Cosmic Brain Fart Volume 1: M3WD Addendum

Greetings fellow readers of this blog, all five of you, I must apologize in the length of time in between blog entries. I’ve been….. distracted since then and the procrastination bug had hit me rather hard when I had the bright idea of drawing my own pictures for still future entries to better illustrate the Hard Space Opera setting that is Crongus Wars.

I’m still in the “process” of readying such images but until then allow me to introduce to all you readers that have stood by my silence all these years with a new entry addition: the Cosmic Brain Farts!

Now, since I’m not sure if edits to a blog entry would ever send alerts to those who subscribe to these blogs of mine, I figure that for major world changing (heh!) alterations to this setting of mine that I should do these separately to see if these random thoughts are going anywhere or if they’re stuck in the mud before I make them official codex or whatever is the fancy lexicon for setting canon nowadays…..

Anyway, to inaugurate this potentially new series of blog entries, I would like to direct your collective attention towards my FTL entry, to be specific the Interplanetary Warp Drive.

When I returned to a particular Rocketpunk Manifesto blog entry to read back what I had written down in a futile attempt to recover my Hyperspace Warp Dive equation, I recalled earlier entries that gave the ideas that eventually formed the previously mentioned blog entry, a brain fart began to form.
However, this didn’t give form until later on after I recalled an Artifexian video on moons as shown below:

However, the brain fart didn’t take actual form until I had the idea of using the Force of Gravity Equation to somehow construct a Warp Drive derivative equation to help one to measure how much the gravity of a planet, moon, or similar celestial body would disrupt the warp bubble and potentially measure the inefficiency such a mass would affect said warp bubble after taking into account the stellar mass of the planetary system’s host star and naturally not accounting for planetary systems that are binary or have more “suns” for lack of a better lexicon. I know that I made the declaration that the M3WD cannot operate within twenty radii of said planet. After I did some calculations with Earth as an example, I found that for other worlds the orbital limit for the M3WD was the equivalent to High Earth Orbit. I’m not sure if this was deliberate or accidental on my part, shows you how much time had passed since the last blog entry.

It was then that the brain fart was born: Hill Spheres!

Or to be exact the Hill Sphere marks the boundary to which that particular planet’s gravity begins to affect the M3WD’s Warp Bubble and one is able to find variables based upon the spacecraft and said planet’s Force of Gravity and calculate the instability and efficiency of the M3WD before the amount of electrical energy required to maintain the “stability” of the warp bubble becomes infinite and thus cannot be achieved within a certain orbital radius of both the spacecraft’s mass in question and said planet or moon while within the celestial body’s hill sphere.

With M3WD-equipped System Patrol spacecrafts typically around the kilometer scale, I forsee the equivalent of Lunar Orbit (said Natural Satellite’s own Hill Sphere not withstanding) or somewhere around 40 or 60 planetary radii. Smaller, non-interplanetary spacecraft with M3WDs, however, would be able to operate deeper into the Hill Sphere with the potential limit being two celestial body radii. Realistically, said spacecraft would have a practical limit of the Semi-Synchronous Orbital Radii because, well, traffic.

That idea soon evolve into an additional justification for space fighters. I don’t recall where, but there was an online article which describes to the absolute annoyance of me that spacefighters aren’t a tactically effective weapon platform because they and their carrier spacecraft have similar acceleration. In the Blue Water Navy, their aircraft carriers have a limited acceleration and speed compared to aircraft due to different mediums that they must travel through. But this brain fart, this beautiful bolt of inspiration when it comes to M3WDs and space fighters allows a discrepency of acceleration and speed that makes them comparable to an Aircraft Carrier when within a Hill Sphere: The carrier mothercraft is parked in a Combat Operational Orbit, for lack of a better military terminology, and deploys space fighters for patrol and interception when within a Hill Sphere that may be more crowded due to the orbital development level of said planet and especially one that is habited.

Granted, the carrier mothercraft is fully capable of outrunning its compliment of space fighters due to greater endurance and ISP, but the space fighter is able to travel a much shorter distance thanks to its M3WD and will ultimately travel farther than its carrier mothercraft over a similar time frame. Not only that, but said celestial body serves as a kind of “Horizon” where the strengths of standard sci-fi spacecraft weaponry is greatly hindered because not many of them can move in a ballistic trajectory to hit something on the far side of said planet when that deep into the hill sphere. Space fighters will be able to traverse this “Horizon” to either act as spotters for the spaceship’s more ballistic weapons such as missiles and KEW rounds, but also perform direct combat with hostile forces upon that far side with limited aid from the constellation. Add to the fact that without satellite or similar means of communication relays, the ability to utilize drones in such a situation is heavily diminished and dictates to Space Force commanders that space fighters have to be manned if not also due to the technical nature of the Fuel-Charged M3WDs as compared to capital spacecraft M3WDs.

