This can be anything from Hyperspace in Star Wars, Warp Drive in Star Trek, travel through the Warp in Warhammer 40k or anything else.
I’ve always liked “slow” FTL travel, where going a few light-years still takes a few days or so. I also really like travel through an alternate dimension like in 40k, Event Horizon, Witchspace in Elite Dangerous.
I wanna know your favorite versions, or do you prefer stories that obey the laws of known physics, like the Expanse or Rimworld?
I prefer the STL in Card’s Ender’s Game series. They asymptotically approach the speed of light so the passengers only have several weeks pass when travelling to far flung locations but the universe around them experiences a normal passage of time which may be tens of years. This has really big implications on the plots in several stories.
They do have an ansible communications system that does allow instantaneous communication over astronomical distances.
goes Plaid
Hell yes Hitchiker’s haha
It’s a Spaceballs reference
The Infinite Probability Drive from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
It’s the Infinite Improbability Drive though, not Probability, that makes no sense :)
My bad 😥
Ha, good choice. After all these years it’s still among the more creative and fun.
I wouldn’t say it was my favourite FTL but it has some interesting implications.
The artificial wormholes of The Algebraist by Ian Banks. I can’t say too much if you haven’t already read it, but it’s artificial wormholes that have to be transported sublight.
All the new wormholes are of course lovely and high capacity, but much of the network is still the original tiny little ones first installed. So your military at least uses kilometer long needle ships that can fit through these small points.
Think fitting an aircraft carrier through a Stargate.
I like the kind where they didn’t try to explain it. Trying to show how they make their sausage never works out well. I can suspend disbelief for FTL but not for their stupid explanations
Macguffin it just enough to be maybe plausable, give it enough rules to make it interesting, be consistent and then shut the fuck up about it.
Silfen Paths from Judas Unchained. Aliens called Silfen walked from planet to planet directly via actual forest paths. Everything gets wonky time wise when your on one so you might emerge 100 years later. The technology itself is sentient and not maintained. The Silfen who lost interest long ago are asked how they manage the paths. They say they just let them do what they want. At least one path exists to/from Earth. But humans are boring and make things boring, so the aliens avoid Earth.
So if you’re on a walk and you get lost you may be walking to another planet.
I liked the wormholes from the Bobbyverse. You had instantaneous travel across interstellar distances but you had to get there via slower than light speed first. So no matter how technologically advanced you became your interstellar civilisation still grew at a rate of one or two systems per decade.
That series has a good progression too. It starts limited by light speed, then gets FTL communication, and finally FTL travel.
Came here to say this, glad to see Bobiverse getting rep ❤️
I love the idea that navigators in Dune ripped a line of space cocaine to forsee the best path through folded space for travelling.
Space cocaine is the best take on spice I’ve ever seen.
Challenge accepted
I read all of that in Peter Capaldi’s voice. You made my day
Space mushrooms. Worms aren’t a single coherent creature, but are in fact the amalgamation of many microscopic cells. They were once aggregated into sand trout of a few inches, then when they’re ready, they turn into a whole worm. Then if you refine the output of that process, you get spice. The whole process was based around magic mushrooms and LSD.
Yeah they have some crazy complicated formula they use to fold space, but no one knows why it works. They made computers illegal so had to use drugs to make humans capable of doing the calculations. Over time the navigators mutated into worm-like creatures that live in tanks of spice.
I like Dune’s FTL the best of any since it’s not just beep boop… ship goes fast. They can go anywhere in the Universe, but there’s a huge cost to it and shit gets weird.
I thought the Expanse did this really well. For starters, most travel is restricted as we currently know it. They have the Epstein drive, but something like that is feasible. In any case, humans are still meat bags that can only accelerate so much.
But then the FTL component requires some otherworldly technology with gating. That leaves the physics mystery to having been built by some smarter species and I think that is perfect for suspension of disbelief.
Most unfortunate name since ISIS in Archer
i see the stargate in expanse, lol.
No mention of Futurama? Screw moving the ship, just move the universe around it!
Infinite Improbably Drive in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I do love how the side effects (leaking improbability) were critical to the story making any plausible sense.
Throw in bistro-mathematics as an alternative star drive.
It’s such a genius idea because it’s not only a super original way to do FTL, but it also gives you a perfect way out for any plot holes lol
I find that highly unlikely.
Farnsworth: These are the dark matter engines I invented. They allow my starship to travel between galaxies in mere hours.
Cubert: That’s impossible. You can’t go faster than the speed of light.
Farnsworth: Of course not. That’s why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208.
Doesn’t Cubert later figure out that the engines don’t move the ship, instead they move the universe while the ship remains stationary?
Correct!
I said to my wife that I thought it was more likely that we could change the speed of light than exceed it.
Not ftl but I really like cryo sleep themes. Someone wakes up 100+ years later and the world is post apocalyptic. James axlers deathlands audio books, alien, some obscure video games.
The game Outer Worlds uses this as a main plot device.
In the Commonwealth Saga it’s trains! It’s portals with hugely demanding power consumption. They mostly have to stay fixed to one place and open. So they run choo choos. Their world is commerce and economics. And trains are a lovely symbol of that.
In The Final Architecture it’s jaunty. Unspace helps you go fast but you are always alone. Crewmates gone. When you come out they reappear. When you inside there is something coming to get you. Something that lives in unspace and doesn’t like that we use it for travel. The terror of its hunting you drives everyone to suicide. So instead they sleep. Magic “you sleep now” pods for everyone.
Except. You can only sleep if you are on a known route. Some rare people can feel out new routes. And they have to say awake. Most shows just follow normal routes. But the special ships with these other folks can go all over the place! At the cost of route terror.
The books are about coming together in the face of adversity cosmic horror. And unspace is a foil to that. You are alone. But we do what we can anyway. Your alone now, but not forever. Unless the monster gets you.
The Commonwealth Saga is so great.
The portals / train system brings the vibes of the commonwealth up to something like the EU, but on a multi-planetary scale. You have to go through specific points to get planet to planet but the infrastructure is so built up that it’s mostly a travel time problem. It becomes an issue later on that the society has gotten kind of hidebound into a gradual expansion so they never really ‘needed’ FTL for exploration, and now they do.
I get US robber baron vibes too.
Fair warning for those who decide to read it, the book doesn’t treat women particularly well. And it’s the best propaganda I’ve read for capitalism. Read it with eyes open and it’s fun. Great villains. Fun world building. It ends well. And trains!
And it’s like a 1000 page long novel split into two books.
And it has some of the most “alien” aliens in any book I’ve read.
CJ Cherryh and Joel Sheperd use basically the same system in their universes (Sheperd admitted he basically adopted CJ’s almost verbatim).
Ships can travel FTL transitioning into another plane of existence (to say it in an uncomplicated way), but to do so they must first acquire a speed very close to c. And when they transition back to the regular space they do it at transluminic velocity, that they must shred off pulsing their hyperdrives before coming down to ‘maneouvring’ speeds.
All of this makes for interesting tactical situations in the intent of an interstellar conflict.
I love how in Shepherd’s universe gravity is an actual issue and a major plot point in many cases
