection would be to drop out of hyperspace very close to a planet, which is more difficult the closer you get thanks to the strength of a planet's magnetic field. Also, you can use a Q-ship (a warship disguised as a civilian ship), and hope you can ready your weapons fast enough.
- Wave-Motion Gun: A battleship laser can crack a space station, but it won't do much good against a planet, as the beam would diffract in the atmosphere.
