Hyperspace (science fiction)

In science fiction, hyperspace is any region of space co-existing with our own universe (in some cases displaced in an extra spatial dimension) which may be entered using some sort of energy field or space-altering device. While hyperspace is in some way anchored to the normal universe, its properties are not the same as normal space, so traveling in hyperspace is largely inequivalent to traveling in normal space. This makes for a handy explanation of faster than light (FTL) travel: while the shortest distance between two points in normal space is a straight line, hyperspace allows those points to be closer together, or a curved line in normal space to be straight, etc. Hyperspace is the most common device used for explaining FTL in a science fiction story where FTL is necessary for interstellar travel or intergalactic travel. Spacecraft able to use hyperspace for FTL travel are said to have hyperdrive.

Theory

Generally speaking, the idea of hyperspace relies on the existence of a separate and adjacent dimension. When activated, the hyperdrive shunts the starship into this other dimension, where it can cover vast distances in an amount of time greatly reduced from the time it would take in "real" space. Once it reaches the point in hyperspace that corresponds to its destination in real space, it re-emerges.

Explanations of why ships can travel faster than light in hyperspace vary; hyperspace may be smaller than real space and therefore a starship's propulsion seems to be greatly multiplied, or else the speed of light in hyperspace is not a barrier as it is in real space. Whatever the reasoning, the general effect is that ships traveling in hyperspace seem to have broken the speed of light, appearing at their destinations much quicker and without the shift in time that the Theory of Relativity would suggest.

In much science fiction, hyperdrive jumps require a considerable amount of planning and calculation, with any error carrying a threat of dire consequences. Therefore, jumps may cover a much shorter distance than would actually be possible so that the navigator can stop to "look around" -- take his bearings, plot his position, and plan the next jump. The time it takes to travel in hyperspace also varies. Travel times may be in hours, days, weeks or more.

A different concept, sometimes also referred to as 'hyperspace' and similarly used to explain FTL travel in fiction, is that the manifold of ordinary three-dimensional space is curved in four or more 'higher' spacial dimensions (a 'hyperspace' in the geometric sense; see hypersurface, tesseract, Flatland). This curvature causes certain widely separated points in three-dimensional space to nonetheless be 'adjacent' to each other four-dimensionally. Creating an aperture in 4D space (a wormhole) between these locations can allow instantaneous transit between the two locations; a common comparison is that of a folded piece of paper, where a hole punched through two folded sections is more direct than a line drawn between them on the sheet. This idea probably arose out of certain popular descriptions of General Relativity and/or Riemannian manifolds, and may be the original form from which later concepts of hyperspace arose. This form often restricts FTL travel to specific 'jump points'. See jump drive, Alcubierre drive.

Early hyperspace depictions

Though the concept of hyperspace did not emerge until the 20th century, stories of an unseen realm outside of our normal world are part of earliest oral tradition. Some stories, before the development of the science fiction genre, feature space travel using a fictional existence outside of what humans normally observe. In Somnium (published 1634), Johannes Kepler tells of travel to the moon with the help of demons. From the 1930s through 1950s, many stories in the science fiction magazines, Amazing Stories and Astounding Science Fiction introduced readers to hyperspace as a fourth spatial dimension. John Campbell’s "Islands in Space," which first appeared in Amazing Stories in 1931, features an early reference to hyperspace.

Writers of stories in magazines used the hyperspace concept in various ways. In The Mystery of Element 117 (1949) by Milton Smith, a window is opened into a new 'hyperplane of hyperspace' containing those who have already died on earth. In Arthur C. Clarke's Technical Error (1950), an accident causes a man to be laterally reversed due to a brief encounter with "hyperspace."

Hyperspace travel became widespread in science fiction due to the perceived limitations of FTL travel in ordinary space. In E.E. Smith’s, Grey Lensman (1939) a '5th order drive' allows travel to anywhere in the universe while hyperspace weapons are used to attack spaceships. In Nelson Bond’s The Scientific Pioneer Returns (1940), the hyperspace concept is described. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, first published between 1942 and 1944 in Astounding Science Fiction, featured a Galactic Empire traversed through hyperspace. Asimov's short story, Little Lost Robot (1947), features a 'Hyperatomic Drive' shortened to 'Hyperdrive' and goes on to describe how "...fooling around with hyper-space isn't fun."

