Do you have a Sci Fi universe?

[sirocco]

I have an alternate Universe, where our current civilization is the 2nd coming of a far earlier human civilization (like the Ancient/Tau'ri in Stargate or the Colonials/2nd Earth people from nBSG). At the peak of that civilization, they had a multi-stellar civilization based on a network of wormholes. Eventually this civilization just collapsed (due to various internal conflict) and each planet ended isolated from the whole network. Earth was at the center of this conflict and therefore suffered the most of this . It managed however to retain a tiny fraction of the lost knowledge.

My story follows the adventures of explorers from Earth trying to reunite with their brothers across the galaxy.

- Do you have FTL? How Fast?

Each civilization has its own form of FTL. Some are faster, some are more robust, some can enter the gravity well of a star, etc. Earth Humans use wormhole technology. They can use natural occuring wormhole as well as create artificial ones if they have enough energy.

- Do you have Time Travel?

Wormholes are in fact Out of Time object . This means that you need to select both your destination and the time at which you want to get out. While it is ridiculously easy to get out in the far future, the energy requirement to travel back to the past is so huge that it is just not interesting. This is also why explorers try to limit as much as possible the time difference between the entry and the exit points.

- Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

Humans are still around but there are only a handful of the human civilizations that can pretend to be as advanced as their ancestors'. It seems also that at the edge of the human sphere, survive alien races which are as old as the human race and had a continuous technological growth.

[NoXion]

If so would you like to give a brief summary?

It's an epic meta-civilisational narrative spanning over a hundred millennia, detailing the story of humanity becoming something greater than itself, and perhaps achieving some kind of immortality. I haven't really given Terran history much thought beyond the time it goes intergalactic.

Do you have FTL? how Fast?

Several methods.

One way is through rapid serial teleportation over several AU, which I imagine to attain a pseudo-velocity of about 1Ly/s, although it does mean that the ship has to be built around a hyper-dense "quantum core" responsible for generating the teleportation effect.

There are at least three different warp drives; the first can be thought of as a laser sail, except it travels along a beam of negative tachyons which are caught by the vessel's sail and used to generate FTL warping of spacetime. The second and third carry their own negative energy, but the former generates an asymmetrical warp field that lends itself well to short, fast bursts of travel in relatively straight lines, while the latter generates a balanced symmetrical warp bubble more suitable for sustained journeys.

Hyperjump drives can leap in and and out of a multilevel hyperspace, taking advantage of the lack of one-to-one mapping of spacetime between the various hyperspaces and normal space. Normal space and the hyperspaces themselves are also part of a larger plane-space which is traversable with interplanar drives.

There are also wormholes, Stargates which punch door-shaped holes through the dimensionless Æther, tunnels through Threadspace, gates which turn one into mirror matter, gates into other universes, gates into the past and the future, gates into other timelines, warp tubes and Tipler cylinders as well as thresholds into the aforementioned hyperspaces and plane-space.

But pretty much all of them require frighteningly advanced understandings of physics, and the easiest method, wormhole construction, also requires the ability to marshal and co-ordinate resources over stellar scales and distances. Terran meta-civilisation will have to wait around 25,000 years from now to master the art of constructing wormholes. Terrans will have considerably experience as an STL interstellar society.

Do you have time Travel?

All FTL methods allow for a somewhat limited form of time travel. Dedicated time machines are possible, but they are another technological leap above FTL drives.

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

An ancient race? My universe crawls with ancient civilisations, living and dead and neither. Thankfully for us though, the Milky Way is pretty quiet at this point in the history of the galaxy.

Does your universes have psychic powers? Are humans psychic?

Psyonics does exist, although I was previously against having it my universe. Psyonic abilities aren't something one is born with - they are something that can be learned by practically anyone, although the lessons and exercises required involve patience. Also, psyonics is a function of general intelligence, not brain tissue - this means that Mechanoids (sapient robots) and Artificial Intelligences can become Psyons (people with psyonic abilities), and powerful ones at that.

What's the most advanced power generation technology your universe has?

The most advanced "physically plausible" power generation method I would say is matter-energy conversion. There are several more powerful/technically advanced energy sources, but they are based on fictional physics/cosmology.

If anyone is interested, HERE is a general introduction to my universe.

[Korto]

Yes, although I haven't done anything on it for a fair while. The setting was going to be named "The Terran Confederation", until a few people pointed out just how already taken that name was (There's a couple of threads about it. If interested ...Technology of the Terran Confederation and Aliens of the Terran Confederation) I'll get around to doing some more on it one day. At some point I may even decide if it's primarily a story setting or role-playing setting.