Now that I think of it, I’m not sure what the effect an Alcubierre Metric-style drive would have to radio and (to a lesser degree) laser communications. I want to say that there is a distortion that would make such communications while in use extremely difficult unless the sender has an incredibly powerful radio antenna array (and by powerful, I mean HUGE) compared to the M3WD-equipped spacecraft. Or, in essence, the M3WD-equipped spacecraft can receive but not send while the Warp Bubble is “up” and would probably make for a not-so-effective drone while it’s activated. Chances are I’m wrong though, but it’s an idea. The same can be said of weapons fire while on an M3WD, though I have the feeling that rather then the fire not being able to pass through the warp bubble, the warp bubble instead distorts the trajectory of the weapon fire and the firing solution compensations make it a task for only the desperate. Meaning that if the idea holds true, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t to be completely honest, one cannot “Run and Gun” when the warp bubble is activated. Not if you want to make every shot count anyway.

Heck, I’m not even sure what would happen if two warp bubbles come into contact with one another. I’d like to think it’ll occur like in the following video:

Though something tells me it wouldn’t be as interesting. In fact, I bet it’s more suicidal than ideal and every bit as explosive for both parties. Eh, what can you expect? It’s a brain fart.

Oh! And while we’re on the subject at hand, I’d like to turn towards the HWDS. To be exact the characteristic of the Dive-Out Vortex appearing at the equatorial plane of the celestial body in question rather than at the opposite rotational pole. This particular brain fart came after the above and I figured that I’ll hit two birds in one stone.

Basically, and I’m pretty sure I’m butchering orbital mechanics as we know it let alone any scientifically accurate terminology for the subject at hand, the Dive-Out Vortex emerges at the Tropics and Temperate Latitudes of the destination's opposing hemisphere compared to the Dive-In Vortex of the Origin body.

Okay, so mathematically the Dive-Out Vortex still appears upon the opposite hemisphere of the star or planet of origin, but it’s not within the Polar Circles. My brainfart is that the Dive-Out Vortex is, essentially, swung out from the center of the star and increases in altitude until it reaches an orbit not unlike a rocket launch. Heck, the velocity of the Dive-Out Vortex can be used to measure when exactly a spacecraft would Dive-Out into Mittespacetime, give or take a few hours. The Dive-Out Vortex can even collect mass an energy along the ascend. The flow in which one can track and calculate the predicted mass of the Diving-Out spacecraft, plus or minus a few grams/joules to take into consideration velocity of the initial Dive-In.

And I just realized that such a method would actually strip a planet of its own matter whenever an interplanetary Hyperspacetime Warp Dive occurs. Yeah, that definitely rules out the idea of doing Hyperspacetime Warp Dives…. Or I can just make a statement that the Dive-out Vortex is micro-scaled and doesn’t take in any matter until it reaches orbital altitude and thus grows into a proper Dive-Out Vortex in space. I’m probably wrong, but my mathematical paygrade isn’t enough for me to either justify or denounce the idea. Eh, it’s a start so that’s something, right?

Anyway, discuss below and please, try to be civil in your responses. And speaking of responses, I would respond more easily if you display your screen name in your comments. It helps me to respond properly.

There and Back Again: Hyperspace Dives, Alcubere IP Drives, and Interstellar Communication

Warning: Hyperlinks to any webpage to TVtropes.org have been scientifically and clinically known to cause massive time loss in the browsing of its contents. you have been warned.

As many fans of sci-fi know, both of classical rocketpunk and modern Space Opera alike, the centerpiece of many speculative fiction set amongst the stars are the spacecraft, and the central technology that many fans have heard about in one form or another is the propulsion system used to allow humanity and similar sapient extrasolar species to escape the isolated island that is the Sol System and spread out amongst the universe.

The saga that is the Crongus Wars, as a space opera, is no stranger to the trappings of FTL travel and communications in the form of the Hyperspace Warp Dive System, the interplanetary Mittespacetime Metric Manipulation Warp Drive, Quantum Entanglement Tele-Transportation Relay Network, and the Interstellar Aetherspacetime Resonance Communication System throughout all of human settled space. Each has its strength and weaknesses, its contributions and limitations to human civilization as a whole and this blog entry addresses the general description and usage of what has allowed humanity to reach the stars.

