FTL Travel

Throughout history, the possibility of Faster-Than-Light travel has always grabbed the imagination of scientists and sci-fi fans alike. In the world of Posthuman, there are two main ways of FTL travel, listed below.

Warp drive
Warp drives are, for humanity, a theoretical method of FTL travel. A leading proposal, the Alcubierre drive, speculates that by warping and moving the spatial dimensions themselves, a vessel could be able to push itself and the ensuing "space bubble" faster than the speed of light, without breaking special relativity.

While theoretically possible, the Alcubierre drive would need the use of Exotic matter, which in itself only exists in theory, and has not been found either naturally or been created artificially. Regardless, there are signs that previous space-faring civilizations have had access to warp drives. The Sentinels claim to have access to such technology, though they refuse to show it to the other races in the galaxy.

Wormholes
Wormholes, also known as Einstein-Rosen bridges, are spatial structures that link two points in spacetime together over vast distances, and the most common method of FTL travel among the interstellar states.

Natural wormholes are speculated to exist, but have yet to be observed. It is, however, possible to generate a stable wormhole via artificial means. Using vast amounts of energy, a wormhole between two points can be created and maintained (via the use of more energy). This link in spacetime can theoretically be created between infinite distances, but this is not practical in reality; long-distance wormholes require immense amounts of energy, and the mathematical calulations needed to create the link where it needs to be so far away is a difficult feat. As such, the Wormhole generator built by humanity before the Cataclysm was "only" able to reliably open and maintain a connection as far as 11 light-years away.

A way for longer-distance travel with wormholes involve creating a network of wormhole "nodes". Wormhole generators are built in key systems, which must in itself have the required infrastructure to support the creation of wormholes to continue its operation in the first place. These stations are positioned in such a way that all star systems of interest are covered by their range. This would allow spacefaring vessels to jump from one station ("node") to another, and then repeat the process, until it has reached its destination. This way, a journey of 1,000 light years could theoretically be done within a single earth-day, assuming the stations operate on a 10 light-year distance and that 4-5 jumps are done each hour.

Wormhole technology is also used on a smaller scale for FTL communications. Communcations sattelites generate very small wormholes, which they then insert an antenna into that appears on the other side of the wormhole. This antenna will then transmit communcations normally, be it via radio or some other method. Just like the aformentioned Wormhole station net, FTL Communcations sattelites will transmit information between each other in a net, until the informations reaches its destination. Compared to full-size wormhole stations, the energy requirements for these sattelites are very small, resulting in a communcations net that is way more solid and numerous in nodes than the station net.