Summary
There are four space-going races. Three of them play nicely together (well, about as nicely together as medieval Europe), while one are a race of rabid xenophobes who don't accept anyone else's right to exist.
Given the likely species of the reader, the stories will largely concentrate on the humans. There are two main powers, the Great Brittanic Empire and the USA, who loathe each other, and a good number of lesser powers. The stories will involve political intrigue, war, and just basic swashbuckling adventure.

Do you have FTL?
Yes. Interstellar travel uses a kind of teleportation where you jump out of the universe, and then jump back in. The process is not instantaneous, as time needs to be taken out-of-universe (in "Twistspace") to put in the settings to where you're going. And then you need to recover, because for some reason "Twists" too close together can damage people and electronics. Due to limitations, you can only jump a few LY a time, unless something goes wrong in which case you can theoretically end up anywhere in the entire universe (yes, has a bit of a 40k Warp unreliability thing going). A lot of ships have vanished never to be seen again, but as the saying goes, Twistspace may not be the best way to travel, but it's the only way to travel.

How Fast?
Interesting question. I actually worked it out once, don't remember what the answer was. Something like a few LY a day, I think. The speed is such that the outer reaches of the GBE are two or three years away from the centre, which is important as courier is the only FTL communication (the GBE is neo-feudal as a response). Going in-system is the slowest part, as it requires micro-jumps (with a rest inbetween each), until enough distance is closed to make using the momentum drive the better choice (speed approx 0.1c)

Time Travel?
No

Ancient Race?
Interestingly, yes. Although no-one except the Valkryies (a lunatic-fringe group who escaped to the stars) know about them. They supply the Valkryies with toys, and let them use their star-gates. The valkryies use these to raid ships and planets. Now I think about it, Valkryies have a bit in common with the Eldar Banshees. I think I've been playing GW games too long.

Psychic Powers?
No.

Most advanced power generation?
The Valkryie's aliens have given them a strange large object that, without any apparent fuel or maintainance, just keeps on chugging out power. They have no idea how it works, and are a bit leery of taking it apart to find out. Ignoring that, everyone else uses fusion power.
They use superconducting coils to store power, and have some really good varieties of superconducting material, including stuff able to take temperatures in the low 100's C, but that stuff is exceedingly expensive.

P.S.
Despite the four races having been in space for very different lengths of time (humans are the youngest), they're actually technologically quite close. This is due to the hill of scientific learning less hitting a steeper incline, but more a bloody brick wall. Most fields seem to have gone as far as they practically can, and the new field of Sub-Quantum Physics (layman term) makes absolutely no frickin' sense.

[open_sketchbook]

This thread inspired me to go through the ol' memory box in search of my first sci-fi universe, a short story I wrote in 2001-2002 called Hermes Reach. It's filled with stuff mangled from A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell, which I was really into when I wrote it. Reading it now, it's really derivative and the physics and design are terrible, but whatever, you gotta start somewhere.

Summary
A decade ago, humanity finally made the breakthrough that sped them off into the stars, when a research department at Cambridge creates a working faster-than-light drive and publishes it's workings. Everyone already knows what the target is; Hermes, a tiny exoplanet around a binary star named for it's extremely fast orbit. Hermes is the right size and temperature for human settlement, so the race to get there first is on between the world superpowers, private interests and other groups. The protagonists are a mercenary crew hired by the Free State of California to secure a toehold on Hermes, but it seems like they may not be the first ones there...

Do you Have FTL? How Fast?
Yes. The drive in question worked by expanding one of the billions upon billions of pre-existing sub-atomic scale wormholes which exist in every square foot of space, selecting the one that'll get you closest to your destination, briefly expanding it, shoving you through, and popping you out on the other side. The speed of the drive is almost completely random, as it depends entirely on finding optimal wormholes. It's basically completely useless for navigation inside a solar system because most wormhole jumps average around two light-years. A ship might be able to make it to a location in one jump, or take thousands, but a ship with better wormhole scanning technology or most power behind their drive would be able to scan and find optimal wormholes faster.

Time Travel?
Nope.

Ancient Race?
That's the "twist", which is painfully obvious; somebody beat them to Hermes, and the main characters stumble upon an alien spacecraft, derelict and with it's crew frozen in stasis. The aliens in question are much more advanced than humanity and their civilization is millions of years old, but they never struck upon FTL, so they make colonies the slow way; fleets with crews in suspended animation. The ship has been drifting for thousands of years, having never come out of hibernation and the only one of it's fleet left.

While not ancient in the terms of most sci-fi, the old ship and it's technological wonders become overriding plot point.

Psychic Powers?
Nope.