Hyperspacetime Warp Dive System (HWDS)

Late in the Twenty-Second Century of the Common Era Calendar, before the maelstrom of chaos and brutality that was the Great  Global War, the humans of the Golden Age discovered that in addition to the spacetime that has been known to science since the age of Albert Einstein, there were two other parallel yet alternate spacetimes that coexist with what was known in antiquity as Normal Space but rechristened as Mittespacetime in later eras: Aetherspacetime and Hyperspacetime.

Aetherspacetime was a quagmire of primordial energies that existed since the dawn of time. In fact, there exists only two primordial forces that could be detected by humanity: Gravity and a Superforce comprised of Electromagnetism, the Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces. Even up to the the age of the Crongus Wars, only energy had ever ventured into the realm of Aetherspacetime.Some cosmologists have theorized that Aetherspacetime is more of a four dimensional spacetime rather than the normal five dimensional spacetime of Mittespacetime and Hyperspacetime.

Hyperspacetime was the holy grail of interstellar travel in that it was then theorized that it would allow faster-than-light travel without violating the core law of Special Relativity. As the name implies, Hyperspacetime has Non-Euclidean dimensions that cannot be easily transcribed with Mittespacetime locations, yet it is essential to allow humanity to settle the stars. From what data could gather, the general environment of Hyperspacetime had a rather interesting parallel to the end of the universe as physics knows it.

In fact, these data of the parallel spacetimes seem to resemble the lifespan of the universe: The Big Bang as represented by Aetherspacetime, the modern era that is Mittespacetime, and the Heat Death symbolized by Hyperspacetime. Though they are separate and independent, all three spacetimes interact with one another through the primordial force of gravity though there have been evidence to suggest another primordial form of energy that link the parallel spacetimes together. How for either processes had been a mystery but several theoretical scientists have suggested and then later proven through experimentation that in between the spacetime is a kind of barrier that was known simply as subspace which caused the gravitational link. The warping of spacetime by gravity is translated through to the other spacetimes by the displacement of subspace.

There have been attempts to study subspace to understand its nature, however it reacted violently. The only saving grace was that all subspace vortexes are inherently unstable and that the only thing that kept them stable long enough for scientific observation is the equipment that drew subspace out in the first place: Turn the machinery off and the subspace vortex closes.

As for the unknown energy, many theoretical physicists are divided into the purpose of the strange force, though they are united from data and observations that the energy flowed from the high-energy plane of Aetherspacetime into the low-energy of Hyperspacetime, which as per the Law of Conservation of Energy, either contributes or causes the expansion of the universe as a whole.

The HWDS Drive was accidentally discovered by the Alliance of Nations during the Great Global War that dominated much of the Twenty-Third Century during their research into an orbital weapon that would take out Anti-Satellite Batteries and other strategic assets and targets of the Coalition of Nations from their military fortresses upon the lunar territories.

Yeah, I know what you're saying. The notation of an Alliance of Nations and a Coalition of Nation sounds suspiciously familiar with the faction of a certain videogame.....

Let's put it on record that my history idea predated it. That and due to the difficulty of interplanetary travel by that point in history, the Great Global War is limited to the Hill Sphere of the Earth. Especially with the technological limitations of the Survivor States compared to the supranational states of the Golden Age. Alright then, let's continue.

When the proposed weapon was first used upon lunar proving grounds owned by the Alliance of Nations, its first target was a derelict circumpolar lunar satellite. Upon the activation of the weapon, the vortex of subspace occurred upon the weapon itself while a singularity appeared at the location of the derelict satellite. Once the dust settled, it was found that instead of the unfortunate demise of both the satellite and the then incorrectly termed Hyperspace Vortex Cannon, they simply switched places: The flash, though mostly subspace, was actually the compensation of the weapon's mass compared to the satellite along with the difference in velocities between the two by the capture of ambient cosmic and solar radiation that occurs naturally within space.

Though the Alliance of Nations soon refined the Hyperspace Vortex Cannon to the point that it could strike targets upon the Earth's surface, though limited to strategic assets: conventional arms and grunts were used to capture and occupy territories and all that implies, it wasn't long before the foundation of humanity's FTL drive was conceived.

