39,327
edits
Casual Interstellar Travel: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (Mass update links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 21:
* Variation in ''[[Lyrical Nanoha|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', which has Casual ''[[The Multiverse|Interdimensional]]'' Travel. It looks and acts just like your typical Casual Interstellar Travel, complete with [[Cool Starship|Cool Starships]] traveling through what looks like hyperspace, only they don't have to worry about [[Real Life]] distances between planets and tend to teleport people down to the surface rather than leave hyperspace and land. It's mostly done through [[Science Fantasy|magic]]. The "casual" part is subverted, since only [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] individuals with magical powers can casually travel interdimensionally, regular Earthlings [[The Masquerade|don't even know]] of the existence of magic and other worlds. Even these individuals need to get permission from the [[The Federation|Dimensional Administration Bureau]].
* In the [[Hentai]] OVA ''[[Bondage Queen Kate]]'', traveling to the far reaches of the galaxy is portrayed as being no more taxing than visiting another country is for humans today. The desert planet of Dune is known as a popular tourist destination.
* ''[[
* In one episode of ''[[
Line 56:
* ''Glasshouse'' by [[Charles Stross]] has interstellar teleportation, though as the characters are practically [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Sufficiently Advanced Humans]] this may be unsurprising.
* "The Road Not Taken", a short story by [[Harry Turtledove]], is the uber-example of this trope. It posits that anti-gravity and hyper-drive are easy to discover, but lead societies away from further advances. So the galaxy is populated by a bunch of species who all have ''interstellar'' [[Global Airship|Global Airships]], - and black-powder muskets '''at best'''. One such species tries to invade Earth with disastrous (for them) results.
* In the ''[[
** Especially if you can't use a Junction transit, which can shave ''months'' off of a trip.
* In the ''[[Dune]]'' Chronicles, the only mode of interstellar travel is through the Spacing Guild, which has a monopoly on interstellar travel. This is justified in-story by a religion-based ban on computers (justified in-universe), which means that only the Guild's Navigators (who live in tanks of concentrated spice and have been physically and mentally mutated by it to the point of being [[Starfish Aliens]]) are capable of piloting a ship through hyperspace without it being destroyed. As such, more than a few characters complain about that monopoly and the high cost of that travel. However, by Heretics of ''[[Dune]]'', Ix has truly broken the monopoly by skirting around the Butlerian Jihad's conventions and producing machines that could substitute for the Guild's prescience.
** In the ''Legends of Dune'' prequel trilogy, the pre-Guild interstellar travel is more in line with this trope. The League of Nobles spaceports are always bustling with activity. While the books [[Hand Wave]] how interstellar travel is achieved without FTL drives while still able to cross the vast distances between stars in ''weeks''. In fact, it is clearly stated several times that it would take a month to travel between Selusa Secundus, the League capital world, and Corrin, the central [[Robot War|Synchronized World]].
* In Jerry Oltion's ''The Getaway Special'' and its sequel ''Anywhere But Here'', a [[Mad Scientist]] invents a faster than light teleportation drive that runs on car batteries and can be built with parts from Radio Shack for about $200. The only limitation on the drive is that it cannot jump "into" another mass - even atmosphere. Launch from anywhere, deorbit with parachutes. Result: extrasolar colonization in RVs! And Homeland Security breaking up extrasolar trailer parks with [[Colony Drop|Colony Drops]]...
* ''[[Commonwealth Saga|Pandora's Star]]'' by [[
** The ''Void Trilogy'', set 1500 years after ''Pandora's Star'', has a lot more spaceships. There are commercial spaceships, the Commonwealth Navy, and private spaceships. Think of them as [[Space Is an Ocean|like ships nowadays]]: the biggest and most efficient are company or government owned, but there is a significant number of leisure yachts.
** From the same author: In what is likely the most extreme example of this trope, the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Kiint]] from the ''[[Nights Dawn|Night's Dawn Trilogy]]'' have {{spoiler|the capability to teleport instantly [[Up to Eleven|across multiple]] ''galaxies'' at a moment's notice}}. In the same trilogy, regular space travel is available and people own private starships, but it's still difficult enough that it couldn't be used to effectively reduce the population pressure on Earth.
Line 67:
* Parodied in all ''[[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' media. Hyperspace is treated in a manner similar to the highway system is on Earth (which is why the Earth is destroyed in the first place). The infamous Infinite Improbability Drive used by the protagonists allows for travel over ridiculously vast distances with some rather trippy side effects if you don't happen to be in the cabin. In a later book, Interstellar travel that is even ''faster'' than the IID is facilitated via ''a cafe''.