Most advanced power generation?
There was an offhand reference to "nuclear engines" at one point, so I'm guessing fission.

[The Spaniard]

If so would you like to give a brief summary?
I'd prefer to keep a low key on it, but I'll consider that it'd was originally to explore an entire empire and inter-dimensional traveling. However since then, I've been expanding it slowly and carefully.

Do you have FTL? how Fast?
It, by the standards of ours, would have a near-FTL capability, however it's an experimental and potentially destructive technology due to inability to control or maintain a proper travel before a force-impact with solid matter, or reaching FTL itself would obliterate the spacecraft. So therefore, it's a very possible technology with an unstable method of operation.

Do you have time travel?
Yes, it's a very possible feat within the universe using quantum tunneling through the cosmos, though I'd refrain from speaking about its methods. But the exploration put in detail about the Multiverse theory.

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?
The original empire itself is spanned out across multiple aeons, split into the predecessor and its successor.

[mr friendly guy]

If so would you like to give a brief summary?
Do you have FTL? how Fast?
Do you have time Travel?
Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

I have several actually.

1. This one the sci fi setting is mainly background for more fantasy worlds. Let me explain. Long story short, humans spanned several galaxies through FTL and wormhole technology. Eventually we went into war with a race of giants with vast technology and cosmic powers. The giants themselves had their own genetically engineered servitude race, which we find later are just modified humans, and as such can still interbred with us. We eventually won, but we lost contact with a lot of our colonies.

The other side deployed hyperspace bombs which disrupts our FTL, and a lot of wormhole gates were destroyed. Thus a lot of colonies regressed in technology without the means to communicate with the core systems. This allows me to set a fantasy world in each colony world with different stages of technology. The current world I am playing in is one where genetic modification allows humans to live in its higher gravity, giving them "super human" abilities. There is also a British empire analogue with a French analogue rival, with a Chinese equivalent heavily inspired by Wuxia literature.

So to answer the questions, yes there is FTL? I tend to just use the hyperspace method (ie discover how to enter another "dimension" which allows FTL and then reappear in normal space). The aliens obvious enter a different FTL dimension, otherwise their hyperspace bombs will disrupt their own FTL. The aliens have faster FTL. Think Andromeda slip stream or DW human FTL for the aliens, vs Star Wars speed FTL for us.

Limited time travel in this universe, only theoretical. In fact this was one of the reasons the aliens went to war with us.

The aliens we went to war with are the ancient race.

2. Basically in this universe, Earth was conquered by an alien race. However their enemies managed to infiltrate Earth (which was not really that strategically important) with the view of causing internal strife among their conquered worlds. They gave us technology and we managed to overthrow our conquerors. With the help of that "friendly" aliens we were uplifted (and modified to be great shock troops) and in the wars that followed, drove our conquerors from the galaxy.

With victory achieved, our ally left us to our own devices (they were weaken from the conflict and had their own problems) and we set up to create our own empire (well since a lot of alien races were rendered extinct in the conflict, we didn't really integrate any aliens into our nation, we just took their now empty worlds, so I suppose we aren't really an empire).

However beyond the Rim new forces stir.

Again I take the route of different FTLs. The aliens in our galaxy and ourselves use the same type, but those forces beyond the Rim use a different FTL, hence we initially can't detect them. This universe is lower tech than the previous, so aside from superior genetically modification, our technology is at the upper end of Trek races like the Borg or Species 8472. As such our FTL is only galaxy spanning and takes months to transverse.

No time travel in this one, nor ancient races (as that is becoming a bit cliche).

3. Human imperialistic empire gets trashed by alien race and our planet occupied. It turns out that we nuked them in an original time line, but time travellers went back in time and uplifted their civilisation, so that when war breaks out again they win.

The story talks about reconciliation as we both have to deal with a new enemy. This enemy is ancient race in the OTL destroyed themselves in a space faring civil war, while the time travelling ancient race was just discovering the wheel. However now that the time travellers have uplifted their race, they also had space technology and manage to defeat the ancients and force onerous conditions on them. Eventually they figured out the time travel angle, and not realising they would have been extinct in the OTL, they want to destroy their enemies because they fear that time travel could be used to wipe them out.

So thats yes to the ancient race, yes to time travel (but limited, think ST level and not DW level), and again with different FTLs, the time travelling aliens have a hyperspace type, while we use limited space folding "warp" type of FTL. Theirs are faster.