Surviving corporations on both sides of the conflict were able to refine the concepts of what would be called the HWDS Drive in later centuries in parallel to mass construction of the Hyperspace Vortex Cannon. These designs were then secretly sold the equipment to desperate refugees who feared that the war would spread to the scientific outpost and shantytown colonies scattered throughout the Sol System and wanted to get as far as possible. This event became known at the time and by historians and scholars as the Hyperspacetime Drive Enigma since it has not been known exactly how these companies were able to sell the HWDS drive under the auspices of the Alliance of Nations and Coalition of Nations. It started with a few ad hoc starcrafts, then makeshift constellations and finally the famed Exodus Fleets, with the two largest that would ultimately become the militant, xenophobic and expansionist nation-states of the United People’s Democratic Socialist Confederation of Marx-Shaw and ImperialIslamic Union of Extrasolar Emirates that had left in the year 2272 of the Common Era calendar when they dove out from the Sol-Earth Lagrangian Points 1 and 2 that mark the boundary of Earth’s Hill Sphere. It was at this time did the leadership of both the Alliance of Nations and the Coalition of Nations realize that there was a significantdecrease in available personnel to fight the Great Global War.

Many of the old guard of both belligerent parties feared that the Great Global War might lead to the extinction of the human species as a whole, especially since they have heard reports of the deteriorating condition of the refugee “shantytowns” that literally besieged the scientific outposts of Mercury, Mars, and Callisto. Thus they conspired to launch interplanetary colonization constellations to both Venus and Mars with enough genetic diversity, equipment, and supplies to ensure humanity’s continued existence if the Great Global War did end in omnicide on Earth; The red planet was allotted to the settlers of the Alliance while the sulfuric clouds of Venus would be populated by the Coalition to join up with the other sky laboratory outposts founded during the Golden Age. The new blood of both the Coalition and the Alliance saw this project as treachery and had subsequently executed these general and flag officers before they gathered the remains of their respective constellations of combat spacecraft to halt and possibly draft the refugees from what would have been the largest singular Exodus Fleet in history. 

This action caused a terrible massacre infamously known as the Exodus Scattering and had directly leaded to the last orbital battle of the Great Global War. A great majority of historians and scholars have agreed that the battle in 2273 marked the end of the Great Global War and the start of the Terran Dark Ages, marred by the remnant forces and militia of both the Alliance of Nations and Coalition of Nations whom battled each other and unfortunate survivors who attempted to rebuild civilization that was smashed apart by the conflict. These remnant forces would also, in later generations, found the many Post-Apocalyptic Civilizations upon the Earth.

At its fundamental core, the HWDS Drive requires the presence of a strong gravitational well such as those produced by stellar massed objects like stars or a Jovian planet. The closer an HWDS Drive equipped starcraft is to the center of the gravity well, the more efficient the performance. Due to this requirement, many Dive-In Vortexes are made at the rotational poles of departure celestial bodies. Though strangely enough the Dive-Out Vortex emerge along the equatorial plane of the destination celestial body in question, since mathematically the Dive-Out Vortex should appear at the rotational pole opposite of the departure star’s rotation pole. However at the same time period, the starcraft’s mass and velocity must be exchanged with stellar plasma and ambient radiation at the destination star in order to preserve the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum. Meaning that the Dive-Out Vortex appears as a black hole or singularity, or more accurately the theoretical event horizon of a wormhole, and the Dive-In Vortex appears to be a directional coronal mass ejection.

Yet, there are gravitational quirks that expand the number of Dive-In points within any stellar planetary system: Barycenters and Lagrangian points.

As the term implies, the Barycenter are points of gravitational balance between two or more celestial bodies in rotation. However the ideal and sought after barycenters are those of a multiple star planetary system in which the barycenter itself is of a comfortable distance outside the photosphere of either host star. Such stellar planetary systems have immeasurable strategic and economic value due to the fact that barycenters typically do not have the hazard of stellar plasma or planetary surfaces to contend with and have also made such starsystems the hub of many interstellar nation-states. Not only that, but the two orbital stars also grants a boost of a stellar massed object equal to the sum of the two stars, which also means that the HWDS dive can be deeper and allow for a farther reach for starcraft. Yet, for traffic control purposes, the rotational poles of the barycenter are designated the Dive-In Only zones.

Lagrangian points have their usefulness in HWDS Dive-In zones as well, with the Dive-In routes perpendicular to its orbit. However, due to the miniscule gravity well compared to even jovian planets, Lagrangian points are limited to only interplanetary distances and are not an ideal competitor to M3WD systems in terms of travel time. Yet militarily, Lagrangian dives have two major advantages over M3WD equipped interplanetary spacecraft: HWDS Drive equipped combat starcraft cannot be fired upon en route and the destination is not known with absolute, mathematical certainty. Still, such HWDS Drives engineered to perform Lagrangian Point Dive-Ins or even drives that are sensitive enough to perform such actions are outside the budget of stellar defense forces, rather they are the monetary domain of interstellar expeditionary forces and even then a Lagrangian Dive-In is mostly performed in emergencies when a starcraft or constellation must dive towards the nearest host star. Also, in emergencies, the HWDS Drive equipped starcraft may perform an interstellar dive if enough electrical energy is placed into the HWDS at the point of entry.