Popular depictions in science fiction

By the 1950s, hyperspace travel was established as a typical means for traveling faster than light. Many stories feature hyperspace as a dangerous place, and others require a ship to follow set Hyperspatial 'highways'. Hyperspace is often described as being an unnavigable dimension where straying from one's preset course can be disastrous.

In some science fiction, the danger of hyperspace travel is due to the chance that the route through hyperspace may take a ship too close to a celestial body with a large gravitational field, such as a star. In such scenarios, if a starship passes too close to a large gravitational field while in hyperspace, the ship is forcibly pulled out of hyperspace and reverts to normal space. Therefore, certain hyperspace "routes" may be mapped out that are safe, not passing too close to stars or other dangers.

Starships in hyperspace are typically isolated from the normal universe; they cannot communicate with nor perceive things in real space until they emerge. Often there can be no interaction between two ships even when both are in hyperspace. This effect can be used as a plot device; because they are invisible to each other while in hyperspace, ships will encounter each other most often around contested planets or space stations. Hyperdrive may also allow for dramatic escapes as the pilot "jumps" to hyperspace in the midst of battle to avoid destruction.

In many stories, for various technobabble reasons, a starship cannot enter or leave hyperspace too close to a large concentration of mass, such as a planet or star; this means that hyperspace can only be used after a starship gets to the outside edge of a solar system, so the starship must use other means of propulsion to get to and from planets. Other writers have limited access to hyperspace by requiring a very large expenditure of energy in order to open a link (sometimes called a jump point) between hyperspace and normal space; this effectively limits access to hyperspace to very large starships, or to large stationary jump gates that can open jump points for smaller vessels. These restrictions are often plot devices to prevent starships from easily escaping by slipping into hyperspace, thus ensuring epic space battles.

Detailed depictions are listed below.

Robot/Foundation series (Isaac Asimov)

The concept of traveling between stellar systems via the hyperspace drive or "jump" is described or mentioned in several of Isaac Asimov's short stories and novels written from the 1940s through 1990s. Hyperspace seems to enable teleportation on a pre-calculated route, the ends of which are in normal space. Although the timeline is not consistent, it appears to start with the development of a hyperdrive from a theoretical construct by The Brain, a positronic supercomputer built by US Robots. Interplanetary travel has already been developed, and in 2002, when US Robots demonstrates its first primitive positronic robot, it is intended to be used for mining operations on the planet Mercury.

Simultaneously, the theories of the spacewarp are developed by a research project under military control, with the assistance of positronic robots, until the first hypership is built at Hyper Base on an asteroid. Once perfected however, the drive is little used, as it is fearfully heavy in energy use and still very risky. But once the existence of habitable planets around the nearer stars to Earth is established (also with robot help), the drive is further developed, and over centuries colonies are established on these planets.

The collection of more and more data on stellar systems and the analysis of stellar spectra allows the compilation of what becomes the Standard Galactic Ephemeris, with which hyperspace navigation (see The Stars, Like Dust) becomes less of an art and more of a science. It still requires complex calculations; not until the fall of the Galactic empire and expansion of the Foundation thousands of years after the first drives were developed would a ship be developed (as in Foundation's Edge) that allows the total computerization of the calculation of single or multiple hyperspace jumps and the control of the jump without human intervention. There is no description of the hyperspace environment, as travel through it is instantaneous (it must be mentioned however, that in all of Asimov's book where hyperspace travel is described (except for Foundation's Edge, where the time in hyperspace is very short), the travel is said to involve a feeling of momentary "insideoutness").

Dune

A somewhat unusual depiction of hyperspace travel is found in Dune (published in 1965). In the Dune milieu, space is folded using a complicated distortion technology. Travel is nearly instantaneous but very dangerous because of the extremely complex calculations required, compounded by the fact that computers are forbidden by religious decree. Mutated Guild Navigators (employees of the Spacing Guild) megadose on an addictive substance called melange, the unique properties of which enhance the humans' nascent ability to see into the future and fully comprehend the underlying nature of the universe. It is this prescient ability that allows them to see a safe passage and guide the ships safely through folded space. The Spacing Guild holds a monopoly and wields great power in the Dune universe as a result.

