Space Travel

Sub-light Drive
Orginal long distance space travel used Sub-light Fusion Drives. This required hypersleep chambers for the crew to survive the journey which was dangerous. Eventually the Paxia Empire developed the Hawking Warp Drive.

Hawking Warp Drive
Based on the theoretical ideas of prominent physicist Miguel Alcubierre, the final drive technology was named after the more famous Stephen Hawking.

The Hawking Drive ships were huge vessels had to be capable of continuously generating quantities of negative-mass exotic matter (which decayed quickly), but also to then to use that exotic matter in their Hawking drives. The Hawking Drives warp the space around the craft, compressing space in front of the craft and expanding it behind the craft, making faster-than-light travel a reality. Without faster-than-light communication systems, the ships also carried all information, and therefore all communications, between systems as well.

By controlling the ships (and the technology and substantial resources needed to build and operate them), the Paxia Empire maintained its firm control of the stars and made sure no one else developed technology that could take that control away from them.

Exo Warp Drive
With the new exotic material discovered in the wake of the Astral Cataclysm Exo Warp Drives have started replacing the Hawking Warp Drive.