Quantum drive

Quantum drive in progress

The quantum drive array (or simply the quantum drive) was the main propulsion system of Planetary Union spaceships, including the USS Orville, the Krill, and likely many other space-flight capable species.

The Union's quantum drive technology was a realized form of an Alcubierre warp drive, which compressed space in front and expanded space in the rear, creating folds in the fabric of space that a ship simply flies through.

The modern quantum drive evolved from simpler quantum reactor technology of the early 24th century, which featured a single quantum ring and a different engine. In the words of John LaMarr, quantum drive technology had advanced "a hell of a lot" in the 20 years up to 2421, and the current drive engine made "a thousand trillion independent calculations every millisecond."

Faster-than-light travel by use of a quantum drive was called quantum speed or simply quantum. A vessel traveling at quantum speed was said to be within quantum space, which was another way of referring to travel through compressed space folded by the quantum drive.

The third-generation quantum engine of the Union enabled ships to travel distances greater than 10 light years every hour. The fourth generation was rolled out in 2422, allowing ships to reach speeds up to 17 light years an hour.

Schematics

The USS Orville engaging quantum drive.

The quantum drive allowed manipulation of spacetime using quantum technology allowing faster than light travel. Space, at the deepest level, is quantized, and intense energy output produced by the quantum drive to modifies the spacetime by bending space rather than faster than the speed of light violating the laws of quantum physics.

The quantum drive was built as several torii around the ship called quantum rings. The torii met at a single point in order to establish the necessary quantum entanglement to modify the shape of spacetime; a feature lending to the Union ships' distinctive "ring"-architecture. A ship controlled the output of its quantum drive through the navigational array. Information input by the ship's navigator was sent by the array through navigational relays, which gave the helmsman at the bridge control over the ship's course.

Though people often found it easier to think of the ships as accelerating at speeds faster than light, in reality the ships created folds and simply traveled through the folds as nominal speeds. Engineers referred to this as "quantum speed." The result was that the ship progressed distances of light years in breadth.

Union quantum reactors burnt a "clean" energy that glowed blue.

Dysonium Processing Stack symbols on the dysonium tanks show each tank's magnetic configuration.

Energy for the quantum drive was produced from dysonium crystals, a material capable of producing the intense quantity of energy required to manipulate space, which were refined into an extremely dense metal. Dysonium was stored in dysonium tanks when not in use. The ship was protected from the dysonium by containment regulators, which safely held dysonium via magnetism and ensured no physical contact between the ship and the fuel.

When ready for use in the drive, dysonium was processed in Dysonium Processing Stacks where it was heated and ionized prior to injection into the ship's quantum engines (or quantum rings). A quantum engine in each torus lassoed ships like the Orville. Each engine creates entanglement by using a pair of phase inducers. Thus, the Orville's quantum drive consisted of three quantum engines and six phase inducers.

Additionally, a quantum engine contained a photon manifold of unknown purpose, which engineers had to periodically purge.

The original quantum drive enabled the Orville to travel distances greater than 10 light years every hour. For instance, at maximum speed, the Orville would take precisely 2.78 hours to cross a distance of 30 light years. After the Orville was retrofitted with fourth-generation quantum engines in 2422, the ship was capable of speeds up to 17 light years an hour.

Other Union ships

A crate of quantum injection fluid.

Historically, battleships such as the BCV Burton sported only a single quantum engine to propel the ship.

Many modern Union vessels used three quantum engines, including Leviathan-class heavy cruisers. However, smaller Science-class vessels used only two engines and transporters have a single engine in the rear of the ship. It is unknown to what extent these differences affected their rate of travel.

Krill ships

Krill drive plasma, responsible for the quantum drive's green color.

Krill ships used a split-quantum drive with a quantum reactor that was markedly less efficient than their Union counterparts.

Krill ships used "drive plasma," or simply plasma, stored in the quantum reactor that gave Krill ships their characteristic greenish hue, but plasma's exact use is unknown.

Other uses

• The term quantum drive also referred to the state of travel using the drive, prompting phrases such as "drop out of quantum drive."
• The Alibar successfully built a Quantum Shifter, complete with a quantum engine, to transport the Alibar system to a new universe.

Production

The concept of a device that allows a vessel to exceed the speed of light is a staple of science fiction writing, but the idea of the quantum drive proper was developed in The Orville's writing room. Science consultant and supervising producer André Bormanis sketched how faster-than-light travel could be possible to the writers; that space-time probably arises as an emergent property from quantum level processes between particles so that "the sum is greater than the whole." Following Bormanis's lead, the Orville's method of travel would turn on quantum entanglement and, for that reason, creator Seth MacFarlane decided to name the device a "quantum" drive.

Bormanis first discussed specifics of the quantum drive in September 20, 2017, ten days after the show premiered:

We have a faster-than-light drive system, which we call quantum drive as opposed to warp drive (the idea being that space, at the deepest level, is quantized, like the energy levels in atoms, and if someday we understand how this works we might be able to manipulate the fabric of space to travel faster than light).

Later, he explained that the quantum drive's principles derive from the work of Miguel Alcubierre and the Alcubierre drive. Both drives operate by creating an energy-density field lower than that of a vacuum (negative mass); essentially compressing space and allowing the Orville to traverse vast distances relative to bystanders, but only a short distance relative to the ship. Provided that material with negative mass is obtained, the ship can compress space at rates far exceeding the speed of light.

Bormanis decided that, as an energy source, the quantum drive would use a fictional transuranic element Dysonium, composed of protons, neutrons, and "a shell of negative matter in their nuclei that helps render them stable." Bormanis continues:

In our quantum drive core we liberate and manipulate that negative matter, enabling the ship to enter and travel through 'quantum space,' a higher dimensional realm that exponentially reduces the distance needed to travel between star systems.

To maintain consistency episode-by-episode, Bormanis penned a "Bible" for the show's writers to reference. The document outlines the theoretical science behind the ship's quantum drive.

Trivia

• The drive's setup can be compared with other science fiction drives such as the Slipstream drive from the show Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda and the Quantum Slipstream Drive from Star Trek Voyager episode 'Hope and Fear'. The conventional warp drive equipped abroad the USS Voyager requires around 75 years to travel 70,000 light years, or 2.739 light years a day, while the Orville can travel ten light years a hour, or 240 light years a day, a factor of almost 88. In season 3 the Orville has a new quantum engine that let's them travel at 17 light years an hour, or 408 light years a day. At such speeds, if maintained continuously, it could traverse 70,000 light years in less than half a year.
• The quantum drive had to operate in three-dimensional space as travel through two-dimensional space would "knock the quantum engine out of alignment."

Appearances

Use of the quantum drive is ubiquitous throughout the show. Below are listed only explicit examinations and discussions of the drive itself.

• Episode 1x05: Pria
• Episode 1x11: New Dimensions