Electric Field Drive
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Description
Template:Infobox TechnologyThe Tachyon Drive is a very renowned piece of technology, mostly used by the Commonwealth of United Economic Nations as a rather cheap and reliable form of faster-than-light travel. Being invented in the midst of Zythyn planetary colonization, it has since been mass-produced to fit all kinds of ships, from public transport to warships. The Tachyon Drive is also used for mass transport on Hyperlanes, which make Tachyon Drives relevant even many millennia after its invention.
The Tachyon Drive was first theorized by Zythyn scientists, during their adolescent pre-space age period. Execution of such a device would need exotic matter to create a field and capture Tachyons. This theory would be observed and often tested, with the most advanced scientific equipment that scientists could get. As soon as they confirmed the existence of Exotic Matter and Tachyons, it was only a matter of time before technology would allow for them to be stabilized.
On the day of the Tachyon Drive's invention, billions of Zythyns observed the first instance of FTL travel. With the Tachyon Drive being clunky and expensive back then, it cost a massive amount of funds to send even a small object faster than light. That did not matter too much to the population or scientists, since FTL travel was then proven to be completely possible. Over many decades, this got refined, until items of value were quickly sent over to the far reaches of the Saykyan System. FTL probes were also invented, but their signals still traveled at light speed. (This was eventually beaten when a Tachyon Drive became small enough to be stored on a probe, and therefore physical storage could come back to the Saykyan System at FTL speeds.)
Function
Tachyon Drives operate by creating an exotic matter field, which would be able to influence Tachyons. Small amounts of Tachyons would 'fall out' of Tachyonic Space, being caught by the exotic matter field. Catching Tachyons happens to be an exponential process, with the ship's speed doubling in short amounts of time.
As Tachyons were being captured, and the bubble would then change in a format which would allow for 'Tachyonic Sailing'. With Tachyonic Sailing, a craft could control its speed by strengthening or weakening the exotic matter field. The high energy of the Tachyons could easily push a craft in a desired direction, and accelerate it to near-FTL speeds.
As the craft approached the speed of light, Tachyons would speed it up faster and faster, until it slipped into Tachyonic Space and created a photonic boom. The craft would then hang in a semi-controllable state, with the ability to speed up or slow down the Tachyonic flow. AI was always used for this task, since its prediction algorithms allowed it to fine-tune speeds correctly. In order to slow and stop the craft, the exotic matter field around it would reverse, catching Tachyons from the opposite direction. The Tachyonic wind would then reverse, exponentially slowing the craft until the exotic matter field was shut down.