Hyperlane (Cosmoria)

Hyperlanes are volumes of space connecting two or more star systems that have been deliberately cleared of particles and other obstacles for the purposes of maximizing the efficiency and safe speed of hyperdrives.

History

Nearly all civilizations which discovered FTL travel through hyperdrive systems quickly figured out that in regular interstellar space, the density of atoms and the occasional specks of dust significantly increased energy consumption in Alcubierre drives or similar spacetime-distorting mechanisms. Economically, this caused a point where energy efficiency became important in determining the speed of a spacecraft, as going faster than that speed would consume exponentially more fuel. This speed varied somewhat depending on the specific area of the galaxy, the spacecraft design, and the hyperdrive technology, but it is generally accepted that in galactic rims outside nebulas this speed would be somewhere around 15 to 30 light years per hour. In areas such as nebulas or galactic cores, this can drop as far down as 2 light years per hour. Even for cases where fuel consumption is not paramount, e.g. fast-ships or military ships, going too far above this speed could result in a collapse of the hyperdrive bubble mid-jump, which is almost universally fatal for the ship in question - both due to relativistic deceleration and the inevitable meltdown of the hyperdrive engine - typically this is at around 3-4 times the efficient speed.

It is not clearly known which species first created hyperlanes, but many ancient unused (typically heavily damaged) hyperlanes have been identified scattered around a variety of galaxies. For more contemporary species, humans for example, hyperlanes are typically invented around 1,000-2,000 years after hyperdrives, due to economic pressure as the species' economies reach a bottleneck due to intersystem shipping speeds. Sol System's first semi-experimental hyperlane, for example, was established in 3,600, linking Sol with Proxima Centauri.

Intergalactic lanes

While intergalactic travel is typically conducted via wormholes, the capacity limitation and cost means that in travelling between a large galaxy and a small, satellite one (for example, the Milky Way to Sag dSph), hyperlanes are preferred. While intergalactic space is even less dense than interstellar space, and speed limitations are higher (typically around 3-4 times interstellar space, comparable to regular interstellar hyperlanes), intergalactic hyperlanes are considered a cheap method to increase this limit further, typically by fivefold. Due to intergalactic distances, this often translated to be the difference between one week and one day of travel.

In fact, there are a number of hyperlanes in large spiral galaxies located just above or under the galactic plane, spanning its entire length with occasional pits stops. These lanes are considered the fastest way to traverse a galaxy's length, as they allow travel up to ten times the speed of regular FTL jumps. While most systems are some distance away from these transgalactic lanes, it is often economical and timesaving to first travel thousands of lightyears into a hub of the transgalactic hyperlane, use it, and then travel further to the final destination.