History Main / NoWarpingZone

* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' series, starships can't go FTL near a star, black hole or other massive object or they will be lost forever. Ships thus need to leave a star system using normal engines before engaging their FTL drive, and if they get too close to any massive object while en route, they must drop to normal speeds or simply vanish. This is also implied to be the reason why we believe FTL travel is impossible in RealLife today -- we live too close to a star's gravity well, which warps the way physics works, and thus our understanding of what is and isn't possible. This is why the humans would up having to buy FTL technology from the Outsiders. Humanity is implied to have been on the right basic track already, but since it didn't occur to anyone to try their experiments outside Neptune's orbit, they just assumed something was wrong with the equations.
* Stars, and large planets, in ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' have a "hyperlimit." Ships can't transition to, or from hyperspace inside that limit. Attempting to leave hyperspace inside the hyperlimit is instant death.

* Creator/MurrayLeinster's short story "First Contact" was published in the 1940s, when many astronomers believed that outer space was a perfect vacuum. The human-piloted starship in that story could only travel faster-than-light in a ''total'' vacuum -- even the slightest wisp of atmosphere or nebula would be enough to prevent it.

* ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion 2'' has Warp Dissipator (prevents enemy ships from HyperspeedEscape in the tactical combat map) and Warp Interdictor (slows down all enemy ships traveling to the system with an Interdictor equipped).

* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'': While human and Zuul ships need to make for a node to escape, the other races have to make a seemingly arbitrary distance from enemy ships before they can retreat. And the Liir's ReactionlessDrive is slowed to STL speeds near gravity wells. Some races also have the ability to intercept vessels in FTL speeds, though this is quite dangerous.

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' introduces the Omega Directive, which instructs that Omega Molecules be destroyed upon discovery -- and even overrides the [[AlienNonInterferenceClause Prime Directive]]. Why? Because Omega Molecules have a nasty habit of exploding -- and when they do, they create a huge void where FTL travel and communications don't work, potentially crippling to TheFederation and ''every other spacefaring race within a few thousand light years.''

* In Creator/VladimirVasilyev's ''No One but Us'', three alien armadas are heading towards Earth and two other major human worlds. As part of defending them, powerful Nonlinear Field Generators are engaged, preventing the enemy from warping in, leaving only a tiny (by comparison) window, allowing them to "funnel" the enemy into a predictable position. This field is large enough to encompass the entire system. It also helps that any ship at FTL leaves an imprint at its destination that is detectable far in advance of the ship's arrival.

* In the ''Literature/StarCarrier'' series by Creator/WilliamHKeithJr (a.k.a. "Ian Douglas") transiting to AlcubierreDrive requires most ships to be at least ~40 AU from a star, and then only after accelerating to near-''c'' in normal space. [[spoiler:This doesn't apply to Slan ships, however, which can not only go FTL deep within the traditional No Warping Zone, but can do it without needing to accelerate, allowing them to TeleportSpam during combat.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' warp drive and wormholes don't work in the gravity wells of star systems. Hyperdrive can but is restricted to HyperspaceLanes.
** Defensive Stations can be equipped with a Subspace Snare, which will cause any hostile ship to drop out of warp over the station, rather than the edge of the gravity system. In the early game, placing one close to your starbase and waiting for early warmongers to jump in on you will cause them to be eviscerated by stationary defenses larger than most early game fleets. In the later game, placing them in uninhabited systems over the sun will dramatically slow any advancing fleet as they must contend with the thing that is shooting at them, then move to the edge of the system only to be caught in the system. They are not on their own contenders for late game fleets, but considering that logistics do function into the ware effort of either side, a good saturation means that you and your allies can cross the same distance in less time. Especially effective for Hyperdrive (which is susceptible to choke points) and wormholes (especially against the AI which will try and send in a construction ship to build a wormhole gate before the entire fleet.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' introduces the interdictor from the Literature example to the main canon. It has the effect of dragging any nearby ship out of hyperspace and preventing any from entering hyperspace as long as its active. The test run hit a snag when Chopper dialed up the gravity field, causing it to affect the ship's escorts and drag them into the interdictor, destroying all of them.

