[RFC] Reverse Limit Break

[Ace Dreamer]

We'd need the Word of Mal to de definitive, but I'm pretty sure that no matter what they call it or how it's dressed up Trekkie or Warsie or any other fandom's FTL is the same as the FTL everyone else gets from the 'wave. I know it canonically does not do multidimensional reindeer games like bags of holding or travel to other worlds.

Handwavium FTL works on the same principles no matter what you call it - hyperspace, subspace, etc. That's why it's pinned to a set velocity of 500 times the speed of light, why you have to go (star mass in Sol masses * 40) AU out of the system to make it work, etc. This isn't to say there aren't other forms of FTL possible in the Fenspace universe, there are. Some of which are mathematically described in the Catalog. But the thing is, those are all hardtech. As of the '22 update so far nobody's built an hardtech FTL engine.

Which is not to say people haven't tried. There are stories about some of those experiments.

If you've got one working FTL scheme, the obvious thing to do is study it.
Instruments that would detect an FTL emergence, which themselves operate FTL, would fit the genre.  Yes, these would be wave-tech, but you might learn useful stuff from them.  Does FTL emergence or entry cause a disturbance on FTL communications would be a good question to answer.  Presumably at least some ships have ways of testing which side of the Limit they're on, without just trying to go FTL.
If handwavium has a single underlying mechanism to its FTL drive then you might learn a lot by trying to find out how these differ and how these are the same.  Hard tech instruments that show something interesting happens when you go FTL, or even cross the Limit, would be an obvious target.  It is very likely that theoreticians would be working hard on trying to come up with a model that includes FTL; this includes ones on Mundane Earth.
Seeing as you seem much less likely to kill yourself then FTL communications may be seen as a lower-hanging fruit.  Hard tech that even twitches in response to FTL comms would be a really good start.
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"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind