Subspace Incursion

Subspace incursion is the act of entering Subspace, a parallel dimension with a vastly compressed "scale" compared to Realspace, which means that any distance traveled in Subspace equals a much greater distance traveled in Realspace. A Subspace incursion is usually performed by way of an incursion drive, the most common of which is the magitech-powered Alchemical Subspace Incursion Drive (ASID, pronounced acid).   The use of Subspace to shorten travel times is the only reason that intersystem travel is practical. For example, a starship can travel one Realspace light year (roughly 9.5 trillion kilometers) in about two minutes when moving through Subspace at the maximum practical speed of most starships (10,000,000 kilometers per hour), a journey which would take over 100 years otherwise. Subspace travel does have limitations, however. Poorly understood anomalies like cosmic krakens, mass shadows, and kaleidoscope storms, among others, can endanger ships traveling through Subspace, and even traversing safe areas requires special incursion shielding. As such, safe routes through the strange and perilous dimension have to be scouted with Subspace beacons; autonomous probes that can drop into Subspace and scan the area to determine its safety and stability.   The exact amount of time a Subspace journey takes thus depends heavily on the route taken. The quality of the incursion shield also matters as it determines the maximum speed at which the starship can safely travel in Subspace without overloading the shield and becoming vulnerable. Despite these difficulties, the advent of widespread Subspace travel revolutionized galactic culture and politics and has remained the primary method of intersystem travel for thousands of years.   Subspace is also briefly entered when using spells such as Blink, but this is rarely referred to as an incursion outside of scientific contexts.

History

The concept of Subspace, and incursion into it, has been generally understood for millennia. The first known users of Subspace were the Kinvar, who spread the technology to the worlds and species they conquered. Alongside traditional incursion drives, the Kinvar also used warp gates. Linked gates provided a shielded path through Subspace that could be regulated by whoever controlled it. It is believed that these gates were used because incursion shields had not yet been miniaturized to fit onto ships, nor had the concept of Subspace beacons been developed, so well-maintained paths were the only safe method of Subspace travel.   The warp gates mostly closed when the Kinvar Empire fell to the Prest, as they were prohibitively expensive to maintain. The empire's former colonies began to reverse engineer the Kinvar's incursion drive technology, favoring it over reopening the gates. The first species to master Subspace travel were the Harven of the planet Harvai, though they still lacked shields of any kind. Their empire quickly expanded, battling both Kinvar remnants and invigorated Prest warlords. At its peak, the Harven Empire ruled an area several kiloparsecs wide.   However, a fleet of the Royal Astral Armada, led by Commodore Nez Iyas, rebelled against the strict and pompous imperial government and began to raid the empire's military. Many inspired citizens drew comparisons between Iyas and the Havsairs of old, quickly turning her into a folk hero (Havsair's exact meaning is difficult to translate, but it generally means "Sea Lord" or "Pirate Lord" with a heroic and idolized connotation). Iyas was given the title of Skalsair (essentially meaning "Space Lord" or "Space-Pirate Lord") and eventually succeeded in breaking the centralized imperial government, returning the Harven to their traditional, multiclan culture. Since then, Skalsair has become a title given to only the bravest and most daring Harven captains. Outside of culture and government, Skalsair Iyas's greatest impact on the galaxy was her invention of Subspace beacons, which she used to map out hidden paths from which she could strike.