Why Is It That Almost Every Sci-Fi Series Has ONE Kind Of FTL?

So this is something I have been working on for a whole, an attempt to create a broader range of faster-than-light travel technology, somewhat unique even for the different factions or races seen in the setting. Some are fixed, and therefore faster and more stable but more expensive, but others are FTL drives and therefore more cost efficient but also much slower and more fickle. This is partly because of something I noticed in sci-fi, which to me strikes me as bizarre. It always struck me as strange (perhaps "unrealistic" isn't the right word considering the genre) that seemingly every race in a given universe or setting all use the same kinds of FTL.

Like, I can understand that perhaps the Federation nation-states all use Warp Drives as a matter of course, but why would the Dominion or the Kazon or the Borg use it too? Why would the Klingons? When these races all existed for millennia or more before mankind, what possible reason would it be they ALL developed identical technology? I can even kind of see why all of them having phasers and disruptors is bizarre, but I can at least suspend disbelief for this because "X gun uses biggest boom, so we'll design a version of it" is kind of a realistic military strategy. But if the physics exist to allow for faster-than-light travel, why does it seem so stale?

Another example, but ironically one that gives a kind of explanation, is Mass Effect. The premise being that virtually all FTL travel is achieved via Mass Relays, which is technology far beyond the ken of the younger races in the galaxy. But even then, no one developed anything else? Or just decided to use relativistic travel? Or maye even some naturally evolved or naturally extant form of FTL like a wormhole network? The explanation given is more logical than most at least...not surprisingly because it's better written than Star Trek but I digress...

So one of the main bullet points (like nine out of fifteen on the list) when I was worldbuilding the setting for the series is the idea that there are numerous different forms of faster-than-light travel, most "fixed" and the rest "drives", which were developed independent of each other and kind of unique to specific regions, factions or races. For example the most widely used is a network of wormholes which also serve as communications networks, but this requires you "build" (for lack of a better term) wormholes and "pair" them like bluetooth meaning you have to get to a system first them set up the wormhole and pair it to another system. After that it's instantaneous travel between the two, but because the gates are all situated at specific distances this means traveling from one side of the gate network to the other (approx. 70,000 light-years) takes a year, but traveling the same distance using FTL drives (specifically the ones used by this larger faction) would take fifteen years since they go way, way slower. That's one example, there are twenty others.

Just me spouting random ideas, but I was wondering if anyone thinks the idea of EVERYONE in a given setting all using the same weapons, drives, etc is unusual and more so what is the main..."reason" I guess is the term? Like I would like to imagine it's not just laziness or a paucity of ideas, but maybe it would seem like too much of a mishmash of concepts? What do you think, is the idea of multiple very broad FTL concepts too out there or a good idea or not?

lizmonster, brightdreamer:

Well part of it is kind of self-indulgence, in that I enjoy exploring the logical limits of a setting, but yes it does have a direct impact on the setting as well. The example of the wormhole gates (not the actual name, mind you) directly applies to communications and travel times. It's one of the three main forms of interstellar communications available, and so it directly applies to most or all forms of communication. Plus the effects of the travel time (each "paired" gate is a defined entry or exit point for another "paired" gate, so any non FTL ships have to travel set routes which can take nine months to a year to travel 70,000 LY) directly effect the story, so instead of ships just hopping from here to there in incongruous times it takes a set time to get somewhere, even if communications is literally instantaneous. This also creates "true routes" controlled by companies, who may or may not charge for this even if you're part of their nation, nominally, since they're effectively corporate dynasties and have almost complete autonomy plus their own militaries.

Certain regions also don't gate these gates, they use other types of these mass, commercial FTL systems, as opposed to FTL drives which tend to be military or corporate ships, and their FTL may be faster or slower or less stable etc, which directly effects military planning or how to access a region--if your entire military is used to employing wormhole hubs, but they only have these older, cruder "drift points" to use which are just as effective but WAY slower and only so many ships can "drift" at once, suddenly your fleet is half as fast and has to move piecemeal. It's like if a nation on Earth depended on, like, a certain fuel and now they have to use this older equivalent when over in Afghanistan, which works but requires more frequent fill-ups and the vehicles all run slower (for whatever reason) so your whole strategy changes in that region.

A kind of underlying concept also is that FTL drives are just way, way less safe--most rely on what can only be called "fickle" laws of physics or even rare fuel sources, so if you screw up you may end up with your whole fleet out of fuel in a system with no other FTL systems...or thrown backwards in time, or disappear entirely only to reappear a millennium later, or turn into a cloud of radioactive dust, or end up in the middle of a LARP of the Event Horizon script. The risk increases the further you go. So they tend to be shorter ranged by necessity if not design and used almost exclusively by military vessels or by corporations for short "hops". Civilian ships have none, basically.

Which again directly ties into military strategy. Realistically this means a fleet can come at you from any angle, even if you lock down the "conventional" routes and paths in and out of the system, but this is slow, ungainly, can be "tracked" at a distance.

Just an idea.


Introversion:

Yes I was kind of thinking of the latter question, like because FTL doesn't work on the same principle as just a rocket, it seems to be something beyond the ken of what we understand as physics now (which is probably next to nothing, but I digress) so it seems other groups may have other means. Some may have seen, or had access to something, so wildly different it opened a door we literally couldn't imagine, and vice versa. So the idea of EVERYONE just building the same thing seems...off to me. Maybe it's because I'm OCD so I spend too much time thinking about it. But it seems like it limits the ways it can effect a story for simplicity's sake.


