Misa's MSFH Files, Article 39: BioWarp 1

Physics can be a bit of a double-edged sword.  Without the various forces that bind atoms together, our universe would be unable to sustain life as we know it, but someone who is falling off a cliff or getting hit in the face with a shovel would readily wish for just a little leniency when it comes to the physical laws that govern spacetime.  As a general linguistic rule, working within the limits of these natural laws is the process of science, while working to subvert them is the process of magic.  For the Humans of Terra and the Elves of Mythar, their respective reliance on a single field left them pinned within a single star system, and they were not alone in this, as thousands of other early civilizations struggled to produce a means to travel the stars.  While BioWarp, the method discovered and refined by these two races shortly after their arduous sublight meeting, was not the first means of interstellar travel, it is the most commonplace and versatile one currently employed throughout the modern galaxy.

Before one can understand the true impact that BioWarp mahoutechnology has had on the galaxy, one must first understand the impossibility of galactic civilization without it.  Most of the universe is, essentially, empty space.  Debris and dark matter are all over, but the distances between star systems that can support life are so vast that it boggles the mind.  As an example, the star systems Terra and Uruseiya, considered close neighbors in their galactic sector, are still 42 light-years apart.  That means that a ship that somehow attained lightspeed, the natural limit without magical assistance, would still take 42 years to reach their destination, and that's not getting into the time dilation effects that relativity would wreak on the ship.  A ship equipped with a BioWarp drive, however, could make the trip in well under a day.  This utility makes not just galactic travel possible, but also interstellar commerce and culture.  While the specifics of both the magical and technological components are far too complex for me to describe in even a dozen articles, I'll do my best to explain the basics of how a BioWarp drive works.

At its most basic, the BioWarp drive serves to solve three fundamental problems, the first it must tackle being the universal speed limit that is the lightspeed barrier.  To that end, the primary magical component is the relativity field inducer, essentially a sandwiched stack of dozens of circuitboards inlaid with magically conducive mahoucite traces forming a series of magical sigils.  When activated by an influx of magical energy, the board stack artificially casts an advanced, nuanced, and incredibly precise spell which nullifies the effects of relativity within a sphere centered on the drive, referred to as a "relativity field" or "relativity shield" depending on who you ask.  Larger starships must funnel more energy into the device, and having the stack be located in a more centralized area of the ship is generally more efficient, though certain drive configurations require it be located towards the rear of the ship.  This function need not explicitly be performed by a machine.  BioWarp gets its name from the earlier versions requiring a highly skilled mage to cast the spell and maintain a magical connection to the drive.  Subsequent improvements removed the need for knowledge of the specific spell, then the need for a living mage altogether.  Despite this, modern BioWarp mages still exist, usually trained as starfighter pilots that can focus their energies to boost the output of all their ships' systems and manually charge their BioWarp drive as needed.  

The second two problems and their solutions tie into each other, and relate again to the vast distances required for interstellar travel.  Primary among them is the need for continued, rapid acceleration.  Modern starships are fairly zippy things, but even without relativity getting in the way, your average sublight engine at max thrust would take an unbearably long time to go from zero to 299,792,458 meters per second, much less the multiples of the speed of light required to get to another solar system.  Plus, when going at such a ridiculous speed, the slightest impact could completely destroy the ship.  Even individual atoms floating around would fuse with the atoms of your armor plating, causing massive amounts of unleashed energy without going into the physical properties of your hull changing.  The solution to both of these problems are a specially crafted impact shield that activates along with the relativity field.  This particle impact shield forms a teardrop shape around the ship, with the point at the rear close to the source of the engine.  This shield absorbs the kinetic energy of all impacting particles and waves, including the very starlight which casts a dim glow across the entire galaxy, and translates it into an incredible amount of thrust.  The amount by which this is possible depends on the thickness of the shield, as past a certain speed you are moving so fast that particles can slip past the layer of shielding due to the fact that the universe can only be measured at a minimum in terms of Planck time, and said universe doesn't seem to bother checking what should happen in between those two instants in time.  The impact shield system sources its initial envelopment of the ship from the same bank of magical power as the relativity field inducer, and once active will engage a set of capacitors built with the altered rules of physics in mind.  These capacitors ensure a smooth acceleration during the jump, work to maintain speed if there are any issues that might affect that, and store enough energy to rapidly decelerate the ship when its trip is done.  Unfortunately, its exotic build means that any energy not used during the operation of the relativity field inducer dissipates upon disengagement of the BioWarp drive, and it cannot be used to power normal ship functions.  There are a small number of ships purpose-built to use BioWarp-obtained energy, but they tend to have strange side effects that can manifest at inconvenient times.