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Anonymous
>>85342 Generally speaking, the idea of hyperspace relies on the existence of a separate and adjacent dimension. When activated, the hyperdrive shunts the starship into this other dimension, where it can cover vast distances in an amount of time greatly reduced from the time it would take in "normal" space. Once it reaches the point in hyperspace that corresponds to its destination in real space, it re-emerges.
In other words, some (or all) paths in hyperspace may have a travel-time less than the time it takes to traverse the "shortest-path" in normal space, defined above. The time it takes to travel in hyperspace is measured in the same way time is measured in normal space, unless the hyperspace is discontinuous. For example, the path in hyperspace may not be smooth but a sequence of points, and the time change from jumping from one point to another may be abrupt. In this case, add the time jumps. Some may be positive (jumps to the future), and some negative (jumps to the past), depending on how the hyperspace is defined.
Explanations of why ships can travel faster than light in hyperspace vary; hyperspace may be smaller than real space and therefore a starship's propulsion seems to be greatly multiplied, or else the speed of light in hyperspace is not a barrier as it is in real space. Whatever the reasoning, the general effect is that ships traveling in hyperspace seem to have broken the speed of light, appearing at their destinations much quicker and without the shift in time that the Theory of Relativity would suggest.
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