# Void Travel ![[Art/Generated Art/Federation/Federation battleship/00012.png]] Void Travel is the way the massive ships of Known Universe travel between systems and galaxies. At its core, it involves a ship moving from the Material Plane into the Void Plane, travel within that plane for some distance, and then return to the Material, wherein the distance traveled int he Material plane is greater than the distance that would've been travelled had it been done at htat speed for that duration of time in the Material Plane. that is, travelling through the Void Allows a ship to travel insane distances in relatively short amounts of time. The void can be thought of like a liquid. Within this liquid the void-creatures, including those which some religious people would call gods inhabit. Their movements, goings on, battles, conversations, etc create waves which reverberate throughout the void. From our perspective this plane is entirely like a liquid through which we travel, but for the entities who live in it, they perceive it akin to how we perceive our reality. They have cities, villages, towns, mountains, volcains, and an entire universe of their own within the Void. We are like flies fluttering through it, hoping not to get thrown off course by a 'God' (or average void person or creature) moving through it, nor getting caught up in their various actions. Their existence and size creates its own gravitational distortions, as previously mentioned their movements create waves, their constructions create impediments to travel, their dietary functions create storms, and so on and so forth. ![[Art/Generated Art/Federation/Flagship Attack/00012.png]] As well, the distance between two points does not map linearly between void-space and material-space. IE two points which are equal distance in Material-Space from a third may have a different set of distances in the Void. While relativity of travel times is an important aspect for computing void-travel routes, and a key part of being an astrogator, short of void-storms of other 'natural' phenomeon in the void, the times remain static. Thus the travel times between the three points talked about above remain constant, even if they don't map well onto Material reality in terms of distance. (It should be considered how this makes the choice between Warp drives which operate in the Material plane but are slower and Void drives which are faster but use the Void plane an interesting choice. Does the material geography of your empire matter, or does the void geography? it of course depends on what kind of drive your nation is using, but what happens when a war develops between nations who use different drive types? They open different strategic and tactical choices!) Thus while there are standardized routes through the Void, well mapped with fairly common and reliable timelines for travel, it is possible for storms or other disturbances to develop which means that void travel has a great degree of variability to it. Within this view, one of the major roles of Religion is to keep the gods at peace and immobile to prevent disruptions to void travel and trade. ![[Art/Generated Art/Federation/Federation battleship/00014.png]] Similarly, a mage drawing on power from the void creates a minor disruption, multiple mages in an area the greater disruption and trouble summoning forth power can become. The same holds true with lots of ships attempting to void transit in a singular area. Their relative sizes in the void may make it difficult for other ships to enter the void at times when a greater void-shadow is present, as it would either be unsafe or the ship is simply unable to draw on the necessary void energy to create the connection-portal between the planes. Once in the void and travelling through it, the ship itself is protected by two major forces: the void bubble in which it inhabits, and its void-shields. There is often also a tertiary protection of a priest or other religious member aboard whos job it is to deal with any supernatural threats to the ship or crew, or including the entities which come knocking on the crews souls. ![[Art/Generated Art/Federation/space fortress/00014.png]] The ship needs its void bubble because the void is the plane of pure creation. The raw energy of the universe and everything. If it touches something which is 'unpure', that is, something from outside this plane, it 'reclaims' the pure matter while leaving the ruined impurity in its wake. This works akin to a human in a bubble of air under water. The void drive essentially draws in pure void energy from around it at an extreme rate. it then channels that energy into massive power reservoirs/capacitors (which help determine the length of time the ship can spend in the void), into the ships engines allowing it to move at absolutely insane speeds, into the ships shields - especially the void shields discussed later - and into other systems. The end result is that ships wiring gets pushed to 100-110% for the entirety of the time that the ship is in void-space. This forces the ship to drop out of void space intermitted to discharge its capacitors, as well as to replace any burned out wiring or other systems due to the intensity of power flowing through them. But even if the void bubble were to momentarily collapse, the ship would be protected by its void-shields. These shields are different than those which ships use when in material-space, as their purpose is to hold the void off, not protect the ship from incoming attacks. The void shields are essentially a projection of pure void energy a few militeres beyond the edge of the void bubble, (which itself isn't spherical but ovular, such that the ship is more towards the front of the oval as sit accelerates, allowing it to consume incoming void-energy while expanding the bubble behind it with excess void energy, while granting it more space to use its engines allowing to achieve greater amounts of thrust) and serve to keep the void from pushing inwards without the ships control. While they do stop incoming attacks, they need to be dropped to utilize most sensors, weapons, launch shuttles, or basically do anything of note that isn't flying the ship along its present course. They essentially cut the ship off from everything but the small pocket of the material-plane that it has dragged into the void. Including cutting the ship off from the void. ![[00036.png]] However, the shields must be periodically dropped to confirm with the ships sensors that the ship is on the correct course in the void, that there are no storms on route, etc. While the shields are dropped, the sentient creatures of the void - not the pure energy but the things which inhabit that plane - begin to pester the ship. They don't understand it but they want to. They seek to play with it. They don't understand what we humans are. It is not that these creatures seek to hurt us, it is simply that by attempting to interact with us they hurt us. They attempt to enter the ship and take a form of their own, often a form which material-minds cannot comprehend and so breaks the person into a jibbering mess. Or else it might infect a persons mind, attempting to understand that person, and in the process completely transform their mind, shifting memories and ideas, concepts, and even brain operation. In some cases they completely physically modify the people or things they interact with. And they are drawn to those who themselves have a greater access to the powers of the void. This is where the priests, Jedi, mages, and other religious folk come into importance aboard void-ships, as a key part of their job is ensuring that while the shields are dropped, the ship is protected from these invaders. Even while the shields are up, the odd creature may be able to slip in and wreak havoc among the crew (the creature appearing in the few military gap. While rare, it is known to happen). it is in those moments that having a collection of priests who can work over the crew, along with ships counsellors and the like, to find those infected and help coax them back to the material. ![[Art/Generated Art/Federation/Flagship Attack/00014.png]] Thus void travel is of great risk. Things like void-gates, which operate by create a constantly shielded, stabilized in the void, bubble between two points are not without risk. Nor are those who have succeeded in placing ships or stations in the void for extended periods of times. Several groups of terrorist and rebels are noted to have done this. But the long term risks often far outweigh the benefits, that doesn't stop every power from keeping a handful of important research or other stations tucked away hidden in the void. Cleverly adapted to survive to each difficulty they might encounter. This is worth thinking about because it provides a number of points for adventure! First, it allows one trap a crew aboard a void-ship in a system. If say, a group of void-villagers who live relatively nearby to the system in void-space are having their seasonal hunt at the moment, it might make for bad 'weather' to enter the void under, thus making travel dangerous or impossible, and as said trapping a group in a system or region, otherwise preventing large or long scale jumps. As well, when one considers these things, pirates might like to spend time in a sector which has good shipping travelling through it, but regular storms. Similarly, pirates might find ways to interdict ships travelling through the void - say by creating a massive disruption in a location diverting ships to another route, or outright pulling ships from void space to be attacked.