Instrumentality of Mankind series (Cordwainer Smith)

In the short stories of Cordwainer Smith (written in the 1950s and 1960s), FTL travel can be accomplished through a hyperspace known as Space₂.

During the early eras of interstellar travel, crossing open space far from a star presented an incomprehensible danger: ordinary lifeforms, even protected within a hull environment, would die horribly for no apparent cause. Initially, this danger was met with the creation of the Habermen (humans, usually criminals, given cyborg modifications which removed their self-identity) and the Scanners (elite volunteers who underwent a modified form of the Haberman process and served as ship's officers), who could survive whatever this unknown threat was unharmed. They would crew STL light sail ships, while the passengers were kept in suspended animation. Later it was determined that if a large number of living organisms (clams, specifically) were used as a 'living shield', organisms further inward could survive unharmed.

With the discovery of Space₂ and the 'planoform' drive, the cause of this mysterious threat was finally determined: living entities, sometimes referred to as 'dragons', which existed in Space₂ and fed on life energies. Since these creatures were disrupted and killed by bright physical light, they avoided the areas near stars. Thus, the practice of 'pinlighting' developed: ships would be accompanied by smaller vessels piloted by genetically engineered telepathic housecats, whom guided by human telepaths on-board the ships, would attack the creatures (which they perceived as enormous rats) with miniature nuclear flares.

Aside from this, and the strange effects of the first attempts to travel through Space₂ (and later, Space₃), little is known about the planoform drive.

Star Trek

The Star Trek (first aired 1966) universe equivalent of hyperspace is known as subspace. Although similar in concept to hyperspace, subspace plays a slightly different role in FTL travel. Subspace exists in layers, all of which are "below" normal three-dimensional spacetime much like the different layers of a cake. When a starship is traveling at FTL speeds (commonly known as "warp" in the Star Trek universe), the ship itself does not enter subspace. Instead, the ship either smashes a steady stream of deuterium and anti-deuterium together, or else taps the massive energy of an artifical quantum singularity in order to form a multi-layered field of energy around the ship. The field (known as a warp field) extends into subspace, allowing the enclosed starship to travel at FTL speeds while it remains within an inner sphere of normal spacetime (similar in concept to a 20th century hydrofoil). Wrapping a spaceship within the warp field prevents the relativistic time dialation normally associated with standard FTL travel, and allows interstellar travel to continue in a reasonable amount of time.

(Despite warp drive's incredible speed, it can still take years to travel across a mere fraction of the galaxy.)

Of course this concept of FTL travel is asymptotically limited by the idea that if the warp field is too strong, the ship itself will be too deeply submerged in subspace, which has negative genetic effects on living things. In addition, at high warp factors the energy required to sustain the field grows exponentially.

Among the uses of subspace in Star Trek is as a medium for propagating audio and visual signals at FTL speeds, thus allowing nearly instantaneous communication across vast interstellar distances. This is commonly referred to in the Star Trek world as "subspace communication".

In later Star Trek spin-offs, the main protagonists begin to experiment with unusual forms of FTL drives such as transwarp drive, soliton wave drive, and wormholes.

Note: "Hyper-comm" (hyperspace communication) is mentioned briefly in The Wrath of Khan (1982), though subspace communication is the normal term used in almost every Star Trek television series and film. It is assumed that the two are one and the same, as the majority of Star Trek's terminology wasn't thoroughly developed until The Next Generation (1987).

