My theory about experiments and experimental tech gone awry could still fit?
***Tin foil hat time***
Sirius Corp (Funded by The Imps and Feds) were joint field testing with prototype meta-drives based on alien tech (discovered UA's or UP's). Maybe beacons were set up in 3 far away regions (conflux/gap/rift) for these prototype drives to lock onto for initial testing (see if they can jump that far?). Once the drives were charged and jump initiated, something went horribly wrong.
Ships with these prototypes in the bubble went "missing", and the exit point at the other end (in the rift/conflux/gap) opened up but something else came out (aliens, lurking evil etc.) causing equipment malfunctions and general shenanigans for hundreds of light years around these exit points, eventually costing everyone their lives. Since then they have tried to cover it all up. whatever came out the other side might also be what the old woman was afraid of in the rift.
Fast forward to more recently and Kahina has now learned the truth (holofac docs and also what she saw herself in the rift) and is being hunted/persecuted by the Imps/Feds to silence her.
The alliance also got wind of these experiments and are trying to either reproduce, or produce their own version. This is why the Alliance has such an interest in regions where meta-alloys and UA/UP are found (Hence Mic Turner Base way out in the California nebula). Raan Corsen came across these secret archived reports of what happened 30 years ago while an employee of Sirius Corp, dug deeper, and discovered the Alliance's secret project regarding Meta-drives. Horrieid by the events of what happened before, and determined not to let it happen again, he stole the docs and the new prototype ship the Alliance had and attempted to flee, crashing somewhere in Alioth system.
Since honking UP's disables ships, fits that equipment malfunctions in these regions where tech based on said alien technology was being deployed.
Since the Alliance has started up these experiments again, and this alien based technology is active again after 30 years. these aliens have returned looking for their technology (hyperdictions) in an ever expanding area. Also explains the hyperspace interdictions, weird lights, etc from the data logs 30 years ago.
Some realms in space and time we are simply not meant to visit, and these Aliens/thargoids are meant to keep us in our own dimension, by force if necessary. (explains previous wars maybe? how long have we been experimenting and using frame shifting drives? where exactly is "hyperspace" when we are between folds in space? seeing as FSD works by folding space in front of the ship, and uses thrusters to "hop" from one fold to the next moving forward.
Sorry for the rant...
This is my attempt to tie everything together...
Wouldn't mind some feedback... not sure if I'm close or way off base..
There's A LOT of details and story-lines to keep track of...
Had the same thought, especially, while reading through the Galnet articles about the
Antares
However: Don't mix up the FSD "Modes". Supercruise is like the Warp Drive in Star Trek, while the Hyperdrive is more like Star Wars / Stargate.
Supercruise is based on the Alcubierre Drive, which - as you said - shifts the frame of space so, that the space in front of the ship is compressed and expanded behind the ship. Since there aren't different "folds" (the folding is "fluid"), it doesn't move forward with the thrusters. A good analogy would be a current in a river. The Water around moves and pulls you along - in this case, the Frameshift moves the frame of space the ship is in, like pulling on a rope, while sitting in a boat. Supercruise relies on Einstein's field equations or general relativity - so, pretty normal physics, nothing especially fancy, since it doesn't involve Quantum Mechanics (see
Alcubierre drive - those are "real" theoretical physics).
Hypercruise on the other side punches a hole through space - it's a wormhole. How this exactly works, is open for debate, at the moment the theories range from Quantum Foam, to Dark Matter over to the Quantum Field Theorie. How you would determine entry and exit point of the wormhole is a completely different matter. I've read Stephen Hawkings "Universe in a nutshell" countless times, but i still haven't fully understood wormholes, or at least how you could control them. But, since apparently Wormholes are inherently unstable and they need to use "exotic matter" to stabilize them, this ties in very well with Elite Lore:
In Elite Lore, the first long range "jumping" started around 2800, with so called "Faraway Orientation Systems Controllers" - they had defined entry and exit points, so the "Wormhole" was kept open and were not generated by the ships.
By 3125 the first hyperdrives for ships started appearing - they used so called "quirium" as exotic matter to stabilize the Hyperspace Conduit and were "Type 2b Hyperdrives". Only the "Galactic Cooperative" had the "recipe" for quirium. However, the Galactic Cooperative took it to it's grave, and these "small" Hyperdrives where lost until 3290. We all know what happened to the Prism System because of Tantalum - the new "exotic material" (at least, that's my guess). They are called "Type 3 Hyperdrives".
Another guess of mine is, that the Antares used something like a "2c Hyperdrive". We also know, it is possible to stay in that Hyperspace Conduit or "The Space between the Universe" - Thargoids have to power and knowledge to use that. We also know, the Guardians appear to be extremely sophisticated. I wouldn't be surprised, if they have mastered all of this too.
Maybe those expeditions were for a combination of the "Faraway" travel and "2b Hyperdrives", so you could jump from the bubble to somwhere in the Formidine Rift in a matter of seconds, to establish these Orientation System Controllers out there.
Also, since
Drew Wager seems to be as fascinated by those theories, as i am, i'd say it is not a very far stretch, that all this, the Formidine Rift, Sirius Corp., Salomé and so on have something to do with Hyperspacetravel, Witch-Space (or the Space between the Universe - some actual scientists have theorized, that this is some kind of quantum level) and maybe even another species, living inside that realm - maybe the Formidine Rift is some sort of very special part of space, where these edges are not as constant, as they are anywhere else (AFAIK, this was suggested somewhere...).
This brings me to another speculation...has anyone every looked for black holes, anomalys or anything else around there? Especially, since apparently you can find the mystery for quite a long time now...
(Edit and Disclaimer: I am just a very big Sci-Fi Nerd, i love science and i tried to study something that had to do with all this - but i dropped out after the third Semester, i'm just to impatient for the maths behind all that stuff...i may be wrong about the Wormhole Stuff. As i said, i haven't even fully understood the real theories behind them. So if we have some "real scientists" around here, that understand the Science behind the Wormholes, i'd love a correction of things that are wrong
)
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