Warp Drives are a widespread form of superluminal propulsion that utilizes negative energy densities to push a craft forward. The fastest warp drives are capable of crossing Cosmoria within a year and are the cheapest drives capable of doing so. There are numerous ways to stimulate the creation of a warp bubble, ranging in size and complexity immensely. Most civilizations graduate from Warp Drives to specialize in other forms of propulsion.
There is no known invention date for the technology; evidence of ancient warp drives dates back all the way to the first known civilizations. Despite being ancient and simple, Warp Drives remain the preeminent drive for civilian-owned craft across Cosmoria.
Variants
Thaumic Warp Drive
The Thaumic Warp Drive, not to be confused with the Thaumic Drive is the simplest variant of the warp drive, relying on Magi, users of Thaumaturgy, to bend space around a craft. In most cases, one Magi creates a region of negative density and the other a region of positive energy. The most powerful Magi can create a bubble all by themselves. It is very difficult to use this technique to get much beyond ten times light speed, but this did not stop ancient civilizations from widely using it.
It is by far the most inefficient form of faster-than-light travel, but also the easiest for primitive civilizations to use if they understand Thaumaturgy. Some extremely large freight-carrying ships use a modern version using Faux Pylons, devices capable of manipulating Thaumic energy, to cheaply but slowly move large masses.
Primitive Warp Drive
Primitive Warp Drives rely on the Casimir Effect to generate negative energy density. While more reliable than Thaumic Warp Drives, since they can be more easily automated, they are incredibly energy-hungry. They require large amounts of antimatter, upwards of dozens of grams per light year. The slower-than-light variants are remarkably similar to biological warp drives.
These ships are rare in the archeological record mostly because they were expensive to the point that civilizations would never let them become a part of said record. Most of them produced were either entirely destroyed or kept in mint condition by the civilizations that used them. Their main use was transporting leaders, since they were impossible to best speed-wise. By 50,000 CE, they had become cheap enough to be widely used in militaries as elite strike forces. Most of the craft are preserved in museums or private collections as they have become a symbol of ancient militaries the universe over.
Modern Warp Drive
Modern Warp Drives rely on the creation of Exotic Matter with negative mass. This Exotic Matter is created by producing vast numbers of virtual bosons that possess exotic properties. In aggregate, the particles have a negative mass due to their unusual interactions with gravitons. Since they, in effect, push spacetime outwards, they are useful in these drives as a way to create a negative energy field. These particles have a very short half-life so they are immediately put in "orbit" around a micro black hole within a canister. Thus, their life time is greatly extended via time dilation, allowing them to be shipped and used.
The canisters have a shelf-life of about six months, making refueling the only possible way to have warp drives travel ultra-long distances. They double as power generators given the inherent instability of micro-black-holes. The particles are gradually released as the black holes fade away, creating negative energy density and thus pushing the craft forward.
History
Before modern civilization, even before intelligent life, spaceborne life across Cosmoria began developing the means to travel between stars. The Cosmoria-wide ecosystem has an open niche for "fast" interstellar travelers, organisms capable of migrating between systems during times of hardship. The first to develop this, nearly one billion years before the modern day, was a species called Celeritas lucium, which spread throughout the cosmos.
Ma'eau used similar drives to relay information across Cosmoria, greatly increasing the speed at which it terraformed worlds. Since these biological warp drives are so large, entire ecosystems formed around and within them analogous to reefs. They require vast amounts of energy and usually have a maximum velocity of one percent of light speed.
Save for ancient space fossils, the oldest confirmed remains of a warp drive were found thirty light years outside of the galaxy. Bearing symbols associated with the Lareas Alliance, it is estimated to be nearly 8 million years old. Other craft from unknown sources, likely the Cosmic Commonwealth of Mages or Ectabana date to be about 120,000 years old. These ancient drives are universally primitive iterations of the technology that are quickly replaced with other drives, mostly by the Quantum Shift Drive in these ancient civilizations.
Further remains exist throughout Cosmoria, with nearly every civilization at some point developing them. Peculiar pressurized vessels dating to about 100 CE, while once mysterious, have recently been confirmed to be from the First Aeternal Society. These craft, with no apparent propulsion system, relied on Thaumic Warp Drives and are thus the oldest confirmed example of this kind.
They waned in popularity as other civilizations rose and fell, returning in force by the formation of the first modern interstellar Hyperlanes, areas of reduced dust that allow for more efficient, and therefore faster, warp drives. In the area of interstellar trade, they would remain dominant until shortly after the beginning of the common era, where they would be supplanted by the much faster Hex Drives.
Currently, they are used in all kinds of "off-road" vehicles, or craft meant to traverse untamed or otherwise "unswept" space. Small military craft still use these drives even though larger craft have mostly transitioned away from them.