Speculative Fact #297: I Need Warp Speed

Your story might require your characters to travel across star systems. The laws of nature are unfortunately inconvenient for science fiction writers. Not only is it physically impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, but even moving a craft close to that speed requires a large expenditure of energy. Given the vast distances involved, making us wait for tens of thousands of years until we reach our destination might suspend the storytelling beyond what we’re willing to endure.
            Luckily, nature has interesting loopholes that clever engineers can exploit. The alcubierre drive (named after the Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre) is a hypothetical FTL (faster than light) drive inspired by the warp drive of Star Trek. The trick involves warping the space around a spacecraft in a bubble. Unlike matter, the very fabric of space-time itself can expand or contract faster than light and “slide” a spacecraft to its destination.
            While an Alcubierre drive is far from a perfected technology, the challenges involved in designing such a drive could be part of your story’s conflict. Maybe such a drive interferes with conventional space travel and requires special travel lanes. Maybe warping space repeatedly causes unforeseen disruptions to the orbit of celestial bodies. Maybe such craft have to remain unmanned because it is too dangerous for a (human) crew.

-Jonathan Hernandez