Hyper Relays
Hyper Relays are megastructures that allow for the rapid movement of starships between systems. Traditional transit through a star system requires that a ship, after exiting a hyperlane, travels across the system to reach the next hyperspace entry point. Hyper relays instead create a networked link of structures that allow ships to bypass slower-than-light travel through systems, speeding up interstellar travel by orders of magnitude. The development of hyper relays revolutionised space travel, allowing distant worlds that could take months or years to travel to instead take days.
Hyper relays consist of six massive hyper drive units that utilise yurantic crystals to project a stable dimensional portal to hyperspace. Although visually similar to a wormhole, the breach point contained within a hyper relay is very different. Ships need to activate their own hyper drives to traverse a relay, as without a subspace bubble surrounding the ship, it would suffer catastrophic damage as it is subjected to a drastic change in dimensional laws of physics. Hyper relays can connect to multiple other relays, though only one portal to one relay can be generated at a given time. Due to this, hyper relays typically operate on a schedule, opening portals to different neighbouring relays every few hours or days.
Prior to the development of hyper relays in the mid-2200s CE, starships had to cross an entire star system to traverse hyperlane entry points. This could take days or weeks, depending on the size of the system's gravity well. Hyper relays created a revolution in transportation, allowing for cheap and fast long-distance travel. Early hyper relays were constructed along the main hyperlane routes of empires, connecting major colonies and resource extraction centres. After the 'spines' of empires were constructed, focus turned to mid-tier colonies and international connections. This effectively created the galactic tourism market, as interstellar travel became fast enough to allow for short holidays in other systems. Hyper relays also revolutionised warfare, as military fleets could rapidly reposition themselves to defend against enemy fleets.
Hyper relays consist of six massive hyper drive units that utilise yurantic crystals to project a stable dimensional portal to hyperspace. Although visually similar to a wormhole, the breach point contained within a hyper relay is very different. Ships need to activate their own hyper drives to traverse a relay, as without a subspace bubble surrounding the ship, it would suffer catastrophic damage as it is subjected to a drastic change in dimensional laws of physics. Hyper relays can connect to multiple other relays, though only one portal to one relay can be generated at a given time. Due to this, hyper relays typically operate on a schedule, opening portals to different neighbouring relays every few hours or days.
Prior to the development of hyper relays in the mid-2200s CE, starships had to cross an entire star system to traverse hyperlane entry points. This could take days or weeks, depending on the size of the system's gravity well. Hyper relays created a revolution in transportation, allowing for cheap and fast long-distance travel. Early hyper relays were constructed along the main hyperlane routes of empires, connecting major colonies and resource extraction centres. After the 'spines' of empires were constructed, focus turned to mid-tier colonies and international connections. This effectively created the galactic tourism market, as interstellar travel became fast enough to allow for short holidays in other systems. Hyper relays also revolutionised warfare, as military fleets could rapidly reposition themselves to defend against enemy fleets.
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