We all know that Space Bridges brings you from "point A" and all the way to "point Z" near instantly no matter how far apart the two locations are. But for more conventional space-travel however, can Cybertronian spaceships deploy hyperdrive to at least speed up the journey somewhat - shortening potentially years worth of travel to just a few hours or days? In most of the cartoons these things gets glossed over with the term "Transwarping", but seeing as the aforementioned term can indicate everything from space bridging to flippin' Time Travel(!) I became curious if there was any TF-fiction that had a better distinction between the two modes of interstellar travel. The current IDW comics continuity has something called "Quantum jump" which so far seems to be the closest equivalent of good old-fashioned hyperspace travel, but I'd like to hear other people's opinions on this matter.
Space Bridges and Transwarping seem to be more of a spatial distortion/wormhole method than actual faster than light travel, but it depends on what you're really looking for, and you could probably make a case for them being a form of hyperspace travel.
In science fiction there are a few common ways of moving faster than the speed of light. A wormhole is a distortion of space-time so massive it literally connects two points in space and is big enough for a ship to utilize. In actuality, wormholes are theorized to exist only on the quantum scale (the scale smaller than protons, neutrons, and electrons; aka what those particles are made of). It is theorized that if one of these quantum wormholes were captured and enlarged it could be used as a means of travel. One thing about a wormhole however is that it could be used as a means of time travel. It connects two points in space-time. You cannot adjust where or when it connects to, so you cannot use it to travel to a time prior to the wormholes existence. But for example, if one end of a wormhole were brought close to a black hole, it would experience a time dilation. Events would be moving slower on that side of the wormhole than the other side. So, when that end is brought back away from the black hole, you would have a tunnel through time. Say 5 minutes passed while one end was near a black hole. 50 years could have passed for the other end. So you could pass through the wormhole and emerge 50 years in the future. You could then turn around and go back the other direction and be back in your own time period. Warp drives, what Star Trek uses, is when a ship compresses the space-time in front of it and expands it behind it. This has an analogous effect of creating a wave of water, upon which the ship surfs. This method is currently impractical because the energy to produce such effects would require absolutely MASSIVE amounts of energy; akin to the power of a star or other super massive object. Star Wars uses hyperspace, which is essentially dimensional movement. They transition into another dimension parallel to our own, travel a disproportionate distance, then transition back. Currently the even existence of other dimensions (besides X, Y, Z, and time) is debated. Hyperspace has no firm basis in science as we currently understand it. Now the quantum jump has yet to be explained but if I were to take a stab at explaining it, it would go something like this. I would postulate that a quantum jump briefly utilizes the same principles particles on the quantum scale exhibit, ie being able to be in multiple places at once. So for an incredibly small fraction of second, the ship and all its inhabitants behave as a subatomic particle and are in two places simultaneously. It ends immediately and the ship is now in a single place again, but not the place it was previously. Subatomic particles do this but do so indefinitely.
Wow, that's a succinct and clear breakdown of the various FTLs. I was thinking that Quantum Jumping was probably the same as Hyperspace, but that explaination makes more sense actually and justifies the Quantum part. We have seen TFs use Hyperspace before, in Stormbringer the Xantium is seen traveling through hyperspace and Thunderwing is stated to travel via such to go from Cybertron to Nebulos in alt mode for examples.
I just realized another ftl model I missed. Mass Effect. Effectively they use a warp drive but they use mass effect fields to effectively reduce the mass of the ship to zero. With an incredibly low mass the energy needed for a warp drive decreases dramatically. I believe that's what ME does, off the top of my head.
I've always just assumed that whenever they traveled long distances in what seems like no time, it was the result of Space Bridge technology. I realize I have a simple view of this subject, but I just always assumed their travel in ships or anything was based off space bridge.
To look at it from another angle... Unless they really need to get to somewhere quickly I'd imagine Cybertronians wouldn't really be too bothered about how long it takes to get somewhere. They live for millions of years and can go into stasis if they want to not have to be awake for any long journey. I imagine if humans lived for millions of years we'd be happier venturing out into deep space without worrying we'd have to sleep for thousands of years to get to the nearest star or whatever, or that when we woke up from that long sleep everyone we ever knew back on Earth would now be dead and we'd never see them again. If we lived for that long would we really be that fussed about ever creating faster space travel? The only real driving factor would be immediacy and/or impatience for getting to a particular distant destination.
In the 1986 movie, Blaster radioed Optimus Prime and a day later Optimus Prime arrived from Cybertron. HOWEVER... we only assume Optimus Prime left Cybertron after he heard Blaster's message. He could have left Cybertron much earlier. We also assume Ironhide's trip to Earth took a short amount of time, however, it doesn't have to. Ironhide could have been on Cybertron weeks prior to his arrival on Earth. I don't like space travel being instantaneous - it doesn't make sense.