* [[Andre Norton]]'s science fiction books feature Free Traders who travel from star to star carrying trade items. Their ships use a [[FTL]] drive that allows interstellar travel in a few days.
* ''[[The Mote in
* [[
* ''[[The History of the Galaxy]]'' novels, while mainly focused on the military, make no secret that it's ridiculously easy for any private citizen to obtain a FTL-capable ship. Travel time can be anything from a few minutes to hours and days (no longer than that, usually), depending on how deep into [[Subspace or Hyperspace|Hypersphere]] a ship is capable and the pilot is willing to go (the deeper the faster). It gets to the ridiculous extent that a previously-unknown race of [[Human Aliens]] is able to purchase a battlefleet online along with enough [[Humongous Mecha]] to wage a war on humanity.
* In [[Sergey Lukyanenko]]'s ''[[Line of Delirium]]'' trilogy, being very loosely based on ''[[
* In Mikhail Akhmanov's ''[[Arrivals From the Dark]]'' series, this trope is played straight for some alien races, but not humans. In the first novel, humanity doesn't even have FTL drives. In subsequent books, only the military has FTL-capable starships. However, the rapid expansion of humanity makes it clear that humans will play this trope straight eventually. Contour drives require little energy and can transport a ship anywhere in the galaxy nearly instantly, although no one has ever tried such a long jump, as even small jumps require extremely precise calculations. Jumps are usually done in series.
** Averted in Akhmanov and Christopher Gilmore's ''Captain French, or Looking for Paradise'', where interstellar travel is achieved via a relativistic drive that feels like a fraction of a second for anyone in the ship but takes decades in real time. While humanity has settled dozens of worlds, colonization is a costly venture that only governments on rich planets can afford, usually when overpopulation becomes an issue. The only people for whom space travel is routine are space traders, including the titular protagonist. Due to this, space traders are greeted on almost every populated world and treated as royalty. Without them, there would be no interaction between planets. Even interstellar communication is a rarity, as it requires large orbital transmitters and receivers to be set up and maintained, and any message would still take years to arrive. Even with this, a ship still has to travel for months under normal power in order to get away from deep gravity wells, as they mess up calculations. It is also risky, as a jump can deposit the ship near a star or inside a planet. There are, probably, no more than several hundred space traders in this 'verse.
Line 77:
* [[Sergey Lukyanenko]]'s two-part novel ''[[The Stars Are Cold Toys]]'' is premised on humans discovering [[FTL Travel]] in the early 21st century, resulting in most countries having their own space programs and American space shuttles and Russian ''Buran'' spacecraft lifting off into space using the usual means and then activating the jumper device, which instantly sends a ship slightly over 12 light years in a given direction. The distance is always constant. By sheer coinsidence, the first interstellar jump results in humanity encountering the Conclave, a conglomerate of alien races ruling this part of the galaxy. Unfortunately, there is a strict hierarchy between the Strong and Weak races, and humanity is classified as the latter. The alien method of FTL travel are considerably slower, often taking months, although they still fit this trope. Then you have the {{spoiler|[[Human Aliens|Geometers]]}}, who have managed to combine both technologies into a highly-efficient method of interstellar travel to the point where moving entire star systems isn't that big a deal.
** The human jumper has the added bonus of only allowing humans to survive the jump with their sanity intact, which is good for humans, as the Conclave has a habit of destroying races that serve no useful purpose to it (even if they don't pose a threat). The greatest fear is aliens learning to survive the jump, and all pilots have standing orders to destroy the ship in the event this happens (they may even choose the means to do so: self-destruct, fry the jumper which earns you a slow death, or enter into an uncontrollable series of [[Blind Jump|Blind Jumps]] until you run out of power). Oh, and humans feel the greatest high possible when jumping.
* Played mostly straight in ''[[
== Live Action TV ==
Line 84:
* Everything in the ''[[Stargate Verse]]'', but especially the titular Stargate network.
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined|Battlestar Galactica]]'' sports at least one use of this almost every episode. While not every ship has FTL capabilities, most modern ones are outfitted; civilian and military. The FTL drives are used to skip across space for reasons such as: running away from offenders ([[Ahem]], {{spoiler|CYLONS}}.), scouting out areas of space, or just quicker travel. Granted, the ships that didn't have FTL were quickly destroyed in the genocide.
