FTL (Battlestar Galactica)

An FTL, or "Faster Than Light", Drive is a fictional propulsion technology from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series that allows space ships to achieve superluminal travel. They are fueled by a refined version of the fictional ore tylium.

The verb jump is commonly used to describe the process of traveling via FTL drive. Dialog implies that the drive itself consists of large spinning electromagnetic coils in combination with other more exotic technology.

The term FTL was never used in the original Battlestar Galactica movie and television series, instead the term "light speed" was used, in context, this appeared to be standard acceleration based travel, although the Galactica and its fleet moved at sub-light speeds as a norm as the fleet was unable to travel at "light speed"

Physics
The exact nature of the FTL drives remains unexplained in the show; what information exists has been extrapolated from on-screen dialog. It is not known which, if any, of the proposed faster-than-light physics concepts apply.

Little time appears to pass on a ship during a jump and objects within a ship do not appear exhibit the signs of momentum/inertia associated with acceleration/deceleration.

FTL jumping is shown to induce nausea in some Humans, for example Specialist Cally.

Navigation
Owing to difficulties navigating while using an FTL drive, ships wishing to make an FTL jump must calculate their speed, trajectory and jump duration prior to activating their FTL drive. Failure to do so can lead to ships jumping into poorly charted areas where non-FTL navigation is difficult, or into dangerous areas such as those containing asteroid fields, gravity wells, or even inside a planet's atmosphere.

A ship making a properly calculated jump can arrive safely in planetary orbit, or alongside other ships. Ships using the same calculations can also safely jump together. Uncalculated jumps are possible.

Because little is known about the physics of the FTL drive, it is not clear whether ships must plot a course around large physical objects, such as suns and gas giants, or if they have to adjust their course to take local gravitational variants into account, although the Battlestar Galactica was shown traveling at immense speeds towards a planet's surface to be succesfully able to jump from within the amosphere of a planet. The series does not reveal whether a ship can correct its course mid jump.

Jump co-ordinates must be constantly updated to allow for changes in a ship's position, and for stellar drift.

Limitations
FTL drives come in a variety of sizes. The larger the drive, the farther a ship can travel. The large drives (and associated navigational equipment) fitted in warships and the larger civilian transports allow them to travel greater distances than smaller craft, such as the Raptors. Therefore, a small ship, or ship with a less-capable FTL drive, must make several jumps in order to travel the same distance as a larger ship. This approach can leave the craft vulnerable to detection or attack. Unlike the Raptors, Vipers are not fitted with FTL drives as standard.

The Cylons are capable of calculating more accurate jumps. Because of this, smaller Cylon ships can make longer jumps than Colonial craft of a similar size

For Colonial forces, the safe limit of FTL travel is known as the "Red Line". A ship jumping beyond this line risks running into unknown navigational hazards or going off course due to compound errors in its jump calculation.

Cylon technology
Cylon FTL systems work on the same principles as Colonial versions, and also uses refined tylium ore as its primary fuel. Cylon Raiders are also FTL jump capable.

The FTL systems of the Cylons are much more advanced than that of the Colonials, allowing them to travel further in far fewer jumps and also more accurately, and to be fitted to smaller ships as standard.