However such a task is ill-advised since the extra electrical input would cause an electromagnetic field phenomenon known as Hyperspacetime Dive Time Distortion (HDTD) which creates a kind of temporal “drag”. Normally, when a starcraft dives through hyperspace time it would only appear to occur in a matter of moments or even a few minutes at best while in the timeframe of mittespacetime the entire trip took a span of days, or even weeks. If and when HDTD occurs, the ratio between hyperspacetime travel time and mittespacetime travel time increases exponentially, a lesson learned by many early interstellar Exodus Fleets such as the United People’s Democratic Socialist Confederation of Marx-Shaw and Imperial Islamic Union of Extrasolar Emirates who experienced lengthy HDTD due to a long range dive of over a thousand parsecs; the former having dove through hyperspacetime in 3600 standard seconds whereas in mittespace time the voyage was at least hundred standard earth years (about 3,155,846,400 standard seconds), the latter traversed a dive of 4800 standard seconds through hyperspacetime and discovered that in mittespacetime the actual voyage was over a hundred and twenty standard earth years (approximately 3,787,015,680 standard seconds).

Yet, there is more to the operation of the HWDS Drive than simply the location of a Dive-In point. There are numerous variables that must be accounted for to allow a starcraft to not only arrive at the desired destination, but also to arrive promptly. As previously mentioned, excess electrical energy into the HWDS would cause electromagnetic drag upon the Hyperspacetime Dive Conduit that increases HDTD exponentially. Additionally, the angle of the dive at the point of entry must be as close to parallel to the alignment of both the destination star and departure star in order to minimize HDTD. The starcraft must also attain escape velocity, or at least orbital velocity, of the superior star in terms of gravitational force and mass or else the crew of a starcraft would find that the Dive-Out vortex had opened into the exact center of the star. The starcraft’s mass must also be accounted for to the performance of the onboard HWDS Drive and its maximum possible payload while in transit through the Dive Warp Conduit, the hyperspacetime equivalent to mass ratio with classical rocketry. Naturally, an HWDS Drive that shuttles a payload less than its maximum tolerance would be able to dive deeper and father. However, if the payload is higher than the HWDS Drive’s tolerance, the Dive-In vortex simply does not materialize and in such cases the starcraft experiences an unpleasant, fiery end via stellar plasma.

As if that were not problematic enough, the position of both the departure star and destination star must be calculated enough to allow the Dive-Out vortex to be captured by the destination star at the time of arrival in both Linear Time and Radial Time. If not, then the vortex would open into interstellar space and the starcraft is essentially stranded. Even the onboard payload of the spacecraft, which is the cargo, crew, and passengers, must be completely immobilized due to the violent transit through hyperspace time. Many have described it as a violent roller coaster from hell and thus require extensive recovery period to many who are not accustomed to such violent and sudden G-forces.

Thankfully, though it depends upon one’s viewpoint, HDTD can be detected by the “wobble” or transit of the Dive-Out Vortex itself, though the exact amount of HDTD calculated from the wobble alone is extremely difficult to find. However, in the early eras of interstellar HWDS commerce and travel, exclusion orbits were set up by the government or governments who sponsor funding and materiel to stellar defense in accordance to local ordinances against unauthorized dive-outs. This stems mainly from the implied threat and subsequent fear of hostile spacecraft that were most vulnerable at the exact moment after a hyperspacetime dive-out. Unsurprisingly, many legitimate and innocent starcraft were destroyed simply because the onboard HWDS navigator, either sapient or artificial, made an error.

This all changed with the innovation that was the Vortex Gate, which helps anchor Dive-Out Vortexes and minimize Vortex wobble. The Vortex Gate has also allowed a kind of leeway for HWDS astrogators due to the very nature and technology of the gate so that the absolute calculated minimum could be performed without fear of either the starcraft destroyed by stellar defense stations or diving out and into stellar plasma. The Vortex Gate has also allowed for a discrimination of diving-out starcraft since any hostile starcraft would easily bypass the gate under ideal circumstances, which would also easily identify them as an invader and just as quickly made into an open target by stellar defense forces stationed near the destination star. However it was not unusual for stellar defense stations to be built around a Vortex Gate and the Tannhäuser-style arrangement had become the most popular design for Vortex Gate stellar defense stations as of the era of the Crongus Wars.

