FTL

Technical Explanation
In 2332, a mining operation discovered a unique mineral in Sol's asteroid belt. After a few years of research, scientists discovered that exposing the mineral to a high energy field and neutrinos emitted by a fusion reactor, caused the mineral to emit a field of space-time. (mineral the by product of a collapsed black hole? super dense material warps space?)

In initial applications, the mineral was used as an antenna array and was able to achieve zero-lag communications inside of the solar system. Shortly after, it was discovered that radio signals were not the only thing capable of passing through. Scientists began to observe that small amounts of air molecules were passing through with the radio signals. As the material was not used in a vacuum no accidents occurred.

Further research revealed that installing the condensed mineral at focal points in a ring, it could be utlized to send matter across vast distances at high speeds.

It was later discovered that each gate emits a unique subspace wave. This was used for "dialing" gates and telling if a gate was still active. It was also used as a form of navigation.

When the mineral is first processed, it is possible to split the construct into two parts. Doing so at this stage causes the constructs to technically exist in two points in space at the same time. Although split, it is the exact same. This is how communications and closed route gates operate. The transition time for these depending on size and distance between them can vary from real-time to upwards of a few hours of transit time. It is to be noted that the large closed gates require absurd amounts of power to operate.

There is a limited market for paired shards of the mineral, a unique novelty item that people could use to share ideas with.

Gate to Gate
Using two gates together, travelling across light years takes only minutes.

Gate to destination (slingshot)

Ships not equipped with a gate, or new colony ships headed into deep space would use this form of travel. The gate would be rotated and faced the direction of travel and would use the gate to "slingshot" themselves into FTL speeds. Devices on-board could sustain the FTL speeds and alter the Velocity.

This is the slowest method of FTL travel.

Ship Mounted Phase Gate (SMPG)

As technology advanced, it became possible to mount a smaller ring onboard a ship. Mounted at the midpoint of the ship, when activated it sucks both ends of the ship in and deposits it facing the opposite direction at the destination. This can be extremely dangerous for untrained crews.

Second fastest form of travel.

Zero-Lag communications

Because the mineral emits a unique subspace wave, communications across lightyears became easily possible.

The Bubble Effect
With the way the Gate System works, Occasonally, (1:1000) observers on the craft are able to see the space-time bubble forming. Upon reverting to realspace, this causes extreme disorientation. Unprepared crews are extremely effected by this. One ship has been known to be lost from this.

Scientists are unsure what causes this.

Misc
Ships like the Olympia were not capable of creating a bubble on their own. They were *launched* into FTL speeds by use of a Phase Gate. However, the onboard AI is able to change the geometry of the bubble and can alter the velocity to a limited degree. Once the bubble is "broken" it is not able to form a new one. A minimum threshold for both the charge in the FTL capacitors and bubble geometry must be maintained.