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Quantum Shift Drives are a high-speed Faster-than-light propulsion system primarily used in Florathel in which a spacecraft appears to "jump" instantly from one point to another. After the jump, the ship arrives at a precise destination up to 7,500 light-years away, beyond which accuracy rapidly decays. Utilizing very powerful computers fitted to a ship to calibrate the drive for each jump, the drive is among the fastest in the universe and can be fitted on individual civilian ships with recent improvements in energy storage.

Initially used by the Providence Union and other concurrent civilizations, the Shift Drive remains in use to this day. It is essential for interstellar trade, and many nations spend decent fractions of their budget on improving it further.

History

The first known examples of use of the Quantum Shift Drive was by the Providence Union, over 6 million years ago, although presumably other civilizations developed similar drives in the Elder Days. Over the intervening years, fairly rudimentary alternate forms were developed independently by other civilizations.

After Glanadi was discovered amongst the maze of stars in the Providence Cluster and the people of Florathel gained access to its archives, a very efficient prototype of the Quantum Shift Drive under development by the Union at its fall was uncovered. This form, which doubled the maximum effective jump range to 6,000 light-years, was quickly adopted by most nations across Florathel and its satellites. It was used to great effect in the War of Saiheran Succession, with great fleets abruptly materializing near targets before anything could be done to stop them.

The formation of the United Nations of the Florathel made it very easy for scientists to communicate across borders. This sped up the development of many technologies, but particularly the Quantum Shift Drive, which was refined to its present state, halving its energy use and improving external energy storage enough to allow placement on small civilian craft. Today, the Quantum Shift Drive can jump up to 7,500 light-years with virtually no positional errors. In intergalactic space, where exact positioning matters little, this range increases to 80,000 light-years before the craft starts going in completely the wrong direction.

Operation

The Quantum Shift Drive charging after calibration, heard from within the craft. The sound at the end is the actual jump.

The Quantum Shift Drive relies on a key facet of quantum mechanics, the fact that every possible event has a nonzero probability of occurring. The drive essentially takes the event of the ship changing position to the target and magnifies its probability through exceedingly complicated mechanisms that require 20 textbooks to explain.

This concept has been applied to other events such as the creation of new substances, but that requires far more computing power and energy to cause atoms to teleport across large distances from disparate locations into a new arrangement than to cause a group of atoms to teleport to the same location and remain in the same configuration.

Dangers

One potential danger in a hasty jump is that of rematerializing within a solid object. This causes the atoms of the craft to be bonded with those of the object, rendering the parts of the craft thus merged to be rendered immobile. This primarily occurs during hasty jumps or jumps to unknown regions of space, as the computer's calculations account for known objects and ensure that a ship does not impact anything as it rematerializes. This is still very unlikely, even neglecting calculations to avoid it, as space is famously very empty.

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+{{LocalUniverse}}{{Infobox Device
-{{!Technology|image1=Quantumshiftdrive.jpg|major_producers=* [[Ascension Corporation]]
+|image1=Unknown.png
-* [[Kalian Shipbuilding]]|function_summary=Accelerates a spacecraft to faster-than-light speeds|caption1=A Class-2 Quantum Shift Drive inside a small freighter.|inventor=* Khizen Vaniden Tess|invention_date=Unknown|concept_creation_date=Unknown|average_price=260,500,000 [[Azinos]]}}
+|manufacturer=Most nations in [[Florathel]] and satellites
-== '''Overview''' ==
+|design_year=First use believed to be ~6 million years ago by the [[Providence Union]]
-The '''Quantum Shift Drive''', abbreviated as '''QSD''' and oftentimes called '''Hyperdrive''', is an ancient, cutting-edge faster-than-light propulsion engine used primarily by the [[Singularia|Singularitia]] and [[Humans|Human]] nations of the [[Palioxis Starfield]] for effective interstellar travel. As an outcome, the Quantum Shift Drive has played a crucial role in shaping the society, trade, politics, and war of the Palioxis Starfield.
+|source_of_power=Anything that has enough, usually antimatter
+|ftl_range=Effectively infinite, 7,500 ly per jump within a galaxy, 80,000 ly per jump in intergalactic space
+}}Quantum Shift Drives are a high-speed Faster-than-light propulsion system primarily used in [[Florathel]] in which a spacecraft appears to "jump" instantly from one point to another. After the jump, the ship arrives at a precise destination up to 7,500 light-years away, beyond which accuracy rapidly decays. Utilizing very powerful computers fitted to a ship to calibrate the drive for each jump, the drive is among the fastest in the universe and can be fitted on individual civilian ships with recent improvements in energy storage.
+Initially used by the [[Providence Union]] and other concurrent civilizations, the Shift Drive remains in use to this day. It is essential for interstellar trade, and many nations spend decent fractions of their budget on improving it further.
-The Quantum Shift Drive operates by propelling a spacecraft into [[Andremis]] while maintaining the vessel's mass and energy profile. The spaceship then travels along a manually or automatically set trajectory until it reaches its target and returns to the Palioxis Starfield. The Quantum Shift Drive can only be used in the Palioxis Starfield since Andremis, a sub-plane of the Palioxis Starfield, can only be accessed in it's 'parent' region.
+== History ==
+The first known examples of use of the Quantum Shift Drive was by the [[Providence Union]], over 6 million years ago, although presumably other civilizations developed similar drives in the Elder Days. Over the intervening years, fairly rudimentary alternate forms were developed independently by other civilizations.
+After [[Glanadi]] was discovered amongst the maze of stars in the Providence Cluster and the people of Florathel gained access to its archives, a very efficient prototype of the Quantum Shift Drive under development by the Union at its fall was uncovered. This form, which doubled the maximum effective jump range to 6,000 light-years, was quickly adopted by most nations across [[Florathel]] and its satellites. It was used to great effect in the [[War of Saiheran Succession]], with great fleets abruptly materializing near targets before anything could be done to stop them.
-=='''Operation'''==
+The formation of the [[United Nations of the Florathel]] made it very easy for scientists to communicate across borders. This sped up the development of many technologies, but particularly the Quantum Shift Drive, which was refined to its present state, halving its energy use and improving external energy storage enough to allow placement on small civilian craft. Today, the Quantum Shift Drive can jump up to 7,500 light-years with virtually no positional errors. In intergalactic space, where exact positioning matters little, this range increases to 80,000 light-years before the craft starts going in completely the wrong direction.
-=== '''Andremis Travel''' ===
+==Operation==
-To enter Andremis, a starship pilot would have to select a logged world with the use of the [[Widespread Technologies#Navigational Computer|navigational computer]]. This on-board computer would then-on automatically input the coordinates into the Quantum Shift Drive. In some cases, the pilot has to manually input coordinates throughout the navigational computer, as to reach uncharted worlds or a highly specific point in space.
+[[File:QSDCharge.mp3|thumb|The Quantum Shift Drive charging after calibration, heard from within the craft. The sound at the end is the actual jump.|left]]The Quantum Shift Drive relies on a key facet of quantum mechanics, the fact that every possible event has a nonzero probability of occurring. The drive essentially takes the event of the ship changing position to the target and magnifies its probability through exceedingly complicated mechanisms that require 20 textbooks to explain.
+This concept has been applied to other events such as the creation of new substances, but that requires far more computing power and energy to cause atoms to teleport across large distances from disparate locations into a new arrangement than to cause a group of atoms to teleport to the same location and remain in the same configuration.
-If the ship is outside the gravity of a large celestial body, the process of an Andremis jump would begin with the small amounts [[Phantom Energy|phantom energy]] being collected be collected with the use of the numerous [[Quantum Shift Drive#Phantom Collector|phantom collectors]]. Then on, the [[Quantum Shift Drive#Quantum Motivator|quantum motivator]] would use many kilometers of charge planes, effect channels, or looping superconducting wire deep within the spaceship to alter the gathered energy in a fusion generator. This process also requires [[antimatter]] to help modify the energy. The Quantum Shift Drive's [[Quantum Shift Drive#Ascension Initiator|ascension initiators]] would supply energy to the motivator's energization chamber to spark ignition, which would unleash the energy via the engines. The energy discharge would produce disturbances in the space-time continuum, allowing the ship to thrust itself into Andremis by riding on these generated ripples.
+==Dangers==
+One potential danger in a hasty jump is that of rematerializing within a solid object. This causes the atoms of the craft to be bonded with those of the object, rendering the parts of the craft thus merged to be rendered immobile. This primarily occurs during hasty jumps or jumps to unknown regions of space, as the computer's calculations account for known objects and ensure that a ship does not impact anything as it rematerializes. This is still very unlikely, even neglecting calculations to avoid it, as space is famously very empty.
