Slipstream

Slipstream, also known as Streaming, Riding the rails, and FTL, is the only known way of traveling faster than light in the Andromeda Universe. Every race in the known worlds depends upon it for their economies and way of life in every social and political aspect. It was originally discovered approximately 10,000 years before the current era by a Vedran scientist.

A Gravity Field Generator drastically reduces the mass of the ship and then a slipstream drive opens a slip-point which the ship enters. The ship then catches onto the strings by means of slipstream runners. Once hooked onto the strings the pilot then navigates the series of slipstream "strings" until they reach the desired slip-point where they exit the slipstream. Since its discovery by the Vedrans, the slipstream has connected the galaxies together.

Slipstream space, or slipspace, subspace, or Shaw-Fujikawa space also refers to the eleven non-visible infinitesimal dimensions used for faster-than-light travel in the Halo Universe. Making a transition from one place to another via slipspace is known as a "slip" or "jump."

Slipspace is theorized as a "tangle" of our plane's dimensions, rather like taking the classic "flat sheet" used to represent gravity and crumpling it up into a ball, thereby creating extra dimensions and shorter spaces between points. To travel through slipspace, courses are plotted by navigating superfine patterns of quantum filaments. Then when inside slipspace, the ship must navigate various layers of slipspace until the ship reaches a locus that intersects with the intended destination.

The Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine allows ships to leave normal space and plow through slipspace. Slipspace drives use particle accelerators to rip apart normal space-time by generating micro black holes. These holes are evaporated via Hawking radiation in nanoseconds. The real quantum mechanical "magic" of the drive lies in how it manipulates these holes in space-time, squeezing vessels weighing thousands of tons into slipspace.

See also:

Slipstream

Slipstream space