Known Space series (Larry Niven)

In the Known Space series first introduced in Ringworld (1970), hyperspace is a dimension in which (apparently) all objects move at a rate of 0.3 light years per terrestrial day relative to light moving in the physical universe. Prevailing theories hold that attempting to engage a hypershunt within the gravity well of a sufficiently large supposedly causes the drive (and possibly the ship) to careen wildly into an even 'higher' level of hyperspace, which cannot be reached normally and is thought to cause matter within the hyperspace field to disintegrate (though Niven revised this in a later work, Ringworld's Children; according to the new model, other-dimensional entities which exist near large masses consume ships which enter hyperspace in their vicinity). Because of this, the only species known to have developed hyperspace on their own are the Outsiders, a species whose biology is based on superfluid helium and who thus were more readily able and inclined to perform experiments in interstellar space.

When travelling within hyperspace, attempting to view anything outside of the ship (through a porthole or, as in the short story 'Flatlander', through a transparent hull) interacts with the human optic nerve such as to be perceived as a 'blind spot'; this effect is extremely unnerving to most people, and prolonged viewing can lead to madness.

(The opposite visual outcome - albeit a recording - is had by the 360 degree view that a front mounted camera has, from the probe within the (posed term) "interspace", and this is used used for fourth dimensional or time travel, in the 2006 sf novella "Combing Back Through Time".)

Space Battleship Yamato

In the animated series Space Battleship Yamato (first aired in 1974) and its sequels, spacetime is described as having a wave form in four or more spatial dimensions. By activating a 'wave motion drive' at a 'crest' in this wave, you can travel instantaneously to another point in space where a similar crest in the spacetime wave exists, allowing jumps across vast regions of space. Activating the drive at other points would result in the vessel being 'submerged' in subspace, remaining stationary but invisible; this is used by the antagonists of the series, the Gamelons, as a form of cloaking technology.

Star Wars

The role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic gives one of the more substantial explanations of how hyperspace travel works in the Star Wars universe. There are established safe hyperspace routes that were scouted out by an unknown species 25,000 years prior to the events in A New Hope (1977). These routes made interstellar trade and eventually the establishment of the Republic possible. New routes are almost never scouted out, mostly due to the fact that the end coordinates might place the traveling ship inside some star or planet. For example, the Deep Core Systems are especially hard to navigate because of the high density of stars. A pilot's skill in hyperspace has a lot to do with how he navigates the tangled web of hyperspace routes that criss-cross the galaxy. According to Lucas, that's why Han Solo brags about the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs when a parsec is a measure of distance rather than time: apparently, his real gift is as a navigator. This appears to make no sense within the context of the original dialogue, however, as Solo's statement about the Falcon making the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs was in response to Obi-Wan saying, "If it's a fast ship." However, to get to Kessel, a ship must pass through The Maw, an incredibly dense cluster of black holes. To achieve a shorter distance, the ship must be moving faster, to avoid being sucked into a black hole.

In any case, hyperspace is an extremely fast method of travel, as Obi-Wan and Luke's journey from Tatooine to Alderaan is theorized to have only taken two days maximum, whereas these two planets are separated by half a galaxy or more. Darth Maul took aproximately seven hours to travel from Coruscant to Tatooine. Various Expanded Universe sources (as well as the Star Wars movies themselves) show hyperspace as having a mottled, purple-and-black appearance. An entry into hyperspace shows the stars stretch into starlines, then turn into the mottled appearance. Externally, a ship entering hyperspace is described in Timothy Zahn's novels as displaying a flicker of pseudomotion before disappearing. Like the above-mentioned Star Trek series, "holocomm" transmissions are featured in Star Wars as long-range, faster-than-light communications signals, sent through hyperspace.

Hyperspace speed is calculated with classes. Known classes are: 0.5 (Millennium Falcon), ~1 (X-wings), 1-2 (capital ships like Star Destroyers), 3 (Death Star), 4 (bulk transports, Advanced TIEs).

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (first aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1978) opens with the destruction of the planet earth by Vogons in order to "make way for a hyperspace bypass". Hyperspace travel is not described very clearly, however. The general impression is that a ship travels for a short time along a bypass through alternate dimension and emerges at its destination. The sensation of hyperspace travel is described by Ford Prefect as "unpleasantly like being drunk." When Arthur Dent asks why that is so bad, Prefect answers "You ask a glass of water." The experience is further described in the narrative as follows:

The room folded flat about Arthur, spun around, shifted out of existence and left him sliding into his own navel.