-A starship enters the Quantum Shift Drive as a fixed speed, which is based on the Class of the Quantum Shift Drive and the initial power supplied to the drive in its charging up state. While its speed is not able to be increased, it can be significantly decreased when one disables the safety measures of the Quantum Shift Drive, though this is extremely dangerous.
+[[Category:Technology]]
-A starship is only able to stay in Andremis for two hours, before automatically pulled out of it by the Quantum Shift Drive's safety systems. The reason for that is the heavy damage matter from Palioxis Starfield can suffer from, if exposed to the environment of Andremis. This makes longer journeys need multiple jumps to complete the voyage.
-=== '''Neutron Supercharging''' ===
-The practice of flying into one of a neutron star's or white dwarf's high-energy relativistic jets using a Quantum Shift Drive is known as Neutron Supercharging. This enables a spacecraft to take in exotic particles that interface with its Quantum Shift Drive to boost its top speed. Neutron Supercharging from a white dwarf increases speed by 50%, whereas doing it from a neutron star increases speed by 100%, virtually doubling a ship's speed in a single trip.
-The ship's Quantum Shift Drive will be harmed by Neutron Supercharging, thus it is not encouraged. Approaching the jet will make it more difficult to manage the spacecraft since the jet's magnetic forces will gradually push on it. Larger ships with more mass are more resistant to the magnetic forces of the jet and might be easier to control throughout the process.
-Neutron Highways, which are mapped independently, may be utilized to travel long distances at high speeds. These routes generally entail using the supercharge gained at one neutron star to jump immediately to another system with a neutron star or close to one, and then chaining supercharged leaps practically forever until the target is reached, assuming the pilot's Quantum Shift Drive is kept repaired.
-=== '''Safety Mechanisms''' ===
-The ship, crew, and cargo are all shielded from being squashed by the enormous velocity of the initial jump by the central [[gravitational field generator]]. An [[Quantum Shift Drive#Ascension Field Stabilizer|ascension field stabilizer]] helps stabilize the vessel in Andremis and prevents it from prematurely emerging from the alternate plane, which can happen without one. All Quantum Shift Drives include [[Quantum Shift Drive#Dilation Shielding|dilation shielding]] to protect them from the severe effects of time dilation on Andremis. Quantum Shift Drives employ an overheat failsafe device to avoid overheating.
-A Quantum Shift Drive can only initiate a jump into Andremis after it is out of the gravitational influence of a large astronomical body. Small Warp Drives implanted within the spaceship are used to relieve the starship from a body's gravitational attraction before it can leap. Quantum Shift Drives include an integrated protection system that cuts out the drive when a gravity well is detected on the navigational path. Engineers have utilized the safeguard system to create artificial gravity wells to either draw starships out of Andremis or prevent them from withdrawing into Andremis, avoiding a crash in the event of a navigational failure. This approach, of course, necessitates either knowledge of a starship's travel schedule or proximity to a well-traveled Andremis route. The failsafe can be circumvented in some Quantum Shift Drive models, although this has been known to result in disastrous results.
-== '''Components''' ==
-=== '''Dilation Shielding''' ===
-While entering Andremis, a spaceship would be be traveling at such high speeds that time dilation will be noticeable. Furthermore, time dilation is much more severe in Andremis, with a hour in Andremis without dilation shielding potentially taking a thousand years in the real universe. The [[VMC Void Beam]], for instance, traversed five thousand years into the future in only two hours. The sabotage and removal of the dilation shield was owing to this strange phenomenon.
-A spacecraft is able to protect itself and it's crew from time dilation with a dilation shield, an advanced component of every constructed Quantum Shift Drive. A dilation shield effectively utilizes various advanced and artificially produced particles to stop the curvature in a way for time dilation to have no effect while gravitational attraction still takes place. As the space-time fabric of Andremis is fairly similar to that of Palioxis Starfield, dilation shields have the ability to operate within this mysterious plane of existence.
-Travel with a faulty dilation shield is plausible, with minimal to no time dilation actually happening with a moderately faulty dilation shield. Only a nonexistent or a near-broken dilation shield could have serious time dilation. The ship's onboard computers will automatically disengage the Quantum Shift Drive if the dilation shield is operating below 25% capacity.
-=== '''Mass Gravity Sensor''' ===
-=== '''Phantom Collector''' ===
-=== '''Quantum Motivator''' ===
-=== '''Ascension Initiator''' ===
-=== '''Ascension Field Stabilizer''' ===
-== '''Classification''' ==
-A Quantum Shift Drive's superluminal speed is measured on a reverse scale: the faster the Quantum Shift Drive, the lower the rating. These classifications, referred to as Classes, provide a fast, albeit sometimes inaccurate, estimate of a ship's Quantum Shift Drive speed. For a given base travel time of 10 ly/s, the Quantum Shift Drive class serves as a multiplier. Thus, a Class 4 Quantum Shift Drive takes fourfold the base time to travel a given route, while a more expensive Class 2.0 takes only twice the base time.
-Currently, most militaries equip their spacecraft with either Class 1 or Class 2 Quantum Shift Drives. Quantum Shift Drives of Class 2 or 3 are commonplace on industrial freighters and haulers, while civilian starships have Class 3 or higher. Many ships possess backup Quantum Shift Drives that are significantly less powerful than their primary Quantum Shift Drives.
-Although tampering with the generally stable technology of a Quantum Shift Drive is considered a risky and dangerous activity, some starships have undergone black market modifications to achieve ratings that are below Class 1. A prominent example of this is the [[Phantom Dragonfly]], a [[Venixen]] model starfighter owned by the famous Human mercenary of [[Tybus Corell]]. The Phantom Dragonfly reached a rating of Class 0.5 after several illegal modifications had been made to it's Quantum Shift Drive.
 [[Category:Superluminal Technology]]
-[[Category:Technology]]
+[[Category:Author:_The_Minmus_Derp]]
-[[Category:Palioxis Starfield]]
+[[Category:Florathel]][[Category: Active Development]]
-[[Category:TheStellarExplorer's articles]]