FTL Travel
Query: If all these ships have warp drive, how come we can't warp out of the sector whenever we want to? If every ship that enters the sector can cross vast interstellar distances, how come they travel around so slow, even with warp drive? How come ships aren't warping in and out of here all the time? And what about all those teleporting ships?
Clearly warp and jump is not enough. I needed another form of FTL drive that answers these questions: one that makes mission writing somewhat convenient.
---
"You know that any shuttle with its salt can fly at impulse speeds, and that's usually enough to impress the tourist. But you've been out there, and you know how vast space is. You know impulse speed doesn't cut it. Yeah, yeah, you've heard of Warp Drives, and Jump Drives, and even that funny Hyper Drive. But what if you wanted to go fast? I mean really fast?
Impossibly fast?
See, space is huge. It's one thing to warp around within a sector and go visit the neighboring plants and such but if you really want to be an interstellar traveler, you're going to want to be able to leave your own sector and visit others. It doesn't matter how fast you go, other sectors are so mind-boggingly far away, that you'll never get there, even with the fastest conceivable warp drive.
Enter Portal Corp.
Our intersellar-model Portal Device is too large for most starships, but is ideally suited for space stations and larger capital ships. With one of these puppies, you can lock onto any beacon in any sector, creating an instantaneous two-way portal to send your ship straight to your destination, without crossing any of the intervening space. Now, even impulse is fast enough for interstellar flight!
What's the catch? Well, you'll need to encrypt your comm beacons, obviously. Or anyone with your gateway frequency will be able to pop up right on top of you. Or worse, they can lock onto you and pull you to them. That's right, the Portal is bi-directional. Portal on in to any sector with an portal-equipped space station, or ask the nearest portal station to beam you on up!
The stronger your signal, the more reliable your portal coordinates will be. It would take a hell of a pilot to fly through a portal with a weak beacon, or no beacon at all, so claiming the frontier sectors will be a lot of work.
But once the infrastructure is in place, we can portal on entire civilizations worth of pioneer ships. The process takes a lot of energy, so the portal device needs frequent recharging. But gone are the days of the old fashioned Space Race! Gone are the days of trying to break the Warp 4 barrier! Impulse gave us the planets, Warp gave us the stars, and today Portal Corp gives us the universe!"
-Opening speech of Senator Vicho K'pak
At the 1st Summit of the Unification Stellar Friendship Patrol
a Portal Corp subsidiary
Clearly warp and jump is not enough. I needed another form of FTL drive that answers these questions: one that makes mission writing somewhat convenient.
---
"You know that any shuttle with its salt can fly at impulse speeds, and that's usually enough to impress the tourist. But you've been out there, and you know how vast space is. You know impulse speed doesn't cut it. Yeah, yeah, you've heard of Warp Drives, and Jump Drives, and even that funny Hyper Drive. But what if you wanted to go fast? I mean really fast?
Impossibly fast?
See, space is huge. It's one thing to warp around within a sector and go visit the neighboring plants and such but if you really want to be an interstellar traveler, you're going to want to be able to leave your own sector and visit others. It doesn't matter how fast you go, other sectors are so mind-boggingly far away, that you'll never get there, even with the fastest conceivable warp drive.
Enter Portal Corp.
Our intersellar-model Portal Device is too large for most starships, but is ideally suited for space stations and larger capital ships. With one of these puppies, you can lock onto any beacon in any sector, creating an instantaneous two-way portal to send your ship straight to your destination, without crossing any of the intervening space. Now, even impulse is fast enough for interstellar flight!
What's the catch? Well, you'll need to encrypt your comm beacons, obviously. Or anyone with your gateway frequency will be able to pop up right on top of you. Or worse, they can lock onto you and pull you to them. That's right, the Portal is bi-directional. Portal on in to any sector with an portal-equipped space station, or ask the nearest portal station to beam you on up!
The stronger your signal, the more reliable your portal coordinates will be. It would take a hell of a pilot to fly through a portal with a weak beacon, or no beacon at all, so claiming the frontier sectors will be a lot of work.
But once the infrastructure is in place, we can portal on entire civilizations worth of pioneer ships. The process takes a lot of energy, so the portal device needs frequent recharging. But gone are the days of the old fashioned Space Race! Gone are the days of trying to break the Warp 4 barrier! Impulse gave us the planets, Warp gave us the stars, and today Portal Corp gives us the universe!"
-Opening speech of Senator Vicho K'pak
At the 1st Summit of the Unification Stellar Friendship Patrol
a Portal Corp subsidiary
[Last edited Sep 20, 2012 08:23:20]
Daredevil Cosmic Cowboys, TNS Hyperion, Weapons Officer
1st Fleet of Southern California Sector.
1st Fleet of Southern California Sector.
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