Slipstream (science fiction)
Encyclopedia
"Slipstream" is a science fiction
term for a fictional method of faster-than-light
space travel, similar to hyperspace
travel, warp drive
, or "transfer points" from David Brin
's Uplift series.
drive used in two episodes of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager
. It first appeared in the season 4 finale, "Hope and Fear
". Similar to the Borg
transwarp conduits, the slipstream is a narrowly-focused, directed field that is initiated by manipulating the fabric of the space-time continuum at the quantum
level using the starship's navigational deflector array. It works by focusing a quantum
field through a deflector dish to generate massive changes in local space curvature. This creates a subspace
tunnel, which is projected ahead of the vessel. Once a ship has entered this tunnel, the forces inside propel it at incredible speed. In order to maintain the slipstream, a ship has to constantly modify the quantum field with its deflector dish; however, the calculations involved are too complicated, and the time available too short for 24th century Starfleet
computer technology. When this technology was discovered by the crew of the lost and stranded USS Voyager, it was hoped this could be used to allow the starship to travel at even greater speeds: the first test of this drive allowed the ship to travel 300 light years in minutes.
However, in the episode "Timeless
", the technology proved to be dangerously unstable, resulting in the loss of all hands (save for Harry Kim
and Chakotay
) of the Voyager in an alternate timeline. With the shipboard computer unable to map the phase variance in the slipstream fast enough to calculate deflector corrections, Harry Kim
and Chakotay
offered to take the Delta Flyer ahead to map the slipstream and send the data in advance to Voyager. A miscalculation caused Voyager to fall violently out of slipstream, resulting in the starship's deadly crash-landing onto the surface of an ice planet on the outskirts of the Alpha Quadrant. Fifteen years later, after the remains of Voyager are finally discovered, Harry Kim and Chakotay, who survived the trip home onboard the Delta Flyer, sends calculations back in time to Seven of Nine
, by using a Borg temporal transmitter, which they believe will allow the slipstream to hold and Voyager to return to Earth. They are unsuccessful, but with no chance to correct their mistake, Harry takes the advice of The Doctor, whose program had been recovered from the wreckage and re-activated, and instead sends new calculations which collapse the slipstream field before the accident occurred in the primary timeline. Seven of Nine
stated that she would continue studying it in hopes of someday reacquiring slipstream travel.
Quantum slipstream technology was one of the items requested in the "Think Tank" episode, despite Captain Janeway's admission they never got it to work properly.
.
enters. The pilot then navigates the series of slipstream "tunnels" until they exit via the desired slip point. Usually one has to enter and exit slipstream several times before reaching their final destination. An A.I. attempting slipstream travel has a 50% chance of selecting the correct route at each intersection encountered. Owing to organic "intuition", a living pilot has a 99.97% chance of guessing the correct route to take.
While travellers approaching faster than light speeds will encounter time dilation
, slipstream travel does not.
and difficulty in mapping
slipstream, only biological entities
are capable of successfully navigating it. Exiting slipstream near the edge of a galaxy
or in certain regions of space could be dangerous because it is difficult to find a slippoint in these areas. If a slippoint cannot be found, or a slipstream drive is damaged, the ship is stranded and limited to slower than light speed.
" we find out that the Slitheen
family from Raxacoricofallapatorius uses a Slipstream drive as a form of travel.
, slipspace (also known as slipstream space) is the general method of faster-than-light
travel. Both the Covenant
and their human opponents, the United Nations Space Command forces, use slipspace to travel between systems, the UNSC using the human-developed Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine.
To continue the previous metaphor, the Shaw-Fujikawa drive is described as violently punching a hole through to Slipspace next to the Covenant and Forerunner surgical precision of travel. The possible method behind this precision is shown in Halo: First Strike, when the AI Cortana takes control of a Covenant ship. When attempting to jump inside of the gas giant Threshold's atmosphere, she was able to 'see' the bends and distortions of real space, and 'picked' her way through them into Slipspace.
It has also been stated that Slipspace is a misnomer since "there is nothing to slip across, and no space to travel through."