* In the computer game ''VideoGame/SinsOfASolarEmpire'', ships are unable to conduct "phase jumps" within a gravity well of a stellar object, including stars, planets, asteroids, etc. There are exceptions to this rule, mostly for the Vasari race, whose phase jumping technology is much more advanced than human (either faction).

* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'': While human and Zuul ships need to make for a node to escape, the other races have to make a seemingly arbitrary distance from enemy ships before they can retreat. And the Liir's ReactionlessDrive is slowed to STL speeds near gravity wells.

* Inverted in VideoGame/FreeSpace; subspace drives require gravity wells to function and won't work away from the gravity of a star system, making all of deep space the no warping zone.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' novels, you can't enter Slipspace while near large gravitational fields, like planets, due to the gravity fields being too hard to calculate. Unless [[spoiler:you steal a Covenant vessel and use their improved sensors to Slipspace straight through the planet.]]

* Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium universe (which is also the one featured in the novels ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'' and ''The Gripping Hand'') has the entire universe, with the exception of certain very special regions, as a No Warping Zone. It's only possible to jump from certain points (and then only ''to'' certain other points). Predicting where these are, and where they go, is possible but difficult (and it seems to be related to overall energy flux; a protostar igniting changes the geometry of the nearby jump points). For the most part, this means you spend nearly all of your time traveling from a planet to a jump point or vice versa, or between two jump points within the same system. The jump itself is effectively instantaneous.

** Two words: [[spoiler:"Talyn... Starburst. Cue devastation. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYl8AR-YNOQ]]

** In fact, in ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'', Kirk's Bird-of-Prey even engages its warp drive while still in 1986 Earth's upper atmosphere. There didn't seem to be any lasting effects from doing that.

** One ship does manage to warp out in desperation but arrives disabled with its hull mangled beyond recognition. The AI survived but had any humans been aboard at the time they would have all died.

* In the ''{{Foundation}}'' and ''Empire'' books by Creator/IsaacAsimov, hyperspace jumps close to a gravity well such as a star or planet are perfectly possible, but dangerous and difficult. Not only the passengers (and possibly the ships) suffer damage the closer to a gravity well; it also makes the the calculations necessary so immensely complex that by the time you could make a [[BlindJump jump that isn't blind]], you generally could have gotten far enough from the gravity well that a much simpler calculation would have been necessary. The same problem exists on the destination side, except doing a BlindJump is a worse idea in that direction (making a blind jump ''out'' of a system is less liable to cause you to reenter normal space ''inside'' something than making a blind jump ''to'' a system).

* In SergeyLukyanenko's ''TheStarsAreColdToys'', the human jumper does not appear to have a NoWarpingZone. However, they are never activated inside a planet's atmosphere. This is because they transport a large sphere around them. Suddenly removing a chunk of an atmosphere has consequences for the planet below.

* Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium universe (which is also the one featured in the novels ''TheMoteInGodsEye'' and ''The Gripping Hand'') has the entire universe, with the exception of certain very special regions, as a No Warping Zone. It's only possible to jump from certain points (and then only ''to'' certain other points). Predicting where these are, and where they go, is possible but difficult (and it seems to be related to overall energy flux; a protostar igniting changes the geometry of the nearby jump points). For the most part, this means you spend nearly all of your time traveling from a planet to a jump point or vice versa, or between two jump points within the same system. The jump itself is effectively instantaneous.

