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It seems some people (including myself) don't like the idea that traveling in the Drift causes chunks of other planes to be pulled into the Drift.
A thought I had [and there's no guarantee that it's an original thought]: What if it isn't traveling through the Drift that causes problems, but that the Drift is pulling pieces of other places into itself whether or not travel happens?
Another thought to add to that one: What if Drift beacons stabilize the Drift and make it less likely to pull in chunks of other planes, at least nearby?
It wouldn't help those who dislike the idea that the Drift pulls in other planes at all, but it might be a way to keep the same mechanics for the Drift without causing angst to Good-aligned characters who don't want to help destroy the multiverse.
Maybe it's not always a hit or miss thing, suppose that (in your version of Starfinder universe), there are specific long-distance travel routes that won't cause planar breaches. (Maybe there's nothing left over there to tear away, or the hypergeometry of the planes makes it possible to avoid a rip altogether).
Anyway, these travel routes will become well-known as event-free flights that can be made. Naturally, travelers of all sorts will want to know where these safe routes are
Enterprising explorers will work hard collecting these safe routes and publishing them (whether for profit or not). Some people will be very famous for their well-detailed and comprehensive travel maps. Others...not so much. It's not just a matter of cataloguing all the black holes, neutron stars, and other bad stuff that would ruin your day if you got too close. A few of the safe routes are fairly straightforward and simple, with not many waypoints or course corrections. But other safe routes (especially those that wander near the galactic core or stray too close to a stellar cluster) require a lot of precise and well-timed course changes to avoid the 'crash zones' where planar breaches have a higher probability of being triggered.
Very brave and well-funded rsk takers will devote their lives to going around trying to discover a new long distance safe route (which is pretty hard to do these days, but it does happen). Occasionally some child prodigy will discover a new safe route or two purely by mathematical analysis of the existing safe route network. Newer safe routes tend to be highly convoluted and sometimes not very useful, since they don't always start or end anywhere near some truly interesting or important star system. But there are 'path finders' who love charting new safe routes as a end unto itself.
As well, there'll be scammers who will sell fake maps, or they'll steal your collection or remote encrypt it with a virus, and hold it for ransom. A starship crew out on the frontier and suddenly deprived of their long range safe route map may have to crawl their way back to civilized space if they're in bad enough shape they wouldn't be able to handle a planar breach random encounter with who-knows-what. In more reputable circles, you can pay for a subscription to any of several drift route services to receive free updates.
Travel maps occasionally need updating. All things change over time, including the hypergeometry of planar boundaries. Consequently, routes previously thought of as safe will slightly become more risky; others less so. In very rare instances a safe route is pinched shut by planar tectonics and becomes a crash zone. In other instances a previous "no-go" route will become safe. Such occurrences may happen once every few years or so. It's not as if everyone's route maps become obsolete overnight, but a map that's been dug up from a few centuries ago is unlikely to be reliable. Similarly, it might not be very effective to try to time travel into the future to steal someone's more advanced safe route map, because many of their routes won't even exist yet. (But if you could do that, you might be able to position some assets to take advantage of those new safe routes for when they do open up...eventually.)
"You have been waylaid..." - Baldur's Gate
There certainly can be distrust of the Drift simply because an artificial intelligence gifted it to all. This "gift" disrupts the natural world and can sometimes pit natural beings against each other.
Thanks, Cyberdyne.
Can you say...the Warp?
Can you say...the Warp?
The Warp is where all your dead guys go until you can get them back at the beginning of your turn. Or with a Mobius Tubes.
Ha! I was making a joke about it being a 40K knock-off, but this amuses me too.
If your going to change the nature of or ditch the Drift entirely.
I'd suggest something like Wing Commander's Jump-points.
Just call them Drift-points and you can still keep the word "Drift".
If your going to change the nature of or ditch the Drift entirely.
I'd suggest something like Wing Commander's Jump-points.
Just call them Drift-points and you can still keep the word "Drift".
How about using the Elemental Plane of Time?
I'm not familiar with either of those ideas. Do those have the concept of random encounters from various planes during travel, and with long jumps having a higher likelihood of encounters than small jumps?
In some iterations, the First World has the timeless trait.
It would be interesting if the machine god appropriated big chunks of the First World to make the Drift so that it allowed travel faster than light, and kind of comedic too, since the cold metal of technology and the wild nature of the fey and their druidic allies are philosophical opponents.
If your going to change the nature of or ditch the Drift entirely.
I'd suggest something like Wing Commander's Jump-points.
Just call them Drift-points and you can still keep the word "Drift".
How about using the Elemental Plane of Time?I'm not familiar with either of those ideas. Do those have the concept of random encounters from various planes during travel, and with long jumps having a higher likelihood of encounters than small jumps?
If ported directly no, Wing Commander's "Jump", wouldn't have random encounters based on Jump distance. The Jump Drive of wing Commander is similar to the FTL drive from New Battlestar Galactic, it's a near instantaneous point to point transit;however in Wing Commander the Jumps are tied to naturally warps in space.
However with a few tweak it could work.
Suppose that the Jump Process is no longer nigh-instantaneous, the amount of time required to make the transit could be a matter of fuel spent,drive rating/strength,pre-jump calculations which depend on either a Navcom or a living Navigator.
To further complicate things once a Jump has been initiated it's impossible to drop out or go back, you have to keep on going until you reach the opposite jump point.
With navigation being important to the Jump, a badly plotted jump could send a ship into oblivion or bring it close enough to other planes that the inhabitants could attack it.