Transport & Travel

Interstellar Travel

Alliance vessels travel between star systems via manifold collapse, which (in brief) involves generating a high-energy spacetime tunnel to a target destination, through which an encapsulated object can be pushed until it emerges at the other side.

Depending on the distances involved and the size of the travelling object, the time it takes to generate a spacetime manifold for the purposes of a “jump” can vary: it may take only a few hours to reach a neighbouring system in a standard vessel, while a ship the size of the Ardent might spend weeks at a time outside of real space before its arrival. Manifold collapse is in any case faster than attempting to cross such distances conventionally, as the nature of the tunnelling bypasses the speed of light by taking the vessel outside of the constraints of real space. An object that would travel more slowly via manifold collapse than it would through conventional space is said to have crossed the “Rabelais threshold”; as a vessel would need to have the mass of a planet to do so, this is a purely hypothetical barrier.

A ship in transit via manifold collapse is safely contained within a bubble of conventional spacetime, and therefore experiences spatial and temporal phenomena normally within itself – save for the lack of conventional reference points, like gravity and stars.

The appearance of a collapsing manifold from within is kaleidoscopic, with extreme optical distortions occurring on the edge between the bubble and the tunnel through which it passes. Kenophenomena may be glimpsed and studied on such flights, rendered visible by the lensing of the bubble; the Vologium aboard the Ardent’s Kenolab module is especially popular during these periods of transit.

Within Local Systems

The Ardent was designed to be safe, reliable and stable. These priorities mean that it is very slow in real space, though not as unwieldy as cargo ships (which tend to be smaller, but denser). T/OM piloting allows it to make the most of its own inertia and local gravity – slingshotting, after a fashion, and saving its propulsion system for minute corrections.

Atmospheric flight and landings are impractical for vessels of the Ardent’s size, forcing it to rely on its secondary modules to deliver ground teams to mission locations. Smaller shuttles can be assembled via FABREP and mobilised to transport key personnel, allowing for rapid movement between the modules and the Ardent in orbit.