MaeZe:

I'm one of those weirdos who thinks we may, like a millennium from now, develop genuine faster-than-light travel. If only because like a century ago, people thought walking on the Moon was some kind of insane fantasy. So maybe in 3060 people will look back on how we never believed Jump Gates would work and think it's as absurd as the people who used to think space flight was never going to happen. But I'm also a borderline hippie spiritualist lol

God I'm stupid lol

"True routes". I meant TRADE routes, or shipping lanes, take your pick the terms are used interchangeably in the setting.

This is actually a really interesting discussion to dive into, maybe it is just me being OCD but the actual applications are interesting to talk about in-universe...

Katfireblade:
Well that's the thing though, is that there are demonstrable differences between cars, between military and civilian vehicles, between the vehicles and amenities available to the rich and poor. A maserati is demonstrably different than a Tesla which in turn is different in numerous ways from a relic car from 20 years ago, and all are completely different than the vehicles a military has access to. They're similar in function (a car and an electric car and a military truck all "get you from here to there quickly") but simply by necessity they're wildly different in how they do that and what that means in context. Obviously, a military truck is far more hardy and durable than a Tesla but probably not as fast, as one is designed for civilians to get around in Los Angeles and assuage their Liberal guilt to get around in a city, and likewise an SUV is designed for cities but has greater carrying capacity probably at the cost of speed. They all do the same thing, in theory, but in context no army would replace their cargo trucks with electric cars for obvious reasons lol

I was also thinking of frankly some races developed this or that technology and never told anyone how. It may require specific conditions or even specific resources, or at least knowledge, only they have and if they monopolize it or it proves impractical to outsiders then they have access to it and no one else does. An example being one faction uses a separate wormhole hub to the rest of the universe, but their gates are "ghosted", hidden between stars in such a way as to be all but impossible to detect, and normally they use relativistic drives which are already almost impossible to detect--so they can just pop up anywhere and no one has any idea where or how they'll show up, to the degree some less advances races attribute it to outright magic. So obviously Faction A wants to keep this network hidden from Factions B, C and D because of the strategic advantage despite being somewhat slower and less widespread (allegedly, no one knows how huge this "ghost gate" network is, as it's hidden, so it could eclipse the corporate wormhole hubs).


Frimble3:
IDK that seems kind of...limiting to the story. That's kind of what always struck me as being out-there about Star Trek, they never had any logical reason for why anyone did anything or any race had any technology beyond just "Group X has cloaking". Which to me, seems stagnant. I almost kind of liked the "Bio-Ship" dudes from Voyager showing up and swatting the Borg aside, as it shows how stagnant and weak they were now. They'd become fat with power and got obliterated as soon as a (marginally, not even that much) more advanced race showed up.


Curlz:
Well, I find it could be easy to do in a few sentences. One book I suggest would be Bolo Strike, where they introduce an entire alien fleet, it's structure and weaponry ("slasher" starfighters, relativistic kinetic missiles, monitors with main guns firing relativistic missiles, etc) all in literally a few sentences, maybe a paragraph--most of it describing the battle itself an not the technology. And in doing so they give not just an image of the enemy fleet, but how it works, the order of battle and the weapons in a heart beat. It's complicated stuff but summarized in a sentence or two, and instantly you realize what they mean (describe the "relativistic battleships", then say their "kilometer long railguns" were firing, then describe them hitting the good guy's ships and how it unleashes "tens of megatons" per shot--bang one sentence you know everything about that technology, ship design, firepower, etc without even leaving the description of the battle sequence).

The Lensmen series does this fantastically too. *puts on Lensman fanboy hat* They manage to describe incredibly complex worldbuilding about their FTL drives, their weapons and how this effects military engagements in a couple of paragraphs, much of it being a description of a BATTLE SEQUENCE, and by the end you instantly know what they're talking about and half is presented as off-hand descriptions of the technology between paragraphs describing combat scenes. It's incredibly well written. And in doing so it gives a level of depth and power in the setting that makes you understand just how absurd and galaxy-spanning these people are, when the Lesnmen and the Boskonian Empire (yes that's their actual name) are throwing antimatter bombs ("Nega-Bombs") the size of planets at each other through wormhole cannons across intergalactic distances.

Granted both these books were written by seasoned authors who know what they're doing, so God only knows if I could...


Lizmonster:
Well I'm one of those crazy people who thinks we may develop FTL someday...by someday I mean in the 32nd century mind you. For the record, yes I do have a huge "world bible" I set up, again because I'm OCD lol

I also wanted to try and integrate it into the storytelling, as I said to develop the world around these technologies. The example of how some regions may have a wildly different system available, so you need to change your military strategy, is what I mean. But yes, FTL drives are kind of inherently time travel devices, which is why I was saying that if you don't use more stable "fixed" FTL, then the result is you may get thrown backwards in time or vanish entirely or get pitched into Hell, etc. So almost no civilian vessels have FTL drives almost as a safety measure--the same way we don't allow military grade nuclear reactors on civilian fishing boats, even if they could fit one, because the danger is too great if something goes wrong. Obviously a few "outlaws" or crime syndicates do though.