idea of 'hyperspace'. Instead, the fold consists of an unknown number of regionally limited pockets outside of real-space (also: normspace) created by the gravity wells of (inter)stellar objects. In effect, a foldspace pocket can be pictured as a double-walled shell in which, depending on drive core strength and integrity, speeds in excess of several thousand times the speed of light can be attained. The boundary of the 'inner wall' is marked by the pocket's gravitational center (usually a star) in which the gravitic shear becomes too great for Malenkov-Okuda engines and their compensators to function. The outer boundary is equally unstable and exposed to outside forces, primarily other foldspace pockets.
Integral to interstellar travel in the fold is the Mannheimer Effect : gravity wells in foldspace act, in layman's terms, like magnets towards one another. Foldspace pockets will always try to create links between each other, thereby creating overlapping and interconnected gravity fields and, ultimately, foldspace corridors. The largest known foldspace corridors have an extent of a dozen light-years across, the smallest permanent ones range can be as limited as twenty thousand kilometers.
A transition in and out of the fold is only safely possible outside the immediate gravity well of a star. For example, ships equipped with commercial compensators for their Malenkov-Okuda drives, trying to transition into the Sol System, can only do so at distances from the sun exceeding the orbit of Mars by roughly eleven million kilometers. A transition in and out of real-space any closer than that carries with it an exponential risk of catastrophic drive failure and therefore the loss of ship and crew due to distortions in the stellar gravity field. Military drive compensators have higher tolerances. In 2761 C.E. the Sino-Japanese light cruiser, A.N.S. WHUZAN managed a transition to real-space one and a quarter million kilometers rimward from Mars but needed a complete drive overhaul afterwards.
Encyclopaedia Galactica, 2792 C.E.
C H A P T E R 2
Camp MacArthur
Commonwealth of Mars, North American Union.
April, 2796 C.E.
Located a hundred kilometers to the north-east of Olympus Mons, the Sol system's highest mountain, Camp MacArthur and the sixteen domes spanning the city of Aldrin, with its hundred and twenty thousand people, were a monument to humanity's determination to seed the stars with life. Spreading out in all four cardinal directions smaller domes covered the harsh landscape of the red planet surrounding Aldrin. Farms and science stations and local atmospheric converters made up the lion's share of these. Mag-rail lines crossed the barren wastes on high pylons, connecting the settlement with hundreds of others all over the Martian surface.
Fifty million people called the Red Planet their home. It was still too cold outside to leave the safety of pressurized settlements without thermosuits, and the density of the Martian atmosphere left a lot to be desired, to put it mildly. Nonetheless, life was spreading on Mars, slowly but surely. Resistant algae had made the beginning, followed by the dark green fern that now grew in the valley, reaching deep into the ground where water could be found. A few decades ago the colonial administration had begun to plant genetically manipulated Siberian taiga trees. Their small groves also could be found all over Mars' surface now. It'd still be a century or more before people would be able to walk in the open, without rebreathers. But Mars would become a green world, eventually.
Camp MacArthur, named not after the hero of the Second World War but a Union president from the 26 th century, was a town within a town. The military base had a separate energy and water supply, operated community centers, a hospital and a courier landing pad for atmosphere-capable starships. And old-school
Integral to interstellar travel in the fold is the Mannheimer Effect : gravity wells in foldspace act, in layman's terms, like magnets towards one another. Foldspace pockets will always try to create links between each other, thereby creating overlapping and interconnected gravity fields and, ultimately, foldspace corridors. The largest known foldspace corridors have an extent of a dozen light-years across, the smallest permanent ones range can be as limited as twenty thousand kilometers.
A transition in and out of the fold is only safely possible outside the immediate gravity well of a star. For example, ships equipped with commercial compensators for their Malenkov-Okuda drives, trying to transition into the Sol System, can only do so at distances from the sun exceeding the orbit of Mars by roughly eleven million kilometers. A transition in and out of real-space any closer than that carries with it an exponential risk of catastrophic drive failure and therefore the loss of ship and crew due to distortions in the stellar gravity field. Military drive compensators have higher tolerances. In 2761 C.E. the Sino-Japanese light cruiser, A.N.S. WHUZAN managed a transition to real-space one and a quarter million kilometers rimward from Mars but needed a complete drive overhaul afterwards.
Encyclopaedia Galactica, 2792 C.E.
C H A P T E R 2
Camp MacArthur
Commonwealth of Mars, North American Union.
April, 2796 C.E.
Located a hundred kilometers to the north-east of Olympus Mons, the Sol system's highest mountain, Camp MacArthur and the sixteen domes spanning the city of Aldrin, with its hundred and twenty thousand people, were a monument to humanity's determination to seed the stars with life. Spreading out in all four cardinal directions smaller domes covered the harsh landscape of the red planet surrounding Aldrin. Farms and science stations and local atmospheric converters made up the lion's share of these. Mag-rail lines crossed the barren wastes on high pylons, connecting the settlement with hundreds of others all over the Martian surface.
Fifty million people called the Red Planet their home. It was still too cold outside to leave the safety of pressurized settlements without thermosuits, and the density of the Martian atmosphere left a lot to be desired, to put it mildly. Nonetheless, life was spreading on Mars, slowly but surely. Resistant algae had made the beginning, followed by the dark green fern that now grew in the valley, reaching deep into the ground where water could be found. A few decades ago the colonial administration had begun to plant genetically manipulated Siberian taiga trees. Their small groves also could be found all over Mars' surface now. It'd still be a century or more before people would be able to walk in the open, without rebreathers. But Mars would become a green world, eventually.
Camp MacArthur, named not after the hero of the Second World War but a Union president from the 26 th century, was a town within a town. The military base had a separate energy and water supply, operated community centers, a hospital and a courier landing pad for atmosphere-capable starships. And old-school
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