Yet this did not mean that just anyone could go to any starsystem if they can purchase a boarding pass. HWDS operation is only economic when the primary payload is freight and cargo. Life support for an extended passengers, or extended crews in some cases, is very expensive in payload allowance alone. Thus HWDS-based interstellar travel is akin to trans-Atlantic travel  during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of the Common Era Calendar: Only the rich and affluent can afford casual interstellar transport, all other passengers are migrants. The exemption to this rule are government officials of extrasolar nation-states and their associated military forces.

As for the question of “FTL equals Time Travel”, well I can simply state that it’s not possible. Even if the HWDS Drive is able to harness such power to attempt such a maneuver, time travel is typically fatal for the crew and/or passengers in that the forces that guard causality would rip them apart on the quantum level. And even if it was possible, the HWDS Drive would only time travel via radial time and cannot travel backwards or forwards in linear time that would allow a paradox in causality. In short, those that do survive an HWDS-based Radial Time Travel were simply shunted into an alternate continuity and are effectively in temporal exile for the rest of their existence.

Thanks goes out to Luke, Citizenjoe, and Ferrel in helping refine my HWDS Drive idea.

Mittespacetime Metric Manipulation Warp Drive (M3WD)

The technology that would become the M3WD was a technical curiosity engineered by the supranational powers of the Golden Age from studies of the multi-spacetime planes and based upon the theories of one Dr. Miguel Alcubierre for his Metric Warp Drive. It was hoped to be the FTL drive that would allow humanity to explore and colonize the stars. Its performance compared to even the Warp Drives of the Vulcrow Intelligence to its electrical input was horrendous as an interstellar engine and thus abandoned. Centuries later with the founding of the Federal Earth Union of Colonial Settlements and Nations, more commonly known as the United Colonies of Earth or UCE, was the M3WD system refined after more enlightened studies of the multi-spacetime planes and the HWDS Drive and its effects were made. Later models of the M3WD would have considerable technological aid from the Vulcrow Intelligence, yet its purpose as an interstellar drive would not be fulfilled in that even with the most powerful Anti-Matter Engines it would take an M3WD-equipted starcraft 31,558,464,000 standard seconds (or a thousand Earth years) to cross a single parsec from the point of view of the onboard crew and passengers.

Instead, the M3WD served as an augmentation to traditional interplanetary reaction drives such as fusion torch drives that decreases travel time throughout interplanetary space through the compression of mittespacetime that lie upon the interplanetary spacecraft’s trajectory and within range of the M3WD’s projected bubble. The total travel time of an M3WD augmented torch drive was exponentially shorter in comparison to an unaugment reaction drive of the same caliber.

At its fundamental core, the M3WD creates a field of warped mittespacetime fabric in which the area ahead of the spacecraft is compressed and the area behind is expanded. The spacecraft, even with the M3WD bubble activated, must traversed the compressed corridor of spacetime with traditional reaction engines. However, a spacecraft equipped with the M3WD system cannot be utilized within twenty diameters of any celestial body that could produce a signifigant gravity field due to its disruptive nature it would have against an already unstable warp field bubble.

The M3WD warp field bubble is not on constantly, rather it fluctuates on and off not unlike a florescent light bulb so that it would give the illusion of constant travel to any onboard crew or passengers which also provides acceleration-generated gravity. Though there is a minor health note for those with conditions sensitive to sudden, jarring acceleration and such individuals either must make due with slower interplanetary transit or placed in hypersleep. Additionally, it is also because the warp field bubble of the M3WD fluctuates that the spacecraft in the center of the field can be influenced by gravity of a host star and thus travel orbits, though these orbits are noticeably more shallow than standard Brachistochrone orbit. Not only that, but the spacecraft does not need to tumble into the gravitational capture phase (i.e. deceleration) at the midpoint of the orbit since technically its net velocity is noticeably low enough for entry into planetary orbit once the M3WD is deactivated.

However, not all M3WD systems are equal in that they must have a particular performance envelope based upon the mass of the payload and the diameter of the warp field bubble and many manufacturers have developed a class system that usually range from Alpha to Omega. Unfortunately each company and corporation that develops and constructs, and especially those with an involvement in interplanetary economics let alone interstellar, do not have a unified Class System for the M3WD despite attempts by numerous extrasolar settlement nation-states.

Even so, the minimum and maximum tolerances of the M3WD are easily quantified. All Alpha class M3WD can perform the minimum performance of a 5 Megagram payload with a bubble diameter of fifty meters. All Omega class M3WD are only able to have a bubble diameter of three megameters, due to the stability and integrity due to the gravitational effects of any nearby star, and able to loft a maximum of 50 Gigagrams or for comparison a single Orbital Settlement Cylinder.

