Faster Than Light Travel in the 200th year of the Terran Empire. Jump Drives still exist, but for the last several thousand years any ship going into jump has not returned. The Terran Empire (and neighbouring empires) have two other ways of travelling faster than light. 1.  Hyperspace Drives. Ships travel through a Babylon 5 type of  hyperspace.  The travel time of this type of drive is 1 parsec per month (the distance a jump 1 drive would take one week to travel). Such drives are available from tech level ten onwards. Tech 8 is Earth in the 1990's) 2.  Tachyon Gates. TL 17 devices lovingly crafted by human hands. It takes a long time for a working gate top be built. Around ten years. Two gates make up a system that allows instantaneous transport over any distance of up to a million displacement tons from one gate to the other. The larger the mass transported, the longer the time the gate takes to recycle ready for the next transit. One gate can only transit to the same paired gate only ie. the gate at Barnards star can only be used to go to the matching gate at earth.  It can't be used to go to the Gate at alpha centauri. That gate can only be accessed from the other gate at Terra.