Jump Drive - Science Fiction Literature

Science Fiction Literature

Jump drives were used in many science fiction universes for space vehicle movement, initially suggested in the The Foundation Series of novels by Isaac Asimov from 1942. They next appear in the Deathworld 2 novel by Harry Harrison in the 1964 trilogy by the same name, and Frank Herbert's Dune. The CoDominium series by Jerry Pournelle which begun publication in 1973 features the Alderson jump drive. However, their popularity exploded only over a decade later with the Alliance-Union universe series by C. J. Cherryh from 1976. The Traveller role playing game (by Marc Miller, first edition in 1977) uses something called "jump drives", but they're actually a kind of hyperdrive, with ships using it traveling through "jump space" (the game's term for hyperspace) for about a week, regardless of distance travelled, before re-emerging into normal space.

In the novel The Forever Man (1984) by Gordon R. Dickson, starships use a jump-drive that makes the vehicle omnipresent for an instant before repositioning the ship in a pre-determined location. Several jumps are needed, because farther triangulations require more time to calculate, therefore a journey across the galaxy may take a few centuries to calculate all at once.

In the novel Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London by Keith Mansfield, various species described as "Owlein" (such as Plicans) fold space allowing for a form of jump drive. This Folding cannot exceed certain (unspecified) distances without damaging the structure of space-time.

In most fictional universes, the total distance per jump is limited and multiple jumps may be needed to reach the final destination. Jump drives often require significant power and many universes require time to "re-energize" the jump drive after a jump, thereby limiting the frequency at which jumps can be executed.

These factors can allow writers to build dramatic tension by showing characters struggling to reach a jump point, or to recharge their drive, before their foes reach them.

The Nights Dawn Trilogy novels by Peter F. Hamilton published in the 1990s, used under the name ZTT (Zero Temporal Transit) Drive has been the latest significant work in science fiction to use the jump drive concept. It is worth noting that with ZTT, momentum is conserved, so a ship might spend days synchronizing its normal-space relative velocity with its destination before or after jumping - a concept first used in E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series (1937–1948), albeit in connection with 'inertialess' FTL drives rather than jump drives, where it is referred to as "matching intrinsics".

Jump drives are also used in the Battletech series of games and literature. In the literature the drive is called the "Kearny-Fuchida Drive", or K-F drive. Named for the physicists that developed the equations needed for the drive to work. The jump takes only a few seconds, but is limited to a max distance 30 lys. There is a variable amount of time required between jumps to recharge the energy for jumping. Recharging is done by solar sails, or in developed systems there may be a recharge station. In rare cases, such as for Warships, a ship may have a "Lithium-Fusion" battery which stores extra power for an additional jump without the normal recharge time. When a solar sail is used for recharging the type of star determines how long a recharge takes.