Sphere drive

Principle and testing

Concentrated energy creates a four-dimensional sphere, from which higher-dimensional energy is extracted. Repeated solar-system tests below seventy percent of light speed show no anomaly. Deflection lasers protect the vessels against high-speed particle impacts.[1][2][3]

Instability

Above approximately seventy-five percent of light speed, energy input grows with velocity and creates a positive feedback loop. Brookes's spherical constant concealed this growth in submitted simulations. Formidable cannot shut down the drive after relays fuse; Echo uses the other ship's data to avoid permanent runaway acceleration.[1][2][3]

Later applications

During the later terraforming of Venus, machines using related higher-dimensional energy principles alter planetary rotation, and hyperspheres absorb impact heat.[4]

Operational risks

At high speed within a solar system, deflector lasers could be overwhelmed by the density of particles. Echo's desperate escape from the first hawk attack lasted three minutes, taking it over twelve million kilometers at seventy percent of light speed. A later journey to Cylli used twenty percent drive power and still worked the lasers beyond their rated tolerance.[5][6][7]

Refit

Cylli's yards installed a new drive in Echo with three times the former energy capacity and compensated for the increased hypersphere energy released above a critical velocity. Williams inferred that Brookes's own equations had warned of the possibility associated with Echo's temporal disaster. The remaining scorpion also received its own drive.[9]

Propulsion and limitations

Cylli upgraded Echo's three small vessels with individual sphere drives. The drive takes time to build speed, preventing a simple shuttle collision from supplying the carefully controlled lunar strike that Silver required. A short jump within a strong gravity well introduced dangerous variables and left Frey's scorpion tumbling over Iceland.[10][12]

Coercion and disarmament

Brookes linked a hawk's drive to a heartbeat monitor and voice command to deter resistance. After Cylli deceived him into space, she required him to jettison it before returning inside. Her weapons then destroyed the discarded drive at a distance.[11][13][14]

Related records

Sources

Simon Evans, The Flaxen Tyranny, first edition (2023). Page numbers refer to the printed pagination of the source edition.

1. Chapter 2 · pp. 8–14
2. Chapter 3 · pp. 19–22
3. Chapter 4 · pp. 25–29
4. Chapter 7 · pp. 51–52
5. Chapter 18 · pp. 156
6. Chapter 20 · pp. 163,168
7. Chapter 21 · pp. 169
8. Chapter 24 · pp. 195–196
9. Chapter 25 · pp. 209
10. Chapter 28 · pp. 228–231
11. Chapter 29 · pp. 238
12. Chapter 32 · pp. 257–259
13. Chapter 33 · pp. 273–274
14. Chapter 37 · pp. 307–308