What prevents the use of M3WD Cruise Missiles for interplanetary combat, or even guided relativistic projectiles is simple: The M3WD doesn’t increase velocity and the cost of a torch drive alone does not justify it to be mounted upon a disposable weapon, add in the M3WD system along with the power core to supply it energy and the costs increases exponentially.

However, there are “economical” M3WD for such a purpose that is utilized for both anti-capitalcraft missiles and Star Fighters and Guncrafts which utilize “Fuel Charges” per Warp Field Bubble trajectory. The “distance” each Fuel Charge supplies to the economy M3WD varies with manufacturer, but is no less than interplanetary deltaVs. The real difference between the two economical M3WD systems is that missile drives only have enough Fuel Charges for two trajectory changes at most whereas combat vehicles have numerous “Fuel Charges” for flanking maneuvers of the initial attack run before returning to the carrier mothercraft.

The M3WD System avoids the downsides of metric warp travel due to two parts: The M3WD equipped spacecraft only has an interplanetary range and due to its warp field bubble fluctuations it is not active long enough to receive the cons of similar alcubierre-esque drives. Even the Vulcrow Intelligence have found technological solutions to their own FTL drives and even taken a useful aspect to its obvious militaristic advantage against hostile targets.

Meaning that it doesn’t normally hurt to have such a dramatic entry in hostile starsystems….

Thanks to CitizenJoe and Ferrel for refinement aid with my little IP Warp Drive idea by the way.

Quantum Entanglement Tele-Transportation Relay Network (QTRN)

In the early eras of HWDS-based interstellar communication and commerce, news and information was limited to courier craft equipped with a powerful radio antennae to broadcast its announcement that it was a courier craft and that it should not be destroyed lest its important data be lost. Such a tradition continues as an emergency and often cheaper form of interstellar communications. Yet in the Golden Age, scientists of the superanational-states struggled to utilize the quantum mechanics phenomenon known as Quantum Entanglement or “Spooky Action” for interplanetary and ultimately interstellar communications. Though much of the original data was lost, with what records were salvaged the Federal Earth Union of Colonial Settlements and Nations were able to create a new interstellar communications system that would ultimately evolve into the QTRN.

However, like the HWDS Drive, the QTRN was actually utilized for a radically different civil project: The Dyson Photovoltaic Broadcast Grid (DPBG). The DPBG, at its core, was the solar energy farm that orbited close to the host star in question and transmitted its photovoltaic energy to remote corners of a star system. At first it utilized beamed energy not unlike classical solar power satellites on polar oribts and transmitted its energy via Masers to receiver stations, or rectennas, on a planet’s surface. However, such an arrangement had certain limitations, mostly due to interplanetary range and many involved in the DPBG slaved to create a Tesla-type energy transmission when records of the suprantational-states’ own Quantum Entanglement notes were brought to surface.

Though the DPBG and planetary scale micro-versions were implemented with equipment that is able to broadcast and receive the energy such as the Power Transfer Conduit Array (PTCA), an accident occurred which showcased the DPBG’s ability to transfer communication and data across a vast distance, potentially interstellar.

It all started with the ill-fated prototype and its inability to broadcast photovoltaic energy through Quantum Entanglement. Adjustments and repairs were performed upon the solar orbital satellite time and time again which, over time, caused a few wires to be crossed incorrectly. In one of the final trials of the prototype, the quantum receiver array produced a strange fluctuation in addition to the usual static. Upon closer examination it was revealed that the strange fluctuations were actually the echo of the same broadcast commands given to the satellite. After several more experimentation such as isolating the variable of the broadcast and receiver’s orbital distance from the sun, a new and revolutionary interstellar communication system was born.

However, the system isn’t completely reliable in that it has a minimum range of broadcast effect; the minimal transmission radius for the QTRN was 30 AU from the nearest stellar object for broadcasts without heavy stellar radiation interference (aka static), while the minimal transmission radius for any possible transmission without being lost to stellar radiation static is 15 AU and is usually limited to Morse code under the best of conditions. Binary transmissions would still ideally work within the range, but it would take considerable amount of time to decode into a legible message if the broadcast itself was notably lengthy or data-dense such as a video file.

