Slipstream (science fiction)
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- For the other meanings of slipstream, see Slipstream (disambiguation).
"Slipstream" is a science fiction term for a fictional method of faster-than-light space travel, similar to hyperspace travel, warp drive, or "transfer points" from David Brin's Uplift series.
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[edit] Star Trek
Quantum Slipstream was a starship drive used in two episodes of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. An extension of warp drive, the slipstream is a narrowly-focused, directed warp field that is initiated by manipulating the fabric of the space-time continuum at the quantum level using the starship's navigational deflector array. It works by focusing a quantum field through a deflector dish to generate massive changes in local space curvature; this creates a subspace tunnel, which is projected ahead of the vessel. Once a ship has entered this tunnel, the forces inside propel it at incredible speed. In order to maintain the slipstream, a ship has to constantly modify the quantum field with its deflector dish; however, the calculations involved are too complicated, and the time available too short for current Starfleet technology. When this technology was discovered by the crew of the lost and stranded USS Voyager, it was hoped this could be used to allow the starship to travel at even greater speeds: the first test of this drive allowed the ship to travel 20,000 light years, almost two-sevenths of the total journey to return to Earth, in minutes.
However, in the episode Timeless, the technology proved to be dangerously unstable, resulting in the loss of all hands of the Voyager in an alternate timeline. With the shipboard computer unable to map the phase variance in the slipstream fast enough to calculate deflector corrections, Harry Kim offered to take the Delta Flyer ahead to map the slipstream and send the data in advance to Voyager. A miscalculation caused Voyager to fall violently out of slipstream, resulting in the starship's deadly crash-landing onto the surface of an ice planet on the outskirts of the Alpha Quadrant. Fifteen years later, after the remains of Voyager are finally discovered, Harry Kim, who survived the trip home onboard the Delta Flyer, sends calculations back in time, by using a Borg temporal transceiver to collapse the slipstream field before the accident occurred in the primary timeline.
Seven of Nine stated that she would continue studying it in hopes of someday reacquiring slipstream travel.
[edit] Andromeda
It is also used in the science fiction television series Andromeda to describe their method of faster than light travel.
| “ | Slipstream: it's not the best way to travel faster than light, it's just the only way. | ” |
According to the show, a Gravity Field Generator drastically reduces the mass of the ship and then a slipstream drive opens a slippoint which the ship enters. The pilot then navigates the series of slipstream "tunnels" until they reach the desired slippoint where they exit the slipstream. Quoted from Allsystems.org:
| “ | Since its discovery nearly 10,000 years ago by Vedran physicist Rochinda, the slipstream has connected the galaxies together. Slipstream is an extension of our reality, an additional dimension that's integrally intertwined with our own. The slipstream is a place where quantum connections are visible as cords, especially the large and strong connections like those between huge concentrations of matter such as planets or suns. A spaceship that enters the slipstream can harness the energy of these cords and ride them from one star system to another.
One interesting thing about moving through the slipstream is that travel time between points has very little to do with the distance actually traveled. If a pilot is lucky, and the stream unfolds just right, the ship could transit between galaxies in minutes. But put an unlucky pilot at the helm and the same trip could take weeks or even months. Luckily for the cause of interstellar commerce and communication, the more a certain path is frequently traveled, the faster, easier and more predictable the journey becomes. As a result, frequently-traveled routes between major Commonwealth worlds -- Vedra to San-Ska-Re, for example -- are safe and convenient. Another unusual aspect of slipstream is the requirement of an organic pilot to guide a starship through the slipstream. At an intersection of pathways in slipstream space, both paths manifest the potentiality of being correct and incorrect. It's only when the pilot chooses a specific direction that this potentiality collapses and one path becomes right, and the other wrong. For reasons still not completely understood, organic beings tend to choose the correct paths, or more precisely, the very act of choosing makes the path they have chosen the correct one. But strangely, computers -- even ones with artificial intelligence -- are incapable of this reality-altering guesswork. Even the most sophisticated starship in the Systems Commonwealth requires an organic sentient to pilot through the starlanes -- a prospect some sentients regard as deeply disturbing but others find comforting. |
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Usually one has to enter and exit slipstream several times before reaching their final destination. Slipstream travel almost always results in very little or no time dilation.
[edit] Limits of Slipstream
Due to the complex nature of slipstream probability and difficulty in mapping slipstream, only biological entities are capable of successfully navigating it. Exiting slipstream near the edge of a galaxy or in certain regions of space could be dangerous because it is difficult to find a slippoint in these areas. If a slippoint cannot be found, or a slipstream drive is damaged, the ship is stranded and limited to slower than light speed.
[edit] Doctor Who
In the episode World War Three we find out that the Slitheen family from Raxacoricofallapatorius uses a Slipstream drive as a form of travel.
[edit] Halo
Throughout the extensive Halo universe, based on the popular Microsoft games, slipspace (similar to slipstream) is the general method of FTL (Faster Than Light) travel. Both the Covenant and UNSC forces use slipspace to travel between systems, the UNSC using the human-developed Shaw-Fujikawa slipspace engine.
[edit] What is slipspace?
Quoted from [1]"The Halo Library":
This...engine allowed ships to tunnel into...[slipspace]... Slipspace is a domain with alternate physical laws, allowing faster-than-light travel without relativistic side-effects. Faster-than-light travel is not instantaneous; "short" jumps routinely take up to two months, and "long" jumps can last six months or more. ...scientists noted an odd "flexibility" to temporal flow while inside the Slipstream. Though no human scientist is sure why travel time between stars is not constant, many theorize that there are "eddies" or "currents" within the Slipstream—there is generally a five to ten percent variance in travel times between stars. This temporal inconsistency has given military tacticians and strategists fits—hampering many coordinated attacks. The Covenant have a very finely tuned version of this technology, and it is far superior to the UNSC's. Instead of simply tearing a hole into slipspace, it cuts a very fine slit and slips into slipspace with precision. It exits the same way, and can have pinpoint accuracy. It can even do so to slipspace within planetary atmospheres, though this is highly damaging to the surface of the planet.
[edit] How does slipspace work?
The workings of the drive are described in more detail in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, on page 53.
"Shaw-Fujikawa engines allowed UNSC ships to leave normal space and plow through a dimensional subdomain colloquially known as "Slipstream space." ... The drive used particle accelerators to rip apart normal space-time by generating micro black holes. Those holes evaporated via Hawking radiation in a nanosecond. The real quantum mechanical "magic" of the drive was how it manipulated those holes in space-time, squeezing a hundred-thousand-ton cruiser into Slipspace."
[edit] Limitations of slipspace travel
As aforementioned, slipspace travel is, while FTL, slow. It still can take weeks or months to travel from system to system, the inefficiencies of the Shaw-Fujikawa engine compounding the problems. Covenant also seem able to read the slipstream currents better than the UNSC, allowing them to move faster.
A slipspace engine is also very difficult to operate in a planetary (or otherwise) atmosphere, primarily because on exit from a slipspace journey, the sudden air pressure above any ship making the maneouvre would increase from virtually nothing (in interplanetary space) to whatever the pressure happened to be on the planet at the time (much, much larger). There would also be large amounts of air displaced, causing extremely strong winds below. Entering slipstream in-atmosphere causes repercussions too, for similar reasons.
[edit] See Also
- "The immaterium" or "The Warp"
- Hyperspace