Slipspace has a strange property where the special relativity becomes an incomplete concept. Space-time disintegrates into two separate groups. Spatial dimensions distant from an observer in close proximity of the Slipspace source appear to be randomly erratic, whereas dimensions close to the observer appear to be constant at all points in time. The same effect can be said for time, A clock, also distant from the observer, appears to be running at randomly erratic rates and even temporal direction, whereas a clock close to the observer appear to be always constant. The effect on time is more pronounced than for spatial dimensions moreover, the effect on dimensions are reversible and will disappear when they are brought back to the observer. The effect on time however, is not completely reversible - The rate of the clock will synchronize, but the difference between the observer's clock and the synchronized clock will remain. A prime example of erraticity of time can be seen in Section 4: Gambit of the novel Halo: First Strike
, when the Covenant fleet opened fire, and the plasma behaved erratically - doing loops, curving, teleporting, etc. The erraticity of the dimensions and time is a measure of the stability of the encapsulating Slipspace. If the field becomes erratic enough, the Slipspace collapses. The conclusion of this is that definitions of space and time become arbitrary and somewhat meaningless, hence the speed of light also becomes meaningless.
, on page 53.
standards, slow. It can take weeks or months to travel from system to system, the inefficiencies of the Shaw-Fujikawa engine compounding the problems. A craft that travels through slipspace appears to travel faster than light to an outside observer, but the velocity is undefined for the craft relative to the slipspace field as in dv/0x. The craft does not travel through normal space, but around it.
The Shaw-Fujikawa drive also requires ships to enter and exit slipspace as far away from other masses as possible, as even the gravity of another ship can make slipspace calculations impossible. Because of this, an organized fleet of ships entering slipstream will exit into normal space haphazardly. The Covenant
also seem able to read the slipstream
currents better than the UNSC, allowing them to move faster, more precisely, and within a gravity well. This also allows them to move their entire fleets in battle-ready formations, giving them an advantage in conflicts against the UNSC.
The slipspace ruptures caused by large ships, such as Covenant Assault Carriers create a massive detonation if used inside an atmosphere, due to the annihilation of antimatter produced by the rupture closing. One of these detonations is the one that damaged New Mombasa and caused an EMP
that shut down the ODST drop pods at the beginning of Halo 3: ODST.
Another limitation of slipspace travel as stated in the Halo universe, is that whenever a ship carrying plutonium for use in nuclear weapons enters normal space a large amount of Cherenkov Radiation
is released which can alert any nearby forces of the slipspace re-entry.
Ships in Slipspace are not immune to detection from vessels in the normal plane, as hinted at by Cortana at the start of Halo 2
; she informs Lord Hood, OC the MAC Platform Cairo, that "whispers" had been detected near Io, immediately before the confirmed arrival of a small Covenant Battlegroup. If the battlegroup made no detour before arrival, no kind of signal, not even "whispers" traversing outside of Slipspace, could have been detected before the battlegroup's arrival, as it would be subject to the speed of light. As well as humans are able to send "drones" into slip space to loosely monitor currents and objects traveling through them, obtaining rough, and often unrecognizable images (as mentioned in the books). Though this may be explained not by monitoring it from normal space, but because the Covenant's tactics often involved periodically dropping out of slipspace for an unknown reason(shown in Halo:Fall of Reach), possibly to observe the enemy before choosing to attack, and they dropped out by the UNSC base on Io.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
term for a fictional method of faster-than-light
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
space travel, similar to hyperspace
Hyperspace (science fiction)
Hyperspace is a plot device sometimes used in science fiction. It is typically described as an alternative region of space co-existing with our own universe which may be entered using an energy field or other device...
travel, warp drive
Warp drive (Star Trek)
Warp drive is a faster-than-light propulsion system in the setting of many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek. A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at velocities greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude, while circumventing the relativistic problem of time...
, or "transfer points" from David Brin
David Brin
Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
's Uplift series.
Usage in Star Trek
Quantum slipstream was a starshipStarship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
drive used in two episodes of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while...
. It first appeared in the season 4 finale, "Hope and Fear
Hope and Fear
"Hope and Fear" is an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the final episode of the fourth season. The episode has an average rating of 4.3/5 on the official Star Trek website ....
". Similar to the Borg
Borg (Star Trek)
The Borg are a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the Star Trek universe associated with Star Trek.Whereas cybernetics are used by other races in the science fiction world to repair bodily damage and birth defects, the Borg use enforced cybernetic enhancement as a means of...
transwarp conduits, the slipstream is a narrowly-focused, directed field that is initiated by manipulating the fabric of the space-time continuum at the quantum
Quantum
In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized," referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete...
level using the starship's navigational deflector array. It works by focusing a quantum
Quantum
In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized," referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete...
field through a deflector dish to generate massive changes in local space curvature. This creates a subspace
Subspace (Star Trek)
In the Star Trek fictional universe, subspace is a feature of space-time which facilitates faster-than-light transit, in the form of interstellar travel or the transmission of information. Subspace obeys different laws of physics...