As such, binary coded messages are typically brief and cryptic with brevity codes and other such short-hand jargon, something that is operationally “doable” for military forces even if it was a nightmare for emergency scenarios. In fact several stellar defense forces have drafted an emergency binary QTRN into its network-centric infrastructure. Such systems for interstellar expeditionary forces, however, are exclusively to Galactic Superpowers such as the Federal Earth Union of Colonial Settlements and Nations, United People’s Democratic Socialist Confederation of Marx-Shaw, Imperial Islamic Union of Extrasolar Emirates, and the Averon Alliance of Federated Settlement Nations, and even then are only found upon designated Command and Control Starcrafts to which Battle Constellations are organized around. Theoretically the Command and Control Starcraft could generate enough electrical energy through the QTRN receiver array that it could operate within 15 AU from a stellar object; however it would leave the starcraft and its crew vulnerable to hazards both natural and artificial.

The actual QTRN broadcast stations are massive affairs due to the equipment and systems needed that simply cannot be micronized with advanced technology, their dimensions are measured in megameters at the very least and are almost de facto orbital colonies onto themselves, which would be almost required considering the distances these stations are from the host star. Yet even the QTRN has its own natural limitations in the form of the curvature of Mittespacetime, or rather a kind of natural horizon upon the quantum world. Meaning that the maximum radius a QTRN could broadcast a message without it being lost to the ambient radiation of interstellar space was a little over six parsecs. Such a limitation has also dictated the size of subnational entities of various interstellar nation-states that would dominate for decades until a far reaching interstellar communications network was created.

As for the prototype DPBG? Needless to say the initial designs based upon Quantum Entanglement were scrapped due to further complication to wireless electrical transmission. However, with the then latest research and information of Aetherspacetime, a new DPBG broadcast electrical transmission system was created which uses Aetherspacetime as a medium. Or rather, the majority of the photovoltaic electrical energy produced is shunted into Aetherspacetime and creating a kind imbalance to which the excess energy is point-collimated at receiver stations such as the PTCA (Unfortunately, this is the best description of the phenomenon I could do….) not unlike water finding a crack to leak through.

Thanks again to CitizenJoe for his Power Transfer Conduit idea to add as inspiration to the DPBG.

Aetherspacetime Resonance Communication System (ARCS)

With a greater understanding of the mulit-spacetime planes in later eras due to refinements of various technologies both recovered and renovated such as the HWDS Drive, multiple attempts were made into the creation of an interstellar communications network beyond the courier craft. From what data were recovered of the research done by the superanational states of the Golden Age on Aetherspacetime, the ARCS were created.

Many would argue that the ancestor technology of the ARCS wasn’t the QTRN, but rather the Aetherspacetime-based DPBG. It simply began with the question relating to the basic operation of current DPBGs: If energy could be shunted and then point-collimated to and from Aetherspacetime, then the phenomenon should be repeatable through communication and data transmissions for interstellar distances.

Though the theory was sound, the execution required a different form of thinking. That is, Aetherspacetime-based communications and data broadcast were fundamentally less like the DPBG and more akin to Frequency Modulation (FM) Radio Signal bouncing off Ionosphere before satellite communication. That is to say, the ARCS was somewhat directional and location-centric in that data doesn’t just point-collimate automatically to a receiving array, but rather the calculated resonance must match up with the special and temporal dimensions of the receiving array or else it is lost. And due to the broadband nature of the ARCS, the receiver arrays alone were measured in megameters and thus difficult to alter their orbits.

Even so, Aetherspacetime Resonance had an exponentially greater range than Aetherspacetime Shunting, reaching into interstellar ranges far beyond what was theoretically possible with the QTRN and measured in decaparsecs. The only limitation was their minimal transmission ranges, again due to stellar radiation interference: 0.01 parsecs from the nearest stellar object for transmissions without heavy static and 40 AU from the nearest stellar object for any possible transmission. However, this meant that the QTRN were perfectly complimented to the ARCS rather than a full replacement as many would have believed at the time. Thus the two interstellar systems work in concert, though due to the need to utilize radio for interplanetary transmissions there are no such thing as a “live” broadcast, only the timestamp of a pre-recorded video to account for time lag between star systems.

On a minor note, I had a more expansive explanation for the HWDS and M3WD ideas, but I was ill informed of bloggers inability to store saved blog entry drafts overnight.... However, I made due and done as much as I could. 

Then again, I doubt any of you would have liked to see my poor attempts at mathematical equation design so its all good.

Anyway, discuss below and please, try to be civil in your responses. And speaking of responses, I would respond more easily if you display your screen name in your comments.

EDIT 5/6/2016: Thanks to sci.tech archive, I am able to have a quantifiable mass of an O'Neil-style Island 3 Colony or at least a single cylinder.

Get your Portable ID!