[hider=Jump Drives] From: [i]The Halladay Primer[/i] … facts relevant to the application of Gershwin-Kekoa drives. Although each manufacturer makes its own proprietary version, the Gershwin-Kekoa drive (GKD) forms the basis of all interstellar travel. Developed on Earth before the collapse the process of jump travel has remained relatively unchanged over the centuries with the primary innovations laying within the realm of navigation and efficiency. In essence a GK drive functions by a form of quantum tunneling which allows a vessel to super position itself along a continually expanding plane through four dimensional space time. Although instantaneous point to point travel is theoretically possible, the practical energy requirements of such a procedure are too immense to be practical. Rather, vessels use existing gradients usually those created by extremely massive celestial bodies such as stars and black holes. The massive gravitational points distort space time into folds or troughs, along which the tunneling effect of GK drives is logarithmically more efficient. Vessels are able to use known gravity wells to jump from system to system instantaneously, through arrival points are usually several hours or days from stellar bodies. The gravity gradient grows too rapidly as one closes in on a major mass and the risk of collision grows faster than computational differentiation can account for. Jumping in this fashion generates an enormous amount of waste heat due to intersitatil friction with quantum foam. In order for the crew and indeed the vessel to survive, extended cooling periods are needed between jumps for the disposal of waste heat. Paradoxically big ships are more efficient at shedding heat due to their large surface areas. Smaller ships often employ dedicated heat syncs in order to manage the load. While cooling can be achieved in space, dipping into an atmosphere can decrease the cool down time by days given the increased effectiveness of convection of air or other appropriate liquids. Nebula of sufficient density are also highly prized resources for this exact reason. The result of this system is that space is accessible via a web of charted jump points. Ships hop from system to system at a speed equivalent to their cooling capacity and along the shortest routes available to them. Due to the clustering effect at the center of the galaxy it is functionally faster to travel in wards from the spiral arms than to …. [i]End of Excerpt.[/i] [/hider]