tunnel, which is projected ahead of the vessel. Once a ship has entered this tunnel, the forces inside propel it at incredible speed. In order to maintain the slipstream, a ship has to constantly modify the quantum field with its deflector dish; however, the calculations involved are too complicated, and the time available too short for 24th century Starfleet
Starfleet
In the fictional universe of Star Trek, Starfleet or the Federation Starfleet is the deep-space exploratory, peacekeeping and military service maintained by the United Federation of Planets . It is the principal means by which the Federation conducts its exploration, defense, diplomacy and research...
computer technology. When this technology was discovered by the crew of the lost and stranded USS Voyager, it was hoped this could be used to allow the starship to travel at even greater speeds: the first test of this drive allowed the ship to travel 300 light years in minutes.
However, in the episode "Timeless
Timeless (Voyager episode)
"Timeless", the sixth episode of the fifth season of Star Trek: Voyager, was also the series' 100th episode. It has an average fan rating of 4.7/5 on the official Star Trek website as of September, 2009....
", the technology proved to be dangerously unstable, resulting in the loss of all hands (save for Harry Kim
Harry Kim (Star Trek)
Ensign Harry S. L. Kim, played by Garrett Wang, is a character in the television series Star Trek: Voyager. He serves as the USS Voyagers operations officer.-Depiction:...
and Chakotay
Chakotay
Chakotay , played by Robert Beltran, is a character in Star Trek: Voyager. He is the First Officer of the USS Voyager.-Character biography:...
) of the Voyager in an alternate timeline. With the shipboard computer unable to map the phase variance in the slipstream fast enough to calculate deflector corrections, Harry Kim
Harry Kim (Star Trek)
Ensign Harry S. L. Kim, played by Garrett Wang, is a character in the television series Star Trek: Voyager. He serves as the USS Voyagers operations officer.-Depiction:...
and Chakotay
Chakotay
Chakotay , played by Robert Beltran, is a character in Star Trek: Voyager. He is the First Officer of the USS Voyager.-Character biography:...
offered to take the Delta Flyer ahead to map the slipstream and send the data in advance to Voyager. A miscalculation caused Voyager to fall violently out of slipstream, resulting in the starship's deadly crash-landing onto the surface of an ice planet on the outskirts of the Alpha Quadrant. Fifteen years later, after the remains of Voyager are finally discovered, Harry Kim and Chakotay, who survived the trip home onboard the Delta Flyer, sends calculations back in time to Seven of Nine
Seven of Nine
Seven of Nine is a fictional character on Star Trek: Voyager, portrayed by actress Jeri Ryan. Born human, she was assimilated by the Borg at the age of six. Eighteen years later, Voyager left Borg space with Seven on board, after attempts to negotiate passage through Borg space proved only...
, by using a Borg temporal transmitter, which they believe will allow the slipstream to hold and Voyager to return to Earth. They are unsuccessful, but with no chance to correct their mistake, Harry takes the advice of The Doctor, whose program had been recovered from the wreckage and re-activated, and instead sends new calculations which collapse the slipstream field before the accident occurred in the primary timeline. Seven of Nine
Seven of Nine
Seven of Nine is a fictional character on Star Trek: Voyager, portrayed by actress Jeri Ryan. Born human, she was assimilated by the Borg at the age of six. Eighteen years later, Voyager left Borg space with Seven on board, after attempts to negotiate passage through Borg space proved only...
stated that she would continue studying it in hopes of someday reacquiring slipstream travel.
Quantum slipstream technology was one of the items requested in the "Think Tank" episode, despite Captain Janeway's admission they never got it to work properly.
Usage in Andromeda
Slipstream travel is also used in the science fiction television series AndromedaAndromeda (TV series)
Andromeda is a Canadian-American science fiction television series, based on unused material by the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, developed by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and produced by Roddenberry's widow, Majel Barrett Roddenberry. It starred Kevin Sorbo as High Guard Captain Dylan Hunt...
.
Function
Slipstream is a series of "strings" connected between solar systems by gravity. A Gravity Field Generator drastically reduces the mass of the ship and then a slipstream drive opens a slippoint which the shipStarship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
enters. The pilot then navigates the series of slipstream "tunnels" until they exit via the desired slip point. Usually one has to enter and exit slipstream several times before reaching their final destination. An A.I. attempting slipstream travel has a 50% chance of selecting the correct route at each intersection encountered. Owing to organic "intuition", a living pilot has a 99.97% chance of guessing the correct route to take.