This universe is at the upper end of the scale, humans are SW level tech, the aliens are even higher, but easily below Dalek or Time Lord level technology. FTL for the aliens span several galaxies in a matter of weeks, and their most impressive tech is an aircraft carrier analogue, or a mothership which carries lots of other ships. Think of it as having its own pocket dimension like a TARDIS while the ship is essentially a gate. Once it reaches a location it disgorges all its fighter craft, destroyers etc. Naturally since the inside is bigger than the outside, the total volume and tonnage the mothership can disgorge is several times more than the actual size and mass of the mothership itself.

edit - the reason the need a mother ship is that a) it has really fast FTL and can travel vast distances while individual ships can't and b) fighters only have limited FTL (so it can devote more space to weapons).

[Maxentius]

These answers pertain to a universe I started in my wide-eyed teenage-years. I've since tried to tweak a few things to be less over the top, but there's only so much that can be done without gutting the whole setting and starting over. Alas. That's why I've moved on to writing 'realistic' fantasy-based settings. Anyway.

Do you have FTL?

Yes. I've never bothered to detail the FTL of the non-human powers in the galaxy, but the human polities employ two distinct types of FTL drives. The first is called the 'submersion drive', and works by shunting the ship in question into a coterminous Handwave Dimension that allows ridiculously fast FTL travel, on the scale of something like a Star Wars hyperdrive. The problem with the Submersion Drive is that it cannot be used within the boundaries of a solar system, or really, anywhere near an object of considerable mass, since it has the possibility to rip that particular object apart. The second is just called the Navigational Drive, and is more on the scale of a Star Trek warp drive or Babylon 5 hyperspace.

Do you have time Travel?

Nope.

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

There are ancient races in the sense of 'races that have been around longer than humans have been a galactic polity', but there are no traditional, vanished civilizations that left all sorts of amazingly powerful artifacts lying around or anything like that, no.

Does your universes have psychic powers? Are humans psychic?

At one point I toyed with the idea, I think, but it never really caught on. There are alien races that employ telepathic conversation with their own kind, but it's hard for them to communicate with other species through the same technique. These races also don't have anything you could really call 'powers', like telekinetics or stuff like that.

What's the most advanced power generation technology your universe has?

Almost certainly one of the older alien races has possession of this; I've never bothered to do actual calculations. The reactors on their large, dedicated warships are on the level of small stars, etc, etc. Never bothered to try and rationalize it, it's pure handwave stuff to write lots of paragraphs about blossoming plasma bolts and missiles exploding into clouds of sunstuff that swallows battleships whole. You know the drill.

[Ariphaos]

If so would you like to give a brief summary?

I have two settings. Solar Storms and Silver Suns.

Solar Storms is a heavy science fantasy setting. The spirit could roughly be defined:
[qoute]
"When you meet God, how will you forge the path?
Shall it be extinction, like uncounted species before you?
Or will you tear open Time and Space itself, and step forward to greet the Maker?
What will you do?
Will to prostrate yourself, groveling like an insignificant worm?
Or will you stand proud, and meet the gaze of the Lord with unwavering eyes?
When the Creator speaks, will you tremble, or stand firm?
And when He asks you
'Why have you come?'
Will your answer be to beg for forgiveness?

...

Or will you declare your intent to overcome Him, and transcend the God of Gods?

And when you state this...

Will the Demiurge laugh at your impotence, and cast you into the pits of Hell like Lucifer before you?

Or will he and all the 'verse quake in terror at Your inevitable victory?
[/quote]

Silver Suns is strictly hard sci-fi, something I use for various one-off ideas about how humanity could expand into the stars without breaking any known laws. Silver Suns has vast light-sail exchanges, and eventually they repeat the FTL experiment on a much larger scale, enabling two-parsec radii devices, properly configured, to send FTL signals. They are far too sensitive, too time consuming, and too power-intensive to use to try to determine whether Relativity is wrong or Causality can be violated, however, which I like as a twist. They're used so people can get news from another galaxy in centuries rather than aeons.

The settings basically share a common history until an experiment...

Do you have FTL? how Fast?

...which attempts to recreate the inflationary field. In Silver Suns, the experiment basically fails, though a much more limited form of FTL communication (measured in the bits per second range, and requiring most of the harvestable power of a large star to do so) is eventually discovered, as described above.

In Solar Storms, it succeeds beyond all reason, tapping Humanity's desire for exploration and effectively granting its wish. Not just in the form of FTL travel (that actually takes much longer), but portals of various sorts get ripped open across the Solar System, and the storm eventually spreads across the Universe.

In neither setting is their any measurable speed. It takes time to properly encode or decode a signal (a decade in the case of Silver Suns), and in Solar Storms the Stargates must be established at light speed. Afterward, travel is effectively instantaneous. Ships capable of moving FTL on their own are rare, and literally require the setting's equivalent of magic in order to engage.

Do you have time Travel?

