Hyperspace (science Fiction) - Other Forms

Other Forms

Other forms of hyperspace usually have the same properties, however, some allow travel throughout time as well as space (e.g. Doctor Who's Time Vortex). Popular names include warpspace, slipspace and subspace.

Slipspace is a method of travelling faster-than-light in the television series Andromeda (2000–2005). According to the show, a Gravity Field Generator drastically reduces the mass of the ship and then a slipstream drive opens a slippoint which the ship enters. The pilot then navigates the series of slipstream "tunnels" until they reach the desired slippoint where they exit the slipstream. Slipspace has the unusual property that it cannot be navigated by machine-based intelligence, however advanced. Only organic sentient beings are capable of selecting the correct path.

Halo (2001 onward) also uses Slipspace, albeit with different capabilities. Humans, using Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engines, can tear black holes in known space which quickly evaporate, creating a hole in space. This puts a human ship into eleven-non-dimensional Slipspace. Human technology only goes so far, and the ship usually comes out several kilometers off target. Their maximum speed is universally under 1000 c. Covenant ships have drastically more accurate precision in this matter, along with much faster speeds (336,000 c). Halo: Contact Harvest describes it as "If one imagined the universe as a sheet of paper, Slipspace was the same sheet of paper crumpled into a tight ball."

Interspace (see also a footnote above under "Known Space Series", Niven) : In "Combing Back Through Time" by Mike Atkinson, this is used to step a visual history recording probe through the fourth dimension.

Overdrive : In the works of science fiction writer Murray Leinster (first SF story: The Runaway Skyscraper, 1919), Overdrive is a method of faster than light travel by a field of energy called an overdrive field, first appearing in First Contact (1945). When the overdrive field is activated, the ship then enters a dimensional subspace moving thirty times faster than light. Most of this power is held in batteries and recharged when the overdrive field is turned off. This method of faster than light travel is common in his works where faster than light travel is used though the stories are not connected in any other way.

Spindizzy : The spindizzy from James Blish's "Cities in Flight" series (1955–1962) as well as the Haertel overdrive in several other novels are described as creating a small space-time bubble in which the spacecraft travels. The ship therefore occupies a space-time continuum where effects such as the Lorenz-Fitzgerald contraction do not apply. The space-time created by the spindizzy or Haertel overdrive can be considered a small, self-contained hyperspace.

Plane Space is the form of faster than light travel in the Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars (both 1996 onward) series written by Hiroyuki Morioka. It is only accessible via Sords, making ones located near star systems of high strategic value.

Eschless Funnel : In Arwen Elys Dayton's Resurrection (2001), the Kinley race has developed a device called the "Eschless Funnel", which harvests energy directly from atomic mass. This allowed a normal fusion drive to warp space. Instead of traveling to another dimension, however, the field created an "enclave where the normal rules didn't apply".

OtherSpace : In the text-based MMORPG of the same name, OtherSpace is a mystical space-folding dimension long believed to only be navigable by trans-dimensional beings called Hivers. Governments were required to make treaties with these beings and keep one onboard each of their ships in order to make use of the FTL properties of the dimension.