Jump Drive

The Space Age had many discoveries contributing to the title of the era, but none of humanity's current accomplishments in this could have been possible without what happened on April 19th, 1964. I highly recommend reading about X-2 first, as this will help clear up any questions you might have regarding this exotic matter and how it helps with faster-than-light travel. Explaining how it works will take a significant portion of this article.  

Usage and Dangers

  The concept of the first version of this propulsion system was simple: since nothing can move faster than light, let's have nothing move faster than light! This physics loophole involves folding space in front of the ship and pushing it out behind the vessel, similar to riding a wave. Accomplishing such a feat requires an insanely powerful power source, though X-2 will substitute just fine, as it is literally the inverse of regular matter. To force the X-2 to become reactive, a powerful matter-antimatter reaction must be used. This is why warp drives consist of a miniature particle accelerator for the powerful initial reaction, as well as an electromagnetized cell for the warp core to be put into and opened up.   Speaking of which, a warp core contains X-2 in the center, as well as hydrogen and anti-hydrogen on opposite sides of the core to be shot into the accelerator. A tank of xenon is included with it, too, which disperses the gas within around the ship. Lastly, superconductors built into the spacecraft channel the energy from the X-2 into the cloud of xenon as it "ignites" from the previously mentioned reaction. This creates a small bubble around the ship, folding space at the front and expanding it at the back. However, this method was still found to be quite slow, not to mention the problem of accumulating gas particles on the bubble, which will be ejected at relativistic speeds when the bubble is shed, potentially destroying any nearby worlds with particle bombardment.  

Hyperspace

  The next step in this technology was obviously to make it faster and more reliable, and issues with power being wasted while using X-2 were being addressed. In 1979, a group of physicists figured out that something as revolutionary and powerful as matter with negative mass could be used for more than just creating bubbles of confined spacetime: the sheer power of creating a rupture in the fabric of the universe could be found within this exotic matter. By creating the warp bubble and focusing the rest of the X-2 into a tiny point in space, something akin to an "anti-black hole" will be created for a fraction of a second, as it is made entirely out of negative matter. Entering this infinitely-dense singularity will lead the ship through a wormhole of sorts, on the other side of which lies the parallel universe known as hyperspace. To exit hyperspace, a second wormhole is created once the craft has reached the hyperspace equivalent of the real location, and the remnant of the bubble is shed into hyperspace, rather than into our own space.   Hyperspace is theorized to be the source of whatever negative matter X-2 is composed of, though there is no way to properly check anything outside of the warp bubble, since the temperature in this universe is about as hot as the average G-class star. It is an endless black abyss devoid of any stars, though unlike the vacuum of space within our own universe, hyperspace is filled to the brim with matter that is pitch-black in colour. What state of matter it is in particular, however, is completely up for debate. Most physicists speculate it is some base form of X-2, as mentioned earlier, though areas of hyperspace which contain matter in a different state have been found, typically at a much lower temperature (and these colder areas have a tendency to be much more dangerous - remember this for later). It's also not exactly devoid of gravity wells; it seems that especially massive objects in our universe, such as stars, leave behind a small trace of their gravity well in hyperspace, called "ghost wells" by spacers. This could be potentially dangerous for a ship to collide into, as the warp bubble might be torn by the sudden shift in gravity, but this seems to be a rare occurance.   Ships and their onboard travellers seem to experience only about a week or two on average, as the speed of the craft seems to increase exponentially the longer it travels in hyperspace. This is due to the fact that hyperspace abides by completely different laws of physics than our own universe. First of all, rather than being a limit, the speed of light is the minimum an object can travel in this universe, which is why hyperspace travel is much more efficient than interstellar travel within our reality. Secondly, matter which comes from this universe has negative mass. Another thing to be aware of is that travelling through hyperspace involves dealing with time dilation, which is part of why keeping track of time across systems is difficult. The effects of time dilation appear to be almost random at times, though certain patterns have been observed, including the fact that time dilation is exponentially exaggerated when travelling longer distances, similar to the speed of the craft itself.   The aforementioned colder areas of hyperspace are referred to as "hyperspace storms," have a tendency to exaggerate these time dilation effects when being travelled through, though the reason for that occurance is currently under heavy debate. These storms also cause more inaccuracies in travel distances, and they may even be responsible for mishaps and dangerous accidents. Again, the reasons behind this are unknown. Regular short-distance trade routes between systems are therefore much safer and more reliable than long ones. During hyperspace travel, it is absolutely necessary for all passengers to be in hibernation, as the human experience of being in a different dimension is physically and mentally taxing, resulting in headaches, nausea, and hallucinations. Speaking of which, hallucinations are a real threat in hyperspace, with those who stay awake often reporting seeing very personal, unsettling, and even traumatizing events on board the craft. These hallucinations seem to exaggerate when travelling through storms and have reportedly been the cause of particularly horrific nightmares while in hibernation. The unsettling nature of these experiences often leads people to believe they are of a supernatural nature and that hyperspace might be Hell itself, which only leads to further dismissal by those who are skeptical of these experiences.  

Warp Gates

  Lastly, a technology known as "warp gates" has recently been reverse engineered from Centaurian technology. These are essentially large jump drives placed in orbit of a star, built in a ring-like shape. When ships pass through them, they activate their jump drives in tandem with the warp gate, which adds on a second "layer" to the warp bubble and increases their efffective range for interstellar travel. Due to the fact that everything in space is constantly moving, gates will only occasionally be in the same area as the jump point they are meant to be used for before becoming unusable for a period of time. As such, they are rarely built, more often placed strategically in systems that have several jump points.