Not as such. In Silver Suns, reversing entropy is a long-term goal, which might count. In Solar Storms, it's possible to reverse time in a localized sphere, though only immensely powerful beings are capable of this on any meaningful scale.

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

Eventually, humans qualify in both. There are races that are older than humanity, though in Silver Suns this has less meaning. None of those in the Milky Way survived to leave their planet, and those humanity encounters outside are little more advanced than humanity, and in some cases even less advanced in a few ways.

In Solar Storms it becomes a major story arc, as humanity, being a new 'awakened' race, must fend off the First. Fortunately the First have retained some flaws that humans outgrew, making it possible for humans and their allies to eventually force a truce.

Does your universes have psychic powers? Are humans psychic?

Solar Storms: The Multiverse has people who, once the 'verse recognizes them (no small task), can make wishes, and have them granted. The catch is you have to mathematically define exactly what you want, so with a few limited exceptions, until Humans and the First start duking it out, most magic that most species' see is limited to opening and closing portals. These exceptions become quite powerful in their own right, however.

Silver Suns: Well aside from being a transhuman setting in general and thus people communicate straight through radio, not really.

What's the most advanced power generation technology your universe has?

Silver Suns tends to stick to fusion and stellar harnessing, though harnessing black holes occasionally happens.

Solar Storms, at the high end, uses dimensional taps.

But they both use hydrocarbons for various tasks. Few power technologies have been completely obviated.

[Ariphaos]

Silver Suns has the potential for a lot of 'sufficiently advanced' stuff going on. To a society that did not have an understanding of electromagnetics, such 'humans' would certainly seem psychic, causing things to move with apparently no more than a thought. There are probably some species that are encountered which can be forced to receive transmissions by carefully targeting emissions, and likewise read their surface thoughts in a similar manner. Transhuman reflexes and perception would certainly seem preternatural, especially with co-opting the local insect population, replacing some of them with machines to act as spies. And this all when the visiting humans want to be at least discrete enough to fit in with the local mythology.

[fusion]

Right now I have two "universes" running though my head.

The first one is frankly a huge/wank (your choice) setting that I like using to cross over to other works of fiction. It is loosely based on the Culture series and the anime Nanoha but taken to an extreme. They are an idealized society whose only true problems are themselves and their past. This universe is used to study how a society that is viewed as gods mentor lesser races, especially when an even more powerful lost artifacts, known as Logias, come into play.

Summary:
The Federation is born out of the ashes of a long linage of declining civilizations. While they are by far the premier power in their settings and can be considered to be a post-scarcity utopian society, they have to deal with multitudes of discarded and hidden example of previous technologies, both magical and mundane. Also haunting them is the Void, a gargantuan stretch of nothingness, a scar from a battle in the far past and something that is as vast to them as the universe is to us. Lastly their Ex Mandatum had them stretch thin across almost a quintillion dimensions by mandating the protection of lesser civilizations through the destruction of Lost Logias (magi-tek remnants of fallen civilizations especially from the Age of Greed and the end of the Silver age).

Time Travel:
Have but can’t use it without huge expenditures of energy depending on their locations. Certain locations have parts of their space-time destroyed and therefore need to be reconstructed before the area is accessible again. Other places are difficult to access due to Time Diodes, Time Stops, and other temporal fields. While they can be bypassed by sheer power or disabled the Federation prefer not to. Also the Federation is afraid of the past: Al Hazrad and its legacy. Therefore it has maintained all temporal defenses and even strengthening and creating others. Even when there is no existing temporal barrier, time travel is rare. Even when their opponents are capable of time travel, the Federation prefer to time-skipping weapons and reality rewrites instead of going after them physically. Their time travel is causality free and paradox free, all maintained though superior knowledge and firepower.

FTL:
Within a dimension, travel is measured in the order of seconds. Across dimensions, travel is measured in tens to hundreds of millions of dimensions per second. And travel across universes is on the order of a day. The use of relays can cut travel time by the order of two magnitudes.

Setting:
The Federation has a sphere of influence of about 15000 universes, and has explored about 2,000,000 universes. (or equivalent to two hundred quadrillion dimensions/observable universes and twenty quintillion dimensions/observable universe respectively).

Universes are much like multiverses in the Culture series: a layered onion structure where the center contains a beating heart known as a source. The source for each universe is a center of creation, its vast energies pulse every couple of earth years much like the sun spot cycle and pulse cycle of a pulsar. Every time the source pulse, a dimension is created and at first contains both an anti-universe and a normal-universe. Depending on the slight difference in ratios, the dimension may be either of filled with anti-particles or normal-particles and the energy that is released from the annihilation is absorb into either the existing Wall above or the one forming below. Walls are just a condensation of energy released by the source between births and prevent easy travel between dimensions. Older dimensions start to dissolve when they lack the energy to sustain themselves (takes approximately 100 billion to one trillion earth years to finish) and are reabsorbed into the source.