* In the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', it's stated that you can't use a FTL drive while within the 'mass shadow' of a planet or star. Entering a mass shadow while traveling FTL will pull you out of hyperspace, which in the case of a star, is a very bad thing. There are also ships, called interdictors, capable of generating artificial mass shadows that can yank a ship right out of hyperspace no matter how fast it's traveling. They're difficult to maneuver while performing this function and attract space debris. The "gravity well projectors" that make this possible also sometimes appear on other ships, or in one case on a space station. This is hinted at in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', in which the Imperial fleet is keeping the Rebel one from escaping, without explicitly saying how (they're not physically blocking the Rebels from all directions).
** An upside for interdictors is found by [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Grand Admiral Thrawn]], that MagnificentBastard for all seasons. Normally, interdictors are a very bad thing for those caught in their field -- they're used to prevent outgunned enemy ships from escaping via hyperspace. Meanwhile, it turns out large-scale surprise attacks had traditionally been limited by the vagaries of exactly timing the drop from hyperspace; big fleets arrive over some time and wildly out of formation. Thus attackers in force have to jump in at a healthy distance from the enemy, reform as quickly as possible, and then advance on an enemy with many minutes of warning instead of mere seconds. Thrawn [[MilitaryMaverick shocks everyone]] when he begins using interdictors to snag ''his own'' ships. By simply launching an entire fleet blindly at the target and having an interdictor yank them out of hyperspace, they all appear exactly at the same place and time (that is, the edge of the interdictor's field, as soon as they hit it). Needless to say, he ''really'' ruins the New Republic's day the first time he shows this off.

* In ''StarBlazers'', the warp drive available to the crew of the Yamato would only work between certain locations, making the rest of the universe a NoWarpingZone.

** Related: when a ship or jump gate opens a hyperspace jump, anything in realspace that happens to fall along the perimeter of the jump area [[TeleFrag is demolished in a messy fashion]]. If the perimeter crosses ''another open jump'', though, the results [[StuffBlowingUp can be downright catastrophic]]. The former has been used as a battle tactic, notably by the Minbari, although it requires extreme precision to be effective. The latter is considered incredibly hazardous even by those standards, and is a desperation maneuver at best--with few exceptions, any ship able to open a jump point will be too big and slow to get away from the blast; the White Star is the only jump-capable ship ever shown to be fast enough to perform the maneuver and survive. The latter maneuver is even called the [[TooDumbToLive Bonehead Maneuver]] by the humans ([[RubberForeheadAliens no offense meant to the Minbari]]).

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' introduced the Omega Directive, which instructed that Omega Molecules be destroyed upon discovery- and even overrode the [[{{Alien Non-Interference Clause}} Prime Directive]]. Why? Because Omega Molecules had a nasty habit of exploding--and when they did, they created a huge void where FTL travel and communications didn't work, potentially crippling to TheFederation and ''every other spacefaring race within a few thousand light years.''
** An episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' centered around the dangers of warp travel in high traffic areas leading to the erosion of the fabric of space-time, causing catastrophic {{Negative Space Wedgie}}s and, potentially, worse. As a result of this discovery, the Federation places a Warp 5 speed limit on their ships except in cases of emergency, until Starfleet can find and implement a viable solution to the problem. The Klingon Empire agrees to the same speed limit (other factions aren't accounted for). This is observed for the remainder of the series, but eventually discarded with a hand-wave about [[TechnologyMarchesOn a technical solution having been found]].

** There was a ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' episode where a changeling was about to induce a supernova in Bajor's sun. They get wind of it at the last second, but the only way to stop it is to warp through the system. Dax is aghast, but Kira, what with most of her species' lives on the line, is less restrained.

** K-F drives also don't take well to ''each other''. That is, if two active drive cores are in close proximity to one another, attempting to have either one initiate a jump is... [[Understatement bad]]. Intentionally getting a [=JumpShip=] close enough to another to prevent it from leaving is called the "Crazy Jane" maneuver. In one story, a smaller ship took out a battleship by getting close to it and [[{{Suicide Attack}} firing up its drive]]. Both ships were destroyed, and there was every chance that other ships nearby (meaning thousands of kilometers away) could have been taken out too.