Casual Interstellar Travel: Difference between revisions

 

 

* In ''The Essential [[Silver Surfer]]'' a villain wants to prove to Shalla Bal that Norrin Radd (the Surfer) is dead in order he can move in on her, so they pop across to Earth in his ship. Come to think of it, how did he even know where to go?

* Attempted and failed with ''[[The Smurfs]]'' in the story "The Astro Smurf". In both the comics and the cartoon episode, Astro Smurf/Dreamy attempts to travel to the stars by using a Smurf-made rocket ship where pedal power operates a propeller at the bottom of the rocket. Unfortunately, try as he did, the main character of the story was unable to get the rocket off the ground. The rest of the Smurfs decide to make Astro Smurf/Dreamy believe that the rocket was fixed and now works by taking him on a [[Fauxtastic Voyage]] to another planet which turns out to be the inside of an extinct volcano and disguising themselves as Schlips (Swoofs in the cartoon show). It was repeated in the cartoon show story sequel "Dreamy's Pen Pals", except that the Smurfs simply transformed the village into the Swoof Village by using stage props, but Brainy had cut corners on completing the complex formula for transforming the Smurfs into Swoofs, so they ended up changing back into Smurfs a bit too soon.

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[The Fifth Element]]'', star-hopping is apparently a common past-time of the rich and powerful, who think no more of vacationing on another planet (or as in the film, on cruise ship orbiting a planet) as their counterparts today would of seeing the Caribbean.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' is so completely based on this trope that it's really hard to come up with concrete examples. They're everywhere. Even the Death Star - large enough to be mistaken for a moon - goes traipsing around the galaxy freely. In the EU, people have worked out the speeds of Hyperdrive travel based on evidence in the movies and the EU, and a good course will get you across ''the galaxy'' in ''a week''. In the films, cross-galactic travel is accomplished in mere hours (unless you think Obi-Wan and Luke spent days and weeks on the ''Millenium Falcon'' on the trip from Tatooine (Outer Rim) to Alderaan (Core World). There's also Padme's trip from Coruscant (Core World) to Mustafar (Outer Rim).

* The first six ''[[Power Rangers]]'' seasons involved travel between ''galaxies'' in a time span ranging from seconds at the quickest (via teleportation) to a day or two via [[Transforming Mecha]] spaceship thanks to alien technology. Season seven did it at a more... reasonable in-galaxy-only pace (except for a notable incident involving a wormhole) due to using a human-built ship, and later seasons involving aliens avoid mention of distances whenever possible. When they ''do'', its always something like "several galaxies away".

* Everything in the ''[[Stargate Verse]]'', but especially the titular Stargate network.

* As mentioned in the trope description, ''[[Star Trek]]'' is not the best example of this trope... but it does have its moments. Apart from the Federation, assorted alien empires, and major shipping lines, you will occasionally come across an individual trader flying a small but [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|warp-capable]] vessel to ferry Tribbles or what-have-you around the galaxy. ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'''s Quark had an interstellar shuttle briefly, but it was a gift (and assassination attempt) from his ''much'' richer cousin. Swindler and smuggler Harry Mudd also had his own ship in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|The Original Series]]'' (which he paid for with counterfeit money), and private owners of small warp ships made appearances in a few ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episodes. So, an interstellar ship is the kind of thing the occasional well-off (or clever/lucky/dishonest) entrepreneur can afford, but not just anybody could get one. In metaphors, travelling between stars isn't as easy as getting a car, or even as easy as getting your own used single-engine Cessna, but it probably is as easy as getting your own small private jet.

* ''[[Farscape]]'' is a good example. All three subtropes of [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]] are present; [[Hand Wave|"Hetch Drive"]] is dirt cheap and available to everyone, [[Teleporters and Transporters|"Starburst"]] is available to [[Living Ship|Leviathans]], but [[Our Wormholes Are Different|wormholes]] - which act as a [[All the Myriad Ways|metadimensional]] [[Portal Network]] - can only be utilized with the assistance of [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]s, which they [[You Are Not Ready|don't give lightly]] for [[Apocalypse How|really]] [[Weapon of Mass Destruction|good]] [[Divide by Zero|reasons]].

* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' both plays straight and subverts this trope. While there is enough cargo traffic to keep entire [[City Planet|hive worlds]] fed, watered, and supplied, interstellar travel, especially civilian interstellar travel on ships that rely on charts instead of Navigators, tends to be (relatively) slow, and [[Fate Worse Than Death|very]] [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|dangerous]]. The Tau method is much less dangerous, but even slower. Neither Chaos, Tyranids, nor Orks likely care about the wait or dangers as long as they have someone to kill ([[Horde of Alien Locusts|or eat]]) at the destination, and the trope is played straight by Eldar and Necrons, who either get there through a portal network, use [[Hand Wave|inertial drives]], or are [[Sealed Evil in a Can|already there]]. A lot of the earlier material often states that a ship CAN jump from one end of the galaxy to the other in the space of a few weeks... from the point of view of the ship. To an outsider, that ship will be gone for months, if not ''years''. Some sources also state it can take up to a week to get from a world to a 'safe' spot where you can enter the Warp, thus extending transit time quite considerably.

* ''[[Fading Suns]]'' has ''very'' casual travel thanks to the Jumpgates left by the <s>dead</s> <s>ascended</s> mysteriously absent [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]s. Society may be feudal thanks to the Church (Catholics IN SPACE), but getting to the next system over is as simple as puttering out to the jumpgate in your thousand-year-old ship and popping through. Also, we are told that if you ever GO BEYOND the gate (i.e. go into interstellar space), you will be assaulted by demonic creatures, plagues or demonic plague creatures. That's right, go too far beyond the light of a star and you are ''attacked by demons''. It fits snugly beside the Church's declaration that 'technology is evil' - except starships, computers, blaster guns (heaven forbid), personal energy shields, medical scanners, healing serum, planes, phones, lights, satellites, space stations, jumpgates, hovercars, SAM launchers, grenades, gravity emitters....

 

== Video Games ==

** The Covenant FTL technology is much more refined, although they have nothing to do with it. They have merely used [[Precursor|Forerunner]] technology as it is. In an [[Expanded Universe]] novel, [[Voice with an Internet Connection|Cortana]] compares human Shaw-Fujicawa FTL drives and the Covenant ones to a blunt instrument and a scalpel, respectively. Human ships almost literally punch a large hole in space/time into slipspace. The power requirements are enormous. Covenant drives cut a tiny slit in space, which massively reduces their power costs, vastly decreases their travel times, and allows them to exit slipspace with pinpoint accuracy. It's also heavily implied that humans could easily improve on the Covenant tech if they got their hands on it. Every Covenant ship captured in the novels gets conveniently destroyed before it can be brought back for study.

* ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'', FTL there is ''ludicrously'' fast. The fact that series' events unfold not in one, but ''three'' [[A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away|Galaxies Far Far Away]] should make speeds' monstrosity fairly obvious. [[MST3K Mantra|But then again]], it's all for [[Rule of Fun|fun]], not any kind of realism.

* Ten thousand credits will net your civilian clunker a jump drive, with a mere 50 creds per landing to refuel, in ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Privateer]]''. ''Privateer 2'' doesn't even bother with the cost of a jump drive, it's built in to all ships.

* [[Descent]] 2 starts the game telling you that you have been kept on retainer for 'up to 72 hours'. In that time you manage to travel to several different planets and destroy lots of robots.

* Subverted in ''[[Freefall]]'' they ''do'' have FTL, known as the [[Fun with Acronyms|Dangerous And Very Expensive]] drive. All but the very rich<ref>the "Expensive" in the name isn't there just for acronym value</ref> are stuck with [[Generation Ships]].

* In the ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' [[Story Arc]] "GOFOTRON: Champion of the Cosmos" space travel within the Punyverse seems to be quite easy. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] since, unlike our universe, the hundred or so solar systems in the Punyverse are all bundled up right next to each other.

 

== Web Original ==