This could be taken as hinting that hyperspace is a separate universe altogether; folding flat suggests that it is two-dimensional. We also know there is not a vacuum in Hyperspace; the Guide was able to read itself to them during the voyage.

It is at one point stated that one of the reasons for the development of the Infinite Improbability Drive is to allow people to cross vast interstellar distances quickly "without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace".

Macross/Robotech

In the Macross/Robotech universe, first introduced by the 1982 anime series, hyperspace travel also involves the notion of space folding. Hyperspace folding involves a large hyperspace bubble around the vessel travelling through hyperspace. Everything within this bubble is transported along with the vessel itself to its destination. Thus when Captain Global/Gloval is forced into making a hyperspace fold close to the surface of the earth, an entire island and its inhabitants are caught in the hyperspace bubble and transported to near Pluto's orbit along with the SDF-1 Macross. Elsewhere in the series, space folds looks as if the ship turns into a beam of energy which disappears as the ship goes into spacefold. In other entries in the Macross franchise, spacefolding seems to be a bit more conventional. For instance, in Macross Plus, Isamu Dyson and Yang Neumann travel to Earth in a fighter modified with a space fold drive. There, the fold process seems to look like an irridescent tunnel which the ship flies through.

The Voyage of the Star Wolf

An idea similar to hyperspace, called hyperstate, was introduced by David Gerrold in the novel The Voyage of the Star Wolf (1990). In this setting starships used artificially-produced gravitational singularities (the space-time distortions found at the center of black holes) to transition between normal space and so-called irrational space, where faster than light travel was possible. The primary limitation of hyperstate was that the resulting gravitational distortions could be easily detected by other starships, so stealthy movement at faster-than-light speeds was effectively impossible.

World of Warcraft

In this popular fantasy game, the Twisting Nether acts as a sort of hyperspace. It is described as a An ethereal dimension of chaotic magics that connected the myriad worlds of the universe//www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/story/chapter1.html, and is used by Warlocks, Mages and others for the purpose of teleportation.

Warhammer 40,000

In the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame (first published in 1987), the Immaterium is a extradimensional realm of Chaos. A place where thoughts can take physical shape in the form of daemons and other hideous terrors. For humans, Psykers (mutant individuals with strong psychic abilities) are needed to safely find paths through The Warp, to navigate the "twisting eddies and currents" of warp energy. FTL travel does not exist as such in 40k, as time and space have no meaning in The Warp - it is possible to travel across the universe in 5 seconds, or take 1,000,000 years to go to the next planet, but unless there are unusual problems it is generally much faster (though more dangerous) than travellng through realspace. Ships need special shields to keep the malevolent energies/creatures away from them. The creatures can come on board if the shields fail, if demonic rituals/acts are performed, or if an untrained psyker accidentaly attracts the attentions of The Warp's denziens. In which case the "creatures" that inhabit the warp can become tangible onboard, be it in the form of "chaos spawn" or Deamons: manifestations of evil (unworkable, hideous bodies of twisted claws, ravening mouths tentacles) or by making a "host" of a human mind. In the former case, the creatures are often immune to physical damage and must be dispached using specially blessed/sacred weapons. Even though travel through warp space can only properly be used with a trained pysker, the Tau and the Orks both utilise the warp for travel, despite the lack of trained psykers. The orks (while an innately pyschic race) use their warp-capable ships to jump blindly into warpspace. The Tau are a race lacking any psychic talent, but and able to make short 'hops' into warpsace, to reduce the time of their journeys. Lacking pyskers, they have no knowledge of the perils of the warp (considering humanity's warnings lies) and are researching this phenomenon. Another Race, The Eldar, Had at the height of their power, a network of safe 'tunnels' through warpspace called the Webway. While not allowing instananeous travel it allows Eldar ships of all sizes to travel quickly through space. Codex: Eye of Terror allows Strike Forces to use 'Wraithgates' to allow squads, and small vehicles, to exit the webway straight to where they are needed on the battlefield. The webway is unfortunately breaking down under the influence of Chaos, meaning that the most direct route may now be unusable. It is believed that the Dark Eldar and the Harlequin Eldar along with the Laughing God and the Black Library reside within the webway.

