Jump drive

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This article is about the science-fiction concept of travel (see also Hyper jump). For the data storage device, see JumpDrive.

A jump drive, hyper jump or a Jump (with a capital J) is one of the speculative inventions in science fiction, a method of traveling faster than light (FTL). Related concepts are hyperdrive and warp drive. The key characteristic of a jump drive (as the term is usually used) is that it allows a starship to be instantaneously teleported between two points. A jump drive is supposed to make a spaceship (or any matter) go from one point in space to another point, which may be several light years away, in a single instant. Like time travel, a jump drive is often taken as a granted thing in science fiction. Very few science fiction works talk about the purported mechanics behind a jump drive. There are vague indications of the involvement of tachyons, space-time continuum, etc. in some of the science fiction works.

1 Characteristics
- 1.1 The speed of light
2 Examples
3 See also

[edit] Characteristics

There are two main variants of jump drives. The first requires a ship to travel through normal space to a specific jump point. Once at that point, the jump drive is used to move to another jump point, for example the Capsule Drive in the computer game Independence War, which could only make jumps between Lagrange points. The second variant is for a ship to execute a jump from anywhere in normal space (although sometimes limited by needing to be a certain distance away from a gravity well) and move directly to any other location.

In most fictional universes, the total distance per jump is limited and multiple jumps may be needed to reach the final destination. Jump drives often require significant power and many universes require time to "re-energize" the jump drive after a jump, thereby limiting the frequency at which jumps can be executed.

These factors can allow writers to build dramatic tension by showing characters struggling to reach a jump point, or to recharge their drive, before their foes reach them.

[edit] The speed of light

A jump drive is used as a tool of convenience by writers of science fiction to facilitate their plots. Since standard physics does not permit a speed faster than the speed of light, a jump drive is used in fiction to allow the characters to travel interstellar and intergalactic distances in a relatively short period of time.

[edit] Examples

Jump drives are the main FTL technology in many science fiction universes including:

Darkstar One, a computer game
The Alliance-Union universe of C. J. Cherryh
The Reunion (MMOG) [1], a sci-fi MMOG
Battlestar Galactica (2004), which specifically references FTL
The Alderson drive in the CoDominium series
Wing Commander series of computer games, movie and novels
FreeSpace computer game series, worth noting here that ships can use their own jump drives to perform FTL travel within a star system, but need to use "Jump Nodes" to travel the vast distances between stars
Homeworld and Homeworld 2 computer games
Battletech series of games and novels
Heavy Gear series of games
The Nights Dawn Trilogy novels by Peter F. Hamilton, used under the name ZTT (Zero Temporal Transit) Drive. It is worth noting that momentum is conserved, so a ship might spend days synchronising its relative velocity with its destination before jumping
The Dune Series by Frank Herbert, as used by the Spacing Guild
The Traveller role playing game
The EVE Online MMORPG.
Stargate Atlantis, which specifically references FTL in Season 3, Episode 1, entitled "No Man's Land"