I know my book is going to involve people in spaceships flying from one solar system to another all willy nilly and higgledy piggledy. I thought it would be a good idea to nail down some specifics as to how they accomplish that feat. I have decided that the FTL of choice is hyperdrive, essentially a form of interstellar teleportation with many big words camouflaging the obvious logical flaws.

So, here I present a listing of the rules of hyperspace as I conceive them to be. If anyone sees any disbelief-destroying mistakes, point them out.

1. Hyperdrive allows travel between points in space at a monumental reduction in travel time.
   
2. To those traveling via hyperspace, the trip seems to be instantaneous.
   
3. The trip is not, in fact, instantaneous.
   
4. The ship always arrives at a time later than when it left.
   
5. How much later is unpredictable. It is not dependent on distance traveled. It could take a day to cross the galaxy, and a month to the next nearest star.
   
6. Hyperspace can be thought of as an ocean, the surface of which is our three-dimensional universe. Objects on the surface deform it, pushing it downward, in the direction of the fourth dimension, usually without penetrating it. The effect is commonly called gravity.
   
7. Hyperspace exerts a force on anything that enters it, trying to push it back out into normal space.
   
8. In order to make the transition from normal space into hyperspace, a ship’s hyperdrive generates an artificial gravity spike that overcomes the buoyancy force and drives the ship along the fourth dimension and beneath the surface of existence. The visual effect is that the ship shrinks until it disappears from view.
   
9. The deeper into hyperspace a ship can penetrate at the moment of entry, the farther it can travel before being buoyed back into normal space, and the sooner it arrives at its destination.
   
10. The expensive way to accomplish this is to expend additional energy when diving into hyperspace.
    
11. The cheap way is to begin the journey at the bottom of an existing gravity well; in other words, as close to a sun or similar object as possible.
    
12. Early hyperdrive designs required a sundive for proper operation.
    
13. If a ship traveling trough hyperspace encounters a gravity well deeper than its own current depth, it will emerge into normal space at that point. The longer the trip, the closer the ship skirts the edge of reality, and therefore the smaller a gravity well is required to cause this. Entering a solar system will usually do it.
    
14. It is impossible to navigate within hyperspace, as there is no passage of time with which to perform any actions. The destination is chosen prior to entering hyperspace.
    
15. The point at which the ship will emerge from hyperspace is determined by a combination of its position and velocity at the moment of entry, and the shape of the gravity spike, not to mention the conditions within hyperspace and any extraneous gravitational effects that might get involved. It is slightly more difficult to get right than playing pool using a football field as the table, on a moonless night, during an earthquake, while wearing boxing gloves, with no billiard balls or cue sticks.
    
16. Anyone looking outside a ship when it enters hyperspace will arrive at the destination completely, irrevocably insane. This is a known problem called jump psychosis, and measures are taken to prevent it. No known species is immune to the effect
    03:45 PM | Prose In Progress