Hypersphere (The History of the Galaxy)

Hypersphere is a spatial anomaly that exists alongside the "normal" space-time continuum in the "The History of the Galaxy" series of novels by Russian science fiction writer Andrey Livadny. Similar to hyperspace in the TV series "Babylon 5", hypersphere allows pseudo-FTL travel.

Human Discovery

The anomaly was discovered by humans in the 29th century, when humanity's first extrasolar colony ship vanished near the edge of the Solar system. Careful readings confirmed that the ship was "sucked" into the hypersphere. It was not long before a generator was invented that "submerged" a craft into the anomaly or, rather, punched a hole between three-dimensional space and hypersphere. Even after successful hyper-probe tests, the nature of hypersphere was barely understood by scientists.

Every large spatial object (i.e. a star or a planet) emits "force-lines" of two kinds: horizontal, which act as connecting lines to other stellar bodies, and vertical, which lead "deeper" into the hypersphere. A ship travelling along a horizontal force-line could rapidly travel to the other end of the line, typically located in another system. While travel is not restricted to these lines, ships can easily get "lost" without a force-line to guide it. As normal stellar objects do not exist in hypersphere, it was, at first, impossible for a ship's crew to determine their "normal space" location from the hypersphere. Ships were, essentially, flying blind, and many were lost to accidents (e.g. "surfacing" inside a star or a planet). Eventually, mass detectors were invented to allow the crews to get a vague idea of what lay on the "outside". These mass detectors worked on a proved hypersphere law: "Every horizontal or vertical of hypersphere pressure corresponds to a real object in three-dimensional space, whose mass is directly proportional to the energy potential of its projection in the anomaly."

Communication was also a problem prior to the development of hyper-communicators, and the first extrasolar colonies were left to their own devices. Apparently, any message sent through hypersphere came through without any packet loss whatsoever.

Alien Use of Hypersphere

After humanity encountered other alien races, they discovered that human methods of travel were the most efficient. Neither the Insects nor the Logrians ever managed to invent hyperdrives that could fit on a ship. Instead, they used large hyper-gates to allow their ships to travel from one to another. This, unfortunately, required them to travel to a destination at sub-light speeds, at first, to set up a gate. There were, however, advantages to using hyper-gates instead of ships - hyper-gates could be built planetside and allow passengers to transport from planet to planet without ships. Also, many of the hazards of travelling on a ship through Hypersphere are eliminated by the use of gates, as the person or ship entering a gate then travels along a set path leading to the target gate.

Structure of Hypersphere

Hypersphere consists of 10 energy levels (or layers). The levels were calculated by the scientists who first came up with equations describing the anomaly. As mentioned above, vertical lines go "deeper" into the hypersphere. However, travelling in other energy levels requires powerful shields due to the extreme energy "pressure" on the craft. On the other hand, travel time shortens with each level. Most ships, including warships, travel on the first level, rarely on the second. Unmanned cargo ships are capable of surviving a trip through the third level. Only top-class probes with enhanced shields are capable of travelling through the fourth level unharmed.

Human historians determined that 3 million years ago, a joint Insect-Logrian effort, headed by a Logrian scientist named Irshmark, was undertaken to set up a permanent base on the tenth level of hypersphere (i.e. in the center) in order to allow them to travel along the vertical force-lines anywhere in the galaxy. Since there were no stellar bodies in hypersphere, they sent, after many failures, a planet to the tenth level. However, the so-called "First World Project" was cut short by an ancient cataclysm and never resumed.

It has been determined that time flows at a much slower rate in hypersphere, especially in its center. Also, due to the extreme magnetic field and energy "pressure" caused by the imprint of the galaxy at the center, no electrical device can function at the tenth level. However, ships whose electrical systems are replaced with photonic ones should be able to make the trip without any major problems, as long as the pilot lets the ship "fall" along a vertical line (the novel "The Dream of the Mind" desribed this as analogous to a hand quickly passing through a flame). The same energy "pressure" also allows people to develop magic-like abilities and even cheat death by having their spirit (heat energy essence) live on after the body is gone.

After the First World was rediscovered by the Confederacy of Suns, the knowledge of it was classified, as it could allow anyone with proper equipment to strike at the very heart of the Confederacy without warning. A small military garrison was sent to the planet, equipped with non-electronic gear to monitor the center of the anomaly. An accidental discovery by a corporate mnemonic (information security officer with several implants in the brain), whose implant sensors were able to pick up idle and active verticals, led to the hypersphere being used more actively, as long as each craft is navigated by a mnemonic. Also, a vertical was discovered that led directly to Logris, allowing a connection from the First World to the Interstar network.