* As mentioned in the trope description, ''[[
* ''[[
* In ''[[Andromeda]]'', people could travel between ''galaxies'' in small fighters and courier ships.
** Also, because of how Slipstream FTL works, which has something to do with probability, and sentience, and, um... [[A Wizard Did It|"Quantum"]], the more a route is traveled, the faster and easier to navigate it becomes. This would make Casual Travel even cheaper the more people do it.
** It's clearly stated the luck is the biggest factor in slipstream travel. A lucky pilot can cross galaxies in minutes, while an unlucky one can take months to get to the nearby system. Since machines (even AIs) can't guess, they can't use slipstream at all, unless they... [[Brain In
== Puppet Shows ==
* ''[[Fireball
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Alternity]]'''s ''[[
* Varies slightly with ''[[
* ''[[Traveller]]''. Starships could travel up to 6 parsecs (19.6 light years) per week regardless of how powerful the ship was, and people routinely took interstellar trips the way we take ocean cruises today.
** That's only partially true. Only the very fastest ships can do six parsecs. Jump engines take up space and a privately owned vessel usually can't afford more then 3 parsecs. Most [[Space Trucker|Free Traders]] can only do Jump-1 with a few doing Jump-2. Large merchants as well usually are Jump-1 to make room for cargo.
* ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[Fading Suns]]'' has ''very'' casual travel thanks to the Jumpgates left by the <s>dead</s> <s>ascended</s> mysteriously absent [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]]. 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....
Line 114:
** And at the end of ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', Shepard destroys the [[Eldritch Abomination|Reapers']] backup plan. Their response is to just fly back into the galaxy from darkspace. That's right, the Reapers have Casual '''Intergalactic''' Travel, which further emphasizes just how much more advanced the millions-of-years-old Reapers are compared to even the most advanced galactic races. The ''Arrival'' DLC shows that the Reapers can get from far outside the galaxy to the edges of the Milky Way in a very short time. They were smart enough not to put all their eggs in one basket. The third game's codex says that while the best non-relay FTL the Citadel races has is between 12 and 14 LY per day, the Reapers can go 30 LY in a day... and their unknown power source doesn't have that lethal static discharge due to whatever unknown fuel source they have.
* ''[[Halo]]'', to an extent. FTL travel is relatively slow for humans (about 4 LY/day), but also pretty cheap. And since the UNSC has mastered terraforming, most of the UNSC's colonies are within about a month's travel.
** 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
* ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'', FTL there is ''ludicrously'' fast. The fact that series' events unfold not in one, but ''three'' [[A Long Time Ago in
* The ''[[Star Ocean]]'' games involve travel through something that looks like outer space, but is much much easier to get around in. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in that the games takes place within a 4-dimensional [[MMORPG]], and it's only natural that the programmers would design their universe-powering game engine's physics to include FTL if they wanted a science fiction game. Yes, it's quite [[Meta Fiction|metafictional]].
* Ten thousand credits will net your civilian clunker a jump drive, with a mere 50 creds per landing to refuel, in ''[[Wing Commander (
* [[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.
* Played straight in ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]''. Until the arrival of the Vasari, the Trade Order was a loose group of worlds, where most of the interstellar trading was done by civilians. With the start of the Vasari conquest, the Trade Order reformed into the Trade Emergency Coalition. However, you can still build trade stations in space that automatically spawn trade ships (that you can't control), which prowl the phase lanes between planets and stars.
* With the addition of trading to ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'', it's clear that this is the case with the case with the traders. Instead of assigning them to a specific system, they are instead assigned to a sector that includes one or more systems. They then travel from system to system, increasing the empire's revenue. It's not entirely clear how the [[Bee People|Hivers]] trade with systems not joined with their [[Portal Network]], but the game just [[Hand Waves]] this.
* [[Elite]] and its sequels treat the hyperdrive like this however [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|there is nowhere near enough]] [[Fridge Logic|space traffic as in universe sources would suggest.]]
* Particularly in the later games in the ''[[X (
* Likewise ''[[Escape Velocity]]''. A basic cargo shuttle costs maybe ten to twenty grand.
== Web Comics ==
* Interstellar travel was already pretty casual in ''[[
* ''[[
* Subverted in ''[[
* In the ''[[
* ''[[
== Web Original ==
| |||