Alcubierre Drive

Created in 2600, the Alcubierre drive allows for ships to move much quicker than their fuel supply would allow under normal circumstances moving spacetime around the ship. Among many downsides, exotic matter is incredibly expensive and difficult to produce, meaning that shipping a few hundred tons across a star system can cost hundreds of billions of credits. This means only governments, government services and those working closely with the government have access to warp technology. For most companies and enterprises, this makes classic rocketry such as Alcubierre rockets and Daedalus propulsion preferable to warp technology.

Physics

The Alcubierre drive multiplies speed. Assuming a static Earth; a spacecraft travelling around Earth going 8km/s and charging the drives to warp factor 2 will send the craft off at 16km/s relative to Earth. To reach Alpha Centauri in 4 years while going 8km/s, a craft has to reach a warp factor of ~80,000, however lower warp factors can be used if the craft can reach higher speeds. After expending 0.5c of dV, a warp factor of 25 permits travel to Alpha Centauri in a mere 2 months. Note, however, that the speed of light cannot be exceeded as causal barriers form a black hole in place of the warp bubble. The Alpha Centauri example merely demonstrates the balance between building velocity with Delta-V (when limited) prior to warp and expending more exotic matter in warp.

Although a trip to nearby stars is theoretically sound, the exotic matter required for the bubble's upkeep and energy required to establish the bubble limits the alcubierre drive to a range of between a few AU and a few thousand AU, depending on the speed accumulated prior to the drive activating.

Current Technology

Most Alcubierre Drives nowadays have a maximum warp factor of 417x. Travelling at 719km/s, a speed achievable by most interplanetary ships, with this WF allows travel up to 0.98c (but no higher). At 0.98c, a ship can travel thousands of AU in a matter of weeks before having to disengage.

Particles building up at the edge of a bubble can cause destruction at the end of a ship's line of travel if not dealt with. When concluding long journeys, the drive on a ship will wind down and complete the final leg of a journey slowly, allowing particles to fizzle away without causing major damage. The result is that a ship will take the appearance of an extremely bright bubble of energy until safe levels are reached and the drive can shut down. Stations at the end of a flight path may observe what appears to be a second sun glowing and fizzling away before the ship causing the light drops into range.

Alcubierre Rocket

A miniscule area of space is subjected to intense spacetime distortions (Annihilation Field) which causes rapid annihilation of matter subjected to the region. The massive output of energy can be redirected by a larger, more diluted field (Alcubierre Bell) that directs the energy output away from the vessel, like a thruster bell to a conventional rocket or a magnetic field to a magnetically confined fusion rocket. This form of rocketry is extremely efficient and allows more energy to be extracted from mass than antimatter propulsion, without having to carry around a lot of fuel. Any kind of matter can be subjected to the annihilation field, which means any kind of waste generated or matter collected from space can be used to generate acceleration. Not much exotic matter is used as there are no large, intensely distorted areas of space, as in a warp bubble.

Terminology

EM-1gp/WF100/h = Exotic Matter - 1 gram per hour at Warp Factor of 100
WB-400m = Warp Bubble is 400m in diameter
WF-1000x = max. warp factor of 1000
Delta-V = max. speed
Max Effective Warp Speed = Delta-V x Warp Factor