While travellers approaching faster than light speeds will encounter time dilation
Time dilation
In the theory of relativity, time dilation is an observed difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravitational masses. An accurate clock at rest with respect to one observer may be measured to tick at...
, slipstream travel does not.
Limits of slipstream
Due to the complex nature of slipstream probabilityProbability
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...
and difficulty in mapping
Mapping
In geomatics or geospatial science and technology:Mapping usually refers to map-making and often used instead of cartography.Mapping term is also sometimes used for geospatial data collection but in fact it is not mapping because a map is created from some cartographic works In geomatics or...
slipstream, only biological entities
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
are capable of successfully navigating it. Exiting slipstream near the edge of a galaxy
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
or in certain regions of space could be dangerous because it is difficult to find a slippoint in these areas. If a slippoint cannot be found, or a slipstream drive is damaged, the ship is stranded and limited to slower than light speed.
Usage in Doctor Who
In the episode "World War ThreeWorld War Three (Doctor Who)
"World War Three" is the fifth episode of the first series in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on 23 April 2005. It is the second of a two-part story. The first part, "Aliens of London", was broadcast on 16 April...
" we find out that the Slitheen
Slitheen
The Slitheen are a family of massive, bipedal extraterrestrials from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and they are adversaries of the Doctor. They first appeared in the 2005 series episodes "Aliens of London" and "World War Three", and subsequently recur in later episodes of...
family from Raxacoricofallapatorius uses a Slipstream drive as a form of travel.
Usage in Halo
In the Microsoft video game series HaloHalo (series)
Halo is a multi-million dollar science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed by 343 Industries and owned by Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant...
, slipspace (also known as slipstream space) is the general method of faster-than-light
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
travel. Both the Covenant
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...
and their human opponents, the United Nations Space Command forces, use slipspace to travel between systems, the UNSC using the human-developed Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine.
Slipspace
According to The Halo Library:
This...engine allowed ships to tunnel into...slipspace... Slipspace is a domain with alternate physical laws, allowing faster-than-light travel without relativistic side-effects. Faster-than-light travel is not instantaneous; "short" jumps routinely take up to two months, and "long" jumps can last six months or more. Entire crews of some ships have been reported to disappear with no damage to the ship what so ever.
...scientists noted an odd "flexibility" to temporal flow while inside the Slipstream. Though no human scientist is sure why travel time between stars is not constant, many theorize that there are "eddies" or "currents" within the Slipstream—there is generally a five to ten percent variance in travel times between stars. This temporal inconsistency has given military tacticians and strategists fits—hampering many coordinated attacks.
The Covenant have a very finely tuned version of this technology, and it is far superior to the UNSC's. Instead of simply tearing a hole into Slipspace, it cuts a very fine slit and slips into Slipspace with precision. It exits the same way, and can have pinpoint accuracy. It can even do so to Slipspace within planetary atmospheres, though this is highly damaging to the surface of the planet.
To continue the previous metaphor, the Shaw-Fujikawa drive is described as violently punching a hole through to Slipspace next to the Covenant and Forerunner surgical precision of travel. The possible method behind this precision is shown in Halo: First Strike, when the AI Cortana takes control of a Covenant ship. When attempting to jump inside of the gas giant Threshold's atmosphere, she was able to 'see' the bends and distortions of real space, and 'picked' her way through them into Slipspace.
It has also been stated that Slipspace is a misnomer since "there is nothing to slip across, and no space to travel through."
Slipspace has a strange property where the special relativity becomes an incomplete concept. Space-time disintegrates into two separate groups. Spatial dimensions distant from an observer in close proximity of the Slipspace source appear to be randomly erratic, whereas dimensions close to the observer appear to be constant at all points in time. The same effect can be said for time, A clock, also distant from the observer, appears to be running at randomly erratic rates and even temporal direction, whereas a clock close to the observer appear to be always constant. The effect on time is more pronounced than for spatial dimensions moreover, the effect on dimensions are reversible and will disappear when they are brought back to the observer. The effect on time however, is not completely reversible - The rate of the clock will synchronize, but the difference between the observer's clock and the synchronized clock will remain. A prime example of erraticity of time can be seen in Section 4: Gambit of the novel Halo: First Strike
Halo: First Strike
Halo: First Strike is the third novel in the Halo series and the second Halo novel written by Eric Nylund. Published in 2003, it serves as a bridge between the events of the video games Halo: Combat Evolved and its 2004 sequel Halo 2...