Magic:
Magic is still called magic in the Federation due to long heritage of the word dating back billions of years. While magical capabilities can be cloned, it is considered to be taboo as it is believed that every being is unique (even familiars). In the Federation magic only has one advantage of technology: flexibility. While standard technology can mimic any spells, it is often cruder (only in the standards of the Federation) and often requires far more power to complete. Mages use devices for personnel level and can form spells with projectors (closest equivalent to warships) also.

Power Generation:
Well… let’s just say source taps and reality taps provide enough energy.

Interesting tidbits:
The most powerful projectors of the Federation produce a Big Bang’s worth of energy every hour (internal clock).
As long as you go to “school” you are eligible for your very own custom built solar system (up to a cubic light year).
Getting diseases is considered to be a past time for the younger crowd.
Powerful mages are celebrities with the most powerful having sextillions of followers.


Setting two

It is much, much smaller, but less developed.

There are only three planets worth mentioning: Hyperion, Cronus, and Oceanus. Hyperion is a hot, rocky, and dry world with only a little water concentrated at its poles. Cronus is a fertile but tiny world that orbits an enormous gas giant. Oceanus is a large world with nearly 97% of its surface covered in water. All three orbit different stars that are within a quarter light years from each other. However, nearly 50% of the population lives elsewhere in the lawless regions, in hollowed out asteroids, space stations, O-Neil cylinders, bases and other space habitats. This is possible because of three big technologies: portal generators, Hyper Taps, and jump drives.

Portal generators form the basis of their economy, from simple world to world transportation, to delivery of water, to 3-D manufacturing, and even to endless swimming pools. Also most forms of weapon delivery systems use a derivation of this technology. Remove this technology and their worlds and way of life will dissolve.

Hyper Taps are their power sources: cheap, reliable, extremely compact and environmentally friendly. Even the most inefficient Taps generate nearly a hundred megawatts per cubic meter.

Jump drives are their main mode of transport and are used in lieu of large thruster assemblies. They work by creating constant microjumps, jumping relatively short distances each time. Military type jump drives are designed to be tactical in nature and therefore are designed to jump tens of times per second and therefore much slower in nature, only .35c. Exploration style drives are more strategic in nature and extend the amount of time between jumps to around several seconds and therefore can achieve speeds up to 3c.

Ships are small for two reasons, limitations of Jump drives, forces ships to be less than a few million cubic meters and the accuracy and power of portal based weaponry. Thus, even the largest of ships are no larger than the smallest of fighter jets and the smallest are no larger than an arm. Thus, because of their small size and ubiquity of space habitats, there are nearly a million ships, most of them maintained by bandits, gangs and other lawless organizations.

P.S. There is way, way more details that I didn’t add, obviously .

[lordofchange13]

If so would you like to give a brief summary?

My universe is a pretty basic somewhat hard reality. the human race has developed some major epicly powerful tech near clarke level. the Earthling republic/roman empire collapses and civilization looses ground. their are nearly no sentient aliens in the galaxy, most "Alien" that appear are only genetically manipulated descendants of man.

Do you have FTL? how Fast?

Yes, but ship board drives have a limited range and speed most people use conduits(jump gates).

Do you have time Travel?

no

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

As i said before Humanity is the ancient race, most of my stories take place in the 15 millenium CE.

[Enigma]

If so would you like to give a brief summary?

Let's see..... This takes place in the oh so far future, as in billions of years. Humanity along with countless sentient races have colonized numerous galaxies during that time. Milky Way and Andromeda are a hollow shell of their former glory due to a few reasons. So different are they that humankind no longer recognizes the MW. The location of Earth, Sol system and even the MW galaxy itself are lost to the mists of time. The MW, Andromeda and a few other nearby spent galaxies are called the "Wastelands", home to outcasts, pirates, those that just wish to disappear and billions of still functioning (in various states) ancient weapons platforms\drone ship\etc...

Ulti-corps (corporations and conglomerates that achieve enough size, wealth and power to owning from over half of a galaxy to several galaxies. Political and theocratic governments still exist but have very limited power. The strongest of them have control of their whole system and the weakest have control of just their planet, they don't even control their moon(s).

