i’m getting ahead of myself slightly. the third aspect of hyperspace was incredibly difficult for scientists to understand for many years. it actually took us over six years just to replicate the experiment! but once we could replicate it safely, we began to amass a tremendous amount of data regarding these hyperspace particles. a lot of that data is very technical and deals with very advanced levels of physics, so i’ll just cut to the chase: we found that by utilizing certain subatomic particles through a process of fusion, we were able to open small tears into hyperspace for longer and longer periods of time. this was an incredibly important moment for humanity, but also game with a grave cost. again, hyperspace physics do not follow conventional laws of physics and mathematics, and when an object in realspace directly interacts with hyperspace, and vice versa, bad things can happen.
you all may have heard of “hyperspace sickness,” also known as “the madness” or “swiss cheese disease.” in hyperphysics circles we call it “the sight,” as in, once you see hyperspace, you’re dead. this is why all starships have blinders during hyperspace jumps. the problem is that our brains cannot comprehend direct visual contact with hyperspace–it’s like an overload of the senses, to the point that it causes mental and physical symptoms leading up to insanity and death. scientists during the early experimentation years would catch these brief glimpses of another world and would suffer from bouts of madness and dementia. subsequent viewings of larger portions of hyperspace can even create holes in a person’s brain. this is serious stuff! hyperspace is effectively very radioactive, full of what we call “radioactive physics,” which causes decay in all matter in realspace due to being incompatible with our physics.
now, of course, a few decades later and we’re traversing the galaxy and colonizing new worlds. how did we do it so quickly? well, of course we had help from the bethezoans, who gave us the technology to develop quantum shielding, but they did not help us with our frame-of-reference drive system. in fact, prior to the development of the fardrive, hyperspace travel was very rare within the galaxy, usually confined to “hubs” where successful hyperspace jumps had occurred again and again. the co-chin race, in the twelfth arm, built these massive hyperspace “gates” which would open enormous holes into hyperspace, and, over the centuries, cause massive decay of the surrounding realspace. one gate was destroyed due to the nearby solar star collapsing into a supernova due to hyperspace radiation. as intelligent as these other races were, and still are, they hadn’t come up with a feasible way to plot hyperspace jumps until the terrans arrived. the reason was this: we had math derived from visual observation of hyperspace that they didn’t, along with a conjecture the legendary physicist dr nera van boolen came up with twenty-five years ago, that if hyperspace is realspace condensed, and that hyperspace acts as both a three-dimensional and two-dimensional space, then perhaps coordinates can be created in realspace that would make a single “touch point” between two celestial objects in hyperspace.
am i boring you yet? listen, not everyone will grow up to become a hyperphysicist. some of you may be bankers, or teach, or hell, even flip burgers for a living. just do what you’re good at. i don’t mind if you use this time to sleep. for the rest of you, i will break down the frame of reference drive and explain how it got us out of the solar system, and fast.