Foreword: I knew this would be a long post, but it turned into a behemoth. Hope you still enjoy it.
I case someone is interested, I didn't do much research, but from what I read in
ClymAngus post and
Disembodied theories (They are theories, right? You don't have a working prototyp, do you?) here are my ideas, which steps
MIGHT happen, when travelling between stars in elite.
Witchspace is a sort of hyperspace/subspace and kinda like the hyperspace in Babylon 5. It does connect to the elite normal spacetime, but dimensions are stretched or compressed varying in dependence of the location. It also connects to other spacetime continuities (parallel realities/timelines, See TV shows like Sliders/deserve animes/popular science shows/books) and even dimensions with different natural laws. ("Next Supermarket? Sure. Just turn orange, then 5 Seconds up, next before wave 5°f into christmas and thernth it is, but slay it gently and be worn proudly or you have to face the cookies!") And believe me. Nomebody wants to face the chocolate chips ones thernth.
So, when in witch space you want to stay, where it connects to your own normal spacetime, but with the stretching and compression, as this is a good thing for travelling great distances. Maybe navigation is hard and here it is where the buoys come in. They might be along the routes you take to different Star systems, where you don't leave the safety of regions with interspace connections only leading to your spacetime. The routes begin at different points in witchspace. To get there your ship creates a wormhole.
The creation of wormholes leading to witchspace might take a lot less energy, than wormholes leading to other spacetime continuities. Maybe it's just that you have to wide microwormholes that pop in and out of existence all the time or it means helping an only virtual "existing" (the faint possibility of the right) wormhole to form and widening that one. That wormhole has to fulfil the condition, that it leads to certain areas in witchspace, namely where the first navigation buoy to the next system is. Hence therefore "Wormhole to XYZ system". This region is interspace connected to somewhere in the near of the starting system.
Maybe leaving witchspace is as simple a falling oneway though interspace connections back into normal spacetime or not there, if you LEFT THE SAVE ROUTE!!!!, but I'm not really sure there how i should imagine it.
The above mentioned Stretching and compressing of dimensions doesn't mean the deformation of your ship in witchspace. 1 meter (or yard) of you and your ship still means 1 meter (or yard) in witchspace, but the interspace connections of that region of witchspace might connect in a different manner to normal spacetime. Two points in witchspace that are only a few millimeters (inches) away from each other might connect to two points in normal spacetime, that are the same distance away form each other or km (miles) or even lightyears or only a few nanometers. That's what I mean with stretched or compressed. Traveling a few 100.000 miles in witchspace between two spaces that interspace connect to normal spacetime regions 1 LY(lightyear) away from each other is pretty neat.
Falling out of witchspace in a
region with relatively uniform interspace connections might feel pretty normal. A few differences in distances measured in nm (nanometers) or below might be overcome by the fundamental 4 forces, meanly the electrostatic binding of your skin, bones flesh, dns, etc. Maybe it tickles a bit. (It shouldn't tickle. If it tickles, something went terribly wrong! Ah, I'm just kidding. Nothing is wrong with a little bit tickling. For example: Radiation that's strong enough, that it makes your nerves feel a tickling sensation isn't harmful either, is it? NEVER LEAVE THE ROUTE!!!)
So,
regions with uniform interspace connections to witchspace are good. In my headcanon this is were the witchpoints are located and the routes end. There are also witchpoints in between systems or maybe the Thargoid can create such points to pull ships out of witchspace. Maybe falling out of witchspace in uniform interspace connection regions is pretty easy. So easy that it happens by itself when entering such a region and than Thargoid ambush!!! Or you've just arrived at your target destination. There might also regions, where falling out of witchspace is easy and no other condition. Fallout regions that overlap with uniform interspace connection regions can be called save witchpoints.
Nonuniform interspace connection regions like "streched out" or "compresses" one's are not that good to fall out. Your matter would be either sprayed across maybe LYs (Ripped aparted by a pseudo force.) or squished into a sphere of a few nm³s volume together with your ship (Compressed by the same pseudo force.) maybe forming a small blackhole ,that vanishes as the amount of your matter (not even your own matter itself) flies away as Hawkins radiation. Other disturbances/forms of
nonuniform interspace connections aren't good either. It could turn you inside out. Maybe the connection points are the same distances away from each other in space, but thousands of years away in time. Or they end up in different spacetime continues at all. That's what you get from leaving the routes.
Please stay save and stay on the routes.
When travelling in witchspace you need somehow witchfuel. Maybe the standard means of travelling in normal spacetime is a small torusdrive or a similar device creating a warpbubble around the ship (far less g-forces) and not standard burners. Those things don't work in witchspace (would distort the interspace connections and create fallout regions -> Bad for health). Therefore burners which use witchfuel.
So here's what I believe might be the steps:
1. Wormholes leading into witchspace need only a manageable amount of energy to be established.
2. They lead to the starting points of save routes, that are leading to a region which safely connects back to normal spacetime called the witchpoint ("
uniform interspace connection" + "
fallout" region), which itself is located in the near of the destination planet within the destination system.
3. Standard drives, like the Torusdrive for example, don't work in witchspace. You have to use burners or a special drive that needs Witchfuel in any case.
Remember. Witchspace travel might be dangerous, if done wrong (STAY ON THOSE ROUTES!!!!!), but it kills far less people than narcotics,..... or pirates.
