Imagine Dive Space like a folded piece of paper with a hole cut through it. When folded, you can move through the holes clearly and cleanly, and when unfolded, the paper is its normal length. Dive Space functions on the same principle, except the paper is space itself and, once a ship dives or surfaces, the holes mend.
Scientifically speaking, the term "compressed space," is more accurate and more widely used by the scientific community. Dive Space, however, has become popularized to the point of conventional usage. The term evokes the image of a submarine of old dipping into the water, only to appear elsewhere, unharmed. The image is not wholly inaccurate, though the description of what it does it not entirely factual.
The Yggdrasil Drive, designed and fashioned after the more advanced compression drives found on Guide ships, allows ships to exit what has been called 'flat space' or 'linear space' and allow them to move in what is called 'compressed space.' Compressed space, which moves the ship beyond the speed or light (or more accurately outside of light) leaves the ship's exterior darkened as the ship moves rapidly between vast distances.
Through the creation and eventual refinement of the Yggdrasil Drive, which much of the work being done by the famed Ouranus Innovative Technologies, an Yggdrasil Drive requires priming and coordinates. Then, a ship will 'dive' into compressed space and surface at those coordinates upon arrival. Often, this is understood by laymen as being instantaneous, but just as with a hole through paper, space must be covered even if the length trip is greatly diminished.
This can be seen in the first successful test done, a pioneer flight made between the Alpha star of the Republic to the Beta star neighboring it. This trip, formerly, would have taken weeks. With the use of an Yggdrasil Drive, the very same trip was capable of being made within only a few days. Since, it has been improved to a few hours, and some scientists believe as we come to understand the nature of space travel and of the Guide technology, we may be able to make such trips in minutes or seconds.
While all of this seems unreal, there are still dangers to the use of Dive Space and the Yggdrasil Drive. In particular, Dive Coordinates must place ships outside of gravitational sinks, the most common of which are planetary orbits and atmospheres. While a ship can, theoretically, surface within a planet's atmosphere, placement is difficult at the best of times, and gravity plays havoc on the return. Attempts have found ships tearing apart or disappearing inside of a planet's crust.
The danger of a dive malfunction also exists, though such errors are more discreet. In early tests of the Yggdrasil Drive saw ships simply disappearing into the aether, never to return. In popular media, there are stories of ghost ships found derelict following a drive malfunction or run by an ageless crew unaware of the time that has passed outside of their compression bubble. Most theorists, however, say the ships are simply lost, the compressed space collapsing on them and reducing them to nothing.
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