Quantum Shift Drive
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The Quantum Shift Drive is a form of superluminal travel prevalent in the Palioxis Starfield and the staple of many civilizations spread across the vast realm. The Quantum Shift is the fastest and most effective form of shipboard faster-than-light travel ever invented in the course of billions of years, at the peak of technological advancement. Drives exceed the velocity of light by several tens of thousands of times, making interstellar travel a walk in the park.
The Quantum Shift Drive propels a spaceship to the Ascension Plane through four-dimensional space by constructing a temporary three-dimensional fabric. Since the Ascension Plane's coordinates match those of the Palioxis Starfield, it allows for precise interstellar travel through either manually or automatically defined courses, reshaping centuries of travel into hours or days.
Ascension Plane travel, however, is hindered by the presence of gravity-shadows, metaphysical areas of space-time forged by the gravity wells of large celestial bodies, which, upon contact, decimate the vessel. These phenomena necessitate the creation of predefined routes in the Ascension Plane, known as "Starlanes," through which most starships automatically travel. The speed of a vessel within the Ascension Plane is defined by the Quantum Shift Drive's potential and is at a continuously fixed state.
Design & Capabilities
Shift-Gates
Quantum Shift Drives require constant care and complex knowledge of navigation, discouraging some people from using them. That's where the Shift-Gates come in; vast structures in outer space, which lead to a specific destination, most often a large population center. Most type-3 civilizations of the Palioxis Starfield have constructed tens, if not, hundreds of thousands of these gates, all interconnected to major population centers in a complex system resembling a web. Shift-Gates are immense structures, though not vast enough to be classified as megastructures.
Shift-Gates operate in a different manner to regular Quantum Shift Drives; they utilize long-lasting, artificial three-dimensional pathways through four-dimensional space, which link the Palioxis Starfield to the Ascension Plane. Shift-Gates are power-hungry devices, so much so that they need around a quarter of the energy output of an average star to be properly sustained, though this tends to vary with location and size. Furthermore, shift-gates require cooling down every hour so as to not overload the complex circuits.