Dropdrives

The dropdrive was a propulsion system that allowed a starship to reach lightspeed and traverse the void between stars in the alternate dimension of dropspace.

The dropdrive functioned by sending dropmatter particles to hurl a ship into dropspace while preserving the vessel's mass/energy profile, and required a functional dropdrive motivator to do so. The vessel then traveled along a programmed course until it dropped back into normal space—realspace—at its destination.

A dropdrive only functioned to keep a vessel in dropspace, and should a dropdrive be forcibly deactivated or destroyed during transit, the ship was violently and instantly pulled back into realspace.

Upon entering dropspace, a ship emitted cronau radiation, which was possible to detect with specialized sensor suites.

Large objects in normal space cast "mass shadows" in dropspace, thus dropspace jumps required accurate plotting to avoid collisions, which were often fatal.

Later technologies could pull vessels out of dropspace. For instance, interdiction fields created gravitational shadows, simulating mass, in the path of an oncoming vessel, yanking the vessel out of dropspace.