Babylon 5

In the television show Babylon 5 (1993-1998), hyperspace is treated as an area of space where the distances between spatial bodies are significantly shorter. The primary energy expenditure in hyperspace travel is the act of "jumping" into hyperspace. While in hyperspace itself, ships use their normal propulsion systems and interstellar travel is enabled by the shorter distances. Smaller ships must use a "jumpgate", which are artificial constructs that create a rift into hyperspace. Larger ships, presumably those with a power supply greater than that of a nuclear fusion reactor, can create their own jump points to enter hyperspace. A jump point allowing entry into hyperspace from normal space is characterized by a red shift, while jump points for ships emerging from hyperspace are characterized by a blue shift. Battles in hyperspace are infrequent and avoided. In the Babylon 5 fictional history, Earth acquired hyperspace technology from the Centauri who allowed humans use of their pre existing jump gates. Earth used these already established jumpgates to explore the galaxy, and presumably later researched the ability to build their own jumpgates. By the 23rd century, larger Earth ships have the ability to create their own jump point without the use of a jump gate. No specific metric has ever been given to exact hyperspace distances in the Babylon 5 universe.

Xenosaga

In the video game series Xenosaga(published 1998-present) for the PlayStation 2 console, people routinely travel long distances in space through hyperspace. Hyperspace in the Xenosaga universe is a realm of alternate space that looks like a long tube or column similar to a wormhole. In this space a starship can accelerate to faster than light speeds without experiencing the time dilation effects normally experienced when approaching the speed of light in normal space. Only spaceships equipped with a special force field can enter hyperspace, because exposure to hyperspace even for short period of time is hazardous to unprotected humans. In order to enter hyperspace a ship must go to a specific area in space known as a Column Area. Column Areas are places where ships can safely gate into and out of hyperspace. They can be found all over the universe and are separated by less than a day's travel at sub-light speeds. Navigating hyperspace requires entering a Column Area and finding a corresponding point within the universe-spanning navigation network known as the Unus Mundus Network (U.M.N.). The U.M.N. Transportation Gate management facility controls the use of Column Areas, and clearance must be granted before hyperspace can be entered.

Star Control II (computer game)

In Star Control II, hyperspace is depicted as a two-dimensional type of subspace, that provides the means of feasible interstellar travel.

In SC2, the physical laws of hyperspace travel are slightly different than the travel in normal space: the ship travelling in hyperspace must continuously provide its own propulsion, or it stops (in normal space, propulsion is only needed to change the course).

Stars in the hyperspace are represented as gravity wells, which suck the ship into normal space when entering it too close. SC2 also has a quasispace, which is another level of hyperspace, but of different colour, and has fewer access points. The access points in quasispace lead into several different locations in the hyperspace. A skilled space traveller can use the quasispace to cut dramatically the fuel cost needed to travel across two distant stars in the galaxy.

Others

Cowboy Bebop (anime)
Doctor Who
Homeworld
Honorverse (series)
Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis
Farscape (A US sci-fi channel series featuring a faster-than-light travel method known as "starburst")
Halo (xbox videogame as slipspace)
Freespace PC game (as subspace)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle (children's book)
Sonic X (anime) - second season.

Other forms of Hyperspace

Other forms of hyperspace usually have the same properties, however, some allow travel throughout time as well as space (eg the Time Vortex). Popular names include warpspace, slipspace and subspace.

Slipspace is a method of travelling faster-than-light in the television series Andromeda. 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.

Interspace (see also a footnote under "Known Space Series", Niven) In "Combing Back Through Time" this is used to step a visual history recording probe through the fourth dimension.

References

Hyperspace by Michio Kaku (Anchor)

Surfing through Hyperspace: Understanding Higher Universes in Six Easy Lessons (Oxford University Press) by Clifford A. Pickover

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (Knopf) by Brian Greene
Hyperspace A Vanishing Act by P. Hoiland

http://www.jessesword.com/sf/view/59

http://www.astronomycafe.net/anthol/scifi2.html

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