Forward

From Baen's Encyclopedia of Planets, Edition of 842 AJ:

History and Development of Interstellar Travel

The Milky Way.

Not just the only galaxy that humans have ever made it to; an infinite supply of every resource man could desire; land, water, a veritable trove of different foods and beverages, valuable minerals, experiences.

All for the taking.

In the year 2546, the lives of every human were fundamentally changed. Discovered in orbit around the sun, Sol, past Pluto, was discovered the secret to interstellar spaceflight. No, not left behind by some ancient civilization or sent to us. By Voyager.

Specifically, Voyagers 4, 6, and 7.

Long after the shutdown of Voyager 1 and 2, a new set of five probes was commissioned by NASA. Primary directive: explore the nearby solar systems that have potential habitable planets, in hope that there would be one close enough to send a generation ark to colonize. To reach these systems in any reasonable time frame, the probes would need to be accelerated to an appreciable portion of the speed of light, between .08C and .13C depending on the probe. To do this, massive laser arrays were used to accelerate enormous sails, attached to a relatively small-mass cargo. On the receiving end, the beam would be redirected from the sail to a much smaller sail attached to the cargo, decelerating the probe while further accelerating the now-disposed-of sail.

Only one issue: the three probes accelerated past .1C disappeared at the Sun’s termination shock, the point in the heliosphere where the solar wind essentially stops, dropping to subsonic speeds. Further probes, these with velocities well under .1C, were sent to this region and discovered a massive change in the latent magnetic field, but couldn’t explain what occurred to the probes.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Eventually, slow-probes were sent, accelerating to .1C only outside of the heliosphere and decelerating below .1C before passing through the heliosphere of the destination star. Imagine the consternation, let alone the surprise, when all three of the original probes were found in eccentric orbits, slowed and captured by the stars they were to visit. Spectral data stored on these probes revealed that the probes had traversed the distance essentially instantly, in just one Planck time.

Introduce: the jump drive. Though not really a true drive (since acceleration to .1C is more easily provided outside of the ship), the microseconds prior to the Forward limit, named after Robert L. Forward, require precise steering, lest the ship jump into the Deep, where there is no return.

Jumps work through large-scale interaction of the magnetic fields of nearby systems. These interactions are limited to nearby systems because the energy of the jump is limited by the entry velocity of the ship, meaning that higher velocity enables longer jumps. However, failed jumps can occur if the ship is not aligned to the destination system’s terminal shock when it reaches the Forward limit, where the ship is theoretically expelled somewhere into the deep space between stars. This led to tragedy upon tragedy while the jump drive was refined.

Now, though, interstellar travel is not driven just through the desire to explore, but rather by military ambitions, and trade.

Habitable planets are loosely governed by two divisions, barring the occasional independent station: Coalition planets, and company planets.

Formerly, when humanity was only loosely established in a few dozen systems, multinational corporations had a large stake in funding colonization, going on to exploit the resources of “their” systems as much as possible. At some point, enough was enough; the loosely governed Federation removed these “company planets” from their alliance, barring them from trading except under strict customs and tariffs. Though not leading to full-out war, this legislation eventually led to the dissolution of the Federation, then the formation of the Federation and the independence of company-owned planets, under the rule that any new company planets were to be expressly colonized as such.

On these planets, the company fulfills the role of government and is the owner of any but expressly private property, leading to a thriving under-the-table import business in addition to trade with the company directly. This is the major driver of interstellar travel today.