I like to mix things up and make them 'unusual,' generally based on what part of physics I want to make squishy. Jump drive, warp drive, Alderson drive, have all been done to death, just with the serial numbers filed off.
A lot of it depends on the setting. On a ship in a setting where Cthulhu calls collect, there might be a machine which causes the ship to seep through alien dimensions, transiting paths whose markers make the astrogator shiver, and where FOR GODS SAKES, MAN, YOU DON'T LOOK OUT THE WINDOWS!! So after a particularly harrowing trip where most of the crew has been hiding under their bedsheets, the astrogator has navigated them accross the path of markers and they arrive, with a few dozen more grey hairs.
For something on the hard-as-diamond science side of the spectrum, you can flip through a book by Stephen Baxter, pick three random words, and make a reasonably good stardrive. ^^
The important thing to me has always been to figure out what the implications of the technology are (in addition to the socioeconomic implications, that is.) If a stardrive goes FTL by making a miniature black hole, you have (A) a high level of gravitics technology, (B) one scary WMD, or (C) All of the above. If it needs a sudden and huge influx of power, like a Traveller jump drive (warning: heresy ahead!) then there's going to be the technology to generate a heck of a lot of usable power very very quickly... and you might get some very scary spinal mount energy weapons. If it sends things into an alternate space like a 'hyperspace' or 'subspace' or 'jumpspace,' then there is the technology to acces and exit that space, and the possibility of access to other such spaces.
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momijizukamori and
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Date: 7 Oct 2005 00:24 (UTC)A lot of it depends on the setting. On a ship in a setting where Cthulhu calls collect, there might be a machine which causes the ship to seep through alien dimensions, transiting paths whose markers make the astrogator shiver, and where FOR GODS SAKES, MAN, YOU DON'T LOOK OUT THE WINDOWS!! So after a particularly harrowing trip where most of the crew has been hiding under their bedsheets, the astrogator has navigated them accross the path of markers and they arrive, with a few dozen more grey hairs.
For something on the hard-as-diamond science side of the spectrum, you can flip through a book by Stephen Baxter, pick three random words, and make a reasonably good stardrive. ^^
The important thing to me has always been to figure out what the implications of the technology are (in addition to the socioeconomic implications, that is.) If a stardrive goes FTL by making a miniature black hole, you have (A) a high level of gravitics technology, (B) one scary WMD, or (C) All of the above. If it needs a sudden and huge influx of power, like a Traveller jump drive (warning: heresy ahead!) then there's going to be the technology to generate a heck of a lot of usable power very very quickly... and you might get some very scary spinal mount energy weapons. If it sends things into an alternate space like a 'hyperspace' or 'subspace' or 'jumpspace,' then there is the technology to acces and exit that space, and the possibility of access to other such spaces.