The internet has changed so much that is now called D.A.R. (Digital Alternate Reality), where beings can digitize themselves and do whatever they want there. Trillions have made it their home. The upside to living in DAR is that it practically makes you immortal but the downside is that you cannot procreate while in it. Pretty much every branch of the armed forces from every faction uses DAR for covert ops to using it as a safe area if their ship is on the verge of being destroyed. Prison ship\asteroids\planetoids\etc... utilizes their own isolated version of DAR. This way it removes any chance of overcrowding since the inmates are in a digital reality. There have been no prison breaks for the past three millenia.

Not going to delve too far into it but if you have questions then ask away.

My story has been almost 20 years in the making.

Do you have FTL? how Fast?

Though each race has developed their own version of FTL, the vast majority have settled to using two types (mainly due to control from the ulti-corps). A tunnel drive to travel from one galaxy to another (think of it as a wormhole generator that only goes one direction and the other end opens up whenever you choose it to) and some sort of fold-space drive for intra-galactic travel.

The Tunnel Drive (I have an actual name for it somewhere in my mind. lol) can take a ship to one galaxy to another in as little as two hours, depending how close the destination galaxy is and twelve hours from one end of a colonized galaxy to the most distant colonized galaxy.

The Fold-Space Drive (never got to give it a name) can take a ship from one end of the galaxy to another in a few minutes.

Do you have time Travel?

There is and it has been used but it is now lost tech and any advance made in that field somehow something goes wrong in which all knowledge of that research is completely forgotten.

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

By the time the story really gets underway, every race is pretty much an ancient race.

Does your universes have psychic powers? Are humans psychic?

A super very small number of beings have it (among other abilities) including humans due to DNA tampering by an unknown alien race.

What's the most advanced power generation technology your universe has?

Pocket Suns.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Meh...I might as well jump in here.

If so would you like to give a brief summary?

Mine would be the Sol Confederacy's story (not sure on an actual story name). This story takes place 300 years in the future (roughly 2300 AD). Basically, Humanity found an alien ship buried deep in the Alps in the early 21st century. Through a long time rebuilding and reverse engineering the tech, they eventually get the newly christened UERS* Constellation back in spaceflight shape. From this ship, and ships based on it, Humanity begins exploring nearby systems. By the time the story picks up (2312) they have a handful of colonies, but haven't yet encountered any alien races. I'm hoping to get this published someday...but I don't know how solid the idea is...so yeah...until I do don't expect to find it...

Do you have FTL? how Fast?

Yes the Confederacy does have FTL based on the Constellation's drive system. I'm hardly a physics major...so I can't speak on exactly how it works...but for a preliminary idea it would be like Halo's slipspace drive...insofar as it tears a hole in subspace to use a different dimension to travel. It is rather slow though (roughly Warp 8...if you want to use ST to compare it to, since I'm not sure on what C that would be). We are working on making it faster...but it is not easy going. Hence the fact that there are only 6 colonies:

Alpha Centurai: Arcadia

Epsilon Indi: Hyperion

Epsilon Eridani: Farsight

Tau Ceti: Horizon

And two more that I haven't thought up names for yet...

Do you have time Travel?

Nope, Confederacy scientists consider it a waste of time.

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

Yes, the race that built the Constellation. The general theory is that they aren't around anymore, but the Confederacy hasn't expanded far enough to know for sure.

* UERS would be United Earth Republic Ship. When they found the Constellation Earth united as opposed to blowing everything up trying to get to the ship first.

[VarrusTheEthical]

If so would you like to give a brief summary?

Yes, my setting is a Military Science Fiction/ Space Opera Universe taking place in the 30th Century (2950s to be exact). The universe at this period of time revolves around the conflict between the Earth Federation, and the League of Sovereign who oppose them, and the Independent systems caught in the middle.

The Earth Federation is the only true interstellar government in my setting, controlling eight inhabited systems including Sol. The systems controlled by the Federation are colloquially called "Federal Space", and form the "core" of human settled space.

The League of Sovereign worlds is a military and economic alliance of over a dozen star systems who oppose the Earth Federation's hegemony.

The Independent systems are unaffiliated systems who represent the vast majority of all settled system. The run the gamut from stable an prosperous democracies to anarchic bandit kingdoms.

Do you have FTL? how Fast?

Yes, 100c. But requires "flat" space to operate in. Thus once you close within a certain distance of a star, you have to rely on torch drives to get around.

Do you have time Travel?

Only the old fashioned way. (Forward)

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

Yes and no. My setting is human more or less human centric.

[the atom]

If so would you like to give a brief summary?

Humanity has been faring in space for the last 16 000 years, and has since split into various empires and factions. The largest and most influential of them being the 6th Galactic Dynasty and the Ordish Empire, who have coexisted peacefully for the last 1500 years until a series of small disputes has lead to war. Aliens did play a very large part in galactic politics until they were gradually shifted out by various human empires and hegemonies. Only the Arkagolian empire remains large and powerful enough to hold their ground to the Dynasty and Ordish.

Do you have FTL? how Fast?

nBSG style insta-drive that works by slipping into lower dimensions. Unfortunately, it is also highly sensitive to gravity, meaning large and complex routes need to be mapped across the galaxy (some of which require relatively extended periods in real space), and jumping into a system in entirely out of the question. A trip from one end of the galaxy to the other can take up to 9 months.

Do you have time Travel?

No.

Do you have some ancient race? Is it still around?

They're only vaguely referenced as the 'Ancients' and they have long since transcended their singularity stage into beings of pure photons and energy (yes, I took that one from 2001). As it stands they aren't a major plot point. My setting is mostly human-centric.

[VarrusTheEthical]

A lot of people have ftl drives that only work when very,very far away. Why did you decide on that?

For me, it's because I want both FTL and torchships in the same setting. The logic being that if you can jump right into orbit of a planet, then you don't need ships with high sub-light performance.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Mine being a semi-soft setting, I opted for a hyperdrive reminiscent of some interpretations of SW hyperdrive: Fast, only in straight lines, pre-plotted jumps needed, gravity wells yank you out of hyperspace. Theres also "hyperspace Jammers" which several chapters hinge on: one involving a grand ambush and the border defenses of both sides feature large jammers that force enemy fleets to cross border systems at sublight speeds and challenge fortifications. Unless you're a) a very good navigator that can get ships through tiny gaps in jamming fields or b) you go "up and over,"
travelling "up" the galactic disc and circumventing the jamming fields entirely.

I still have powerful sublight engines though. Engines need to be powerful to push twenty-million-tonne battleships out of orbit. Even more so for combat manouvres. Hyperspace jammers are easy to build so sublight trips across solar systems are often a necessity.

[lordofchange13]

A lot of people have ftl drives that only work when very,very far away. Why did you decide on that?

Otherwise space combat would be very difficult, (assuming theirs no advanced warnings system) ships could blink in to orbit drop high efficiency nukes and decimate the population of the world. Because of this most universe have drives only work in the void between solar systems.

[lordofchange13]

I still have powerful sublight engines though. Engines need to be powerful to push twenty-million-tonne battleships out of orbit. Even more so for combat manouvres. Hyperspace jammers are easy to build so sublight trips across solar systems are often a necessity.

Does your people not have Zero Gee stations? you don't necessarily have to build your star cruisers on a planets surface.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Well...for my FTL I went for slow and reliable. The tentatively named 'Subspace Drive' works similar to Halo's slipspace drive's. In other words...tear a hole in subspace and go to a higher dimension level to travel. It is slow, but very hard to jam or break down. Though the sublight engines are very powerful also, since while reliable, the Subspace Drive is very power-intensive, so it is more economical to use regular drives in-system. And it doesn't work in gravity wells (it's one true Achille's heel) I could explain further...but I'm tired and don't want to dig out my notes.

Edit: Oh my God...can I post this without someone else doing something first? Back on subject, in the Confederacy ships are built on the surface (frigates/destroyers) and in space (cruisers/dreadnoughts).

[Whiskey144]

Does your people not have Zero Gee stations? you don't necessarily have to build your star cruisers on a planets surface.

Trust me when I say that multi-megatonne ships require stupidly large amounts of energy to push themselves around in meaningful timeframes.

[lordofchange13]

Does your people not have Zero Gee stations? you don't necessarily have to build your star cruisers on a planets surface.

Trust me when I say that multi-megatonne ships require stupidly large amounts of energy to push themselves around in meaningful timeframes.

yes...i know, I was commenting on Eternal_Freedom's post, which said he needed super powerful sublight drives just so he could get out of orbit.

[Whiskey144]

Which could very well be because a 20-megatonne ship takes a lot of energy to push out of LEO. "Get out of orbit" isn't synonymous with "liftoff from planetary surface".

[VarrusTheEthical]

To put it simply, if you want your 20 megaton ship to accelerate at 1 gravity, it needs to generate 20 megatons of thrust. This is particularly important in a setting that does not have artificial gravity, as the crew can use the acceleration as simulated gravity during the ship's acceleration and braking phases.

[VarrusTheEthical]

IMO the most interesting space combat zone is planetary orbit too, so skipping the boring trip to get right to the fun stuff is another bonus!

Oh, I agree completely! I just don't want to limit myself to just what the Solar System offers. Hot Jupiters, Super Earths, rogue planets, and flare stars can impose all kind of interesting variables that characters would have to deal with, on top of everything that you've just outlined.