, when the Covenant fleet opened fire, and the plasma behaved erratically - doing loops, curving, teleporting, etc. The erraticity of the dimensions and time is a measure of the stability of the encapsulating Slipspace. If the field becomes erratic enough, the Slipspace collapses. The conclusion of this is that definitions of space and time become arbitrary and somewhat meaningless, hence the speed of light also becomes meaningless.
Function
The workings of the drive are described in more detail in Halo: Ghosts of OnyxHalo: Ghosts of Onyx
Ghosts of Onyx is a novel by Eric Nylund, set in the universe of the Halo video game series and released on October 31, 2006. Ghosts of Onyx was the fourth Halo novel published, and Nylund's third contribution to the series...
, on page 53.
"Shaw-Fujikawa engines allowed UNSC ships to leave normal space and plow through a dimensional subdomain colloquially known as "Slipstream space." ... The drive used particle accelerators to rip apart normal space-time by generating micro black holes. Those holes evaporated via Hawking radiationHawking radiationHawking radiation is a thermal radiation with a black body spectrum predicted to be emitted by black holes due to quantum effects. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who provided a theoretical argument for its existence in 1974, and sometimes also after the physicist Jacob Bekenstein...
in a nanosecond. The real quantum mechanical "magic" of the drive was how it manipulated those holes in space-time, squeezing a hundred-thousand-ton cruiser into Slipspace."
Limitations
As aforementioned, slipspace travel is, when measured by Faster Than LightFaster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
standards, slow. It can take weeks or months to travel from system to system, the inefficiencies of the Shaw-Fujikawa engine compounding the problems. A craft that travels through slipspace appears to travel faster than light to an outside observer, but the velocity is undefined for the craft relative to the slipspace field as in dv/0x. The craft does not travel through normal space, but around it.
The Shaw-Fujikawa drive also requires ships to enter and exit slipspace as far away from other masses as possible, as even the gravity of another ship can make slipspace calculations impossible. Because of this, an organized fleet of ships entering slipstream will exit into normal space haphazardly. The Covenant
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...
also seem able to read the slipstream
Slipstream
A slipstream is a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid is moving at velocities comparable to the moving object . The term slipstream also applies to the similar region adjacent to an object with a fluid moving around it...
currents better than the UNSC, allowing them to move faster, more precisely, and within a gravity well. This also allows them to move their entire fleets in battle-ready formations, giving them an advantage in conflicts against the UNSC.
The slipspace ruptures caused by large ships, such as Covenant Assault Carriers create a massive detonation if used inside an atmosphere, due to the annihilation of antimatter produced by the rupture closing. One of these detonations is the one that damaged New Mombasa and caused an EMP
EMP
EMP or Emp may refer to:Science and technology*Electromagnetic propulsion*Electromagnetic pulse, a burst of electromagnetic radiation*Electron microprobe microanalyzer, a tool for chemical composition determination...
that shut down the ODST drop pods at the beginning of Halo 3: ODST.
Another limitation of slipspace travel as stated in the Halo universe, is that whenever a ship carrying plutonium for use in nuclear weapons enters normal space a large amount of Cherenkov Radiation
Cherenkov radiation
Cherenkov radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that medium...
is released which can alert any nearby forces of the slipspace re-entry.
Ships in Slipspace are not immune to detection from vessels in the normal plane, as hinted at by Cortana at the start of Halo 2
Halo 2
Halo 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox video game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the second installment in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved...
; she informs Lord Hood, OC the MAC Platform Cairo, that "whispers" had been detected near Io, immediately before the confirmed arrival of a small Covenant Battlegroup. If the battlegroup made no detour before arrival, no kind of signal, not even "whispers" traversing outside of Slipspace, could have been detected before the battlegroup's arrival, as it would be subject to the speed of light. As well as humans are able to send "drones" into slip space to loosely monitor currents and objects traveling through them, obtaining rough, and often unrecognizable images (as mentioned in the books). Though this may be explained not by monitoring it from normal space, but because the Covenant's tactics often involved periodically dropping out of slipspace for an unknown reason(shown in Halo:Fall of Reach), possibly to observe the enemy before choosing to attack, and they dropped out by the UNSC base on Io.
See also
- "The immaterium" or "The Warp"
- Hyperspace (science fiction)Hyperspace (science fiction)Hyperspace is a plot device sometimes used in science fiction. It is typically described as an alternative region of space co-existing with our own universe which may be entered using an energy field or other device...
- Warp drive (Star Trek)Warp drive (Star Trek)Warp drive is a faster-than-light propulsion system in the setting of many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek. A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at velocities greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude, while circumventing the relativistic problem of time...