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Tunnel-drive-ring

The small research vessel heading out to test the ring system

The standard Horadrim FTL drive is known by humans as a "Tunnel Drive".  The Horadrim term is unpronounceable if you don't have mandibles to click.  It uses an artificial gravity field to cut a cylindrical slice out of the fabric of space-time around a starship, then moves the entire cylinder through an artificial wormhole through another dimension (not Hyperspace, another dimension on top of, or perhaps under, that) directly to its destination with no apparent passage of time.  This system can even be used in combat to disappear and reappear on the opposite side of an enemy fleet in mere seconds, or to travel from one star system to another faster than even a digital gate.  The Horadrim have never shared this technology with anyone else; although InSec got their hands on some ex-Horadrim warships, they were never able to replicate the weapons or drive systems and build new examples of either.  However, their research did lead to an experimental method of using rings of liquid neutronium coils to rapidly open or close a very narrow passageway into hyperspace.  These Jump Accelerator Rings were installed first on a small research vessel, and then on an experimental fast assault transport named the EFS Alistar DImiye designed for covert insertions of Raptor special forces teams behind enemy lines.

Although this technology proved somewhat successful, no further ships were built with this technology for several reasons.  First, it was no faster than other, cheaper systems in either hyperspace or realspace.  Second, the narrowness of the jump point produced not only prevented the ship from taking any other ships with it, it even severely restricted the maximum width and height of the ship so equipped, necessitating such a long and narrow profile that it in turn restricted the number of weapons and sensors that could be emplaced on the crucial forward arc.  Plans for a class of destroyers or frigates equipped with the technology were delayed for budgetary reasons until the Caal Invasion destroyed the Earth Federation, and any such plans were put on permanent hold.  The EFS Alistar Dimiye was in the process of being hurriedly converted into an armed transport to support the Horadrim ships at the Battle of Avalon when the Federation fell, and was instead taken into service by the new Imperial Navy. It was later captured by Argus McCall and the rest of Soti's Slammers during the liberation of Kalintos.

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