As technology improved, travel time between worlds dropped from months and years to days, and the optimal routes between planets became crowded with spacecraft. Yet even in this new age of space flight, voyages beyond the solar system remained rare; traveling to even the nearest star at conventional speeds would take generations.
A few starships might have drives capable of circumventing this obstacle, all rely on extremely expensive (scifi magic) technology, often controlled by church, guild, or other organizations. From Helldrives (starstuff) to the prayer-fueled cores of Cathedralships, most of these technologies not only took the ship through other planes but also operated with direct divine assistance, and thus always came with a hefty price.
While other drives had been theorized that otherwise bent the rules of physics, I’m sticking with three tiers. Why? I’m an idiot that I do everything in threes, pretty much like OCD. It’s just my thing.
Pilot begets Hyper begets Guild. except Helldrives beget Radiation beget BugWars. BugWars begat CloneWars begat VICI. Mysticism begets Djinntheory begets Hyperspace. I think my Guildpilots are Djinn.
‘HellDrives’ are anything that splits the atom in a magic way to go fast. Star Trek had a flash… 2300ad
BugWar was a tabletop boardgame and Traveller x StarshipTrooper hack – I gave the bugs a terrible migraine whenever a Helldrive arrived. hence Radiation begat RedAntDefenses begat SenselessImperialAssault<tm>
‘CloneWars’ is part of Blade Runner x StarWars, people, replicants, clones bred for war, doomed to eternal conflict and spiraling PTSD. It feels correct in the same ‘time’, though the Blade Runner game is restrictive.
‘CathedralShips’ open existing fissures without external passage of time. This is a Fall of Man returns to Gods and Guilds theme that I really groove on – movie: Riddick.