[answered] why "Witchspace"?

[Kittenpox]

I understand that it had to be given some kind of name - but I'm curious as to why it has the name it does... Is anyone able to explain the etymology of 'witchspace'?

[yminale]

Early explorers thought that the higher dimension they traveled through was "haunted". Some even claim to hear whispers. Some of the earlier ships disappeared. Not sure who coined the term (probably Braben).

[CatFish 911]

sounds cool... Where is it? I want to go there and check it out..

[Oku]

Originally posted by retired_old_sarge:

sounds cool... Where is it? I want to go there and check it out..

Witchspace is just another term for hyperspace. You go there every time you jump to a new system.

[Dank_Blunt]

"It was around this time the phrase 'witch-space' first appeared, reflecting the inherent dangers of early hyperspace technology and the strange 'corridor' a ship travelled through during a hyperspace jump. Some even believed witch-space was haunted by 'ghosts of ships that went into Faraway and didn't come out again'. It is certainly true that a number of ships never reached their destinations."

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperspace

[Kittenpox]

Looks like a whole bunch of comments got deleted, including the one where someone said that while the basics of *what* it is and how it works have been talked about, the naming itself hadn't yet been explained in the lore.

[Gralzeim]

Witchspace was the term for the original game's hyperspace (it used a different technology other than the Frame Shift Drives we use now)....or, alternatively, it was the dimension the Thargoids would pull you into when they'd yank you out of hyperspace. Seems to vary based on sources.


Nowadays, it's a depreciated term, unless Frontier adds something new. Hyperspace is hyperspace, and Thargoids just yank you into normal space when you get hyperdicted.

That said, it's possible capital ships still use some form of the old drive tech as it looks very different when one jumps in, compared to the normal pop and flash of a ship exiting supercruise. Or perhaps capital ships can just hyperjump directly to precision locations and arrive directly out of hyperspace rather than having to transition from hyperspace to supercruise to normal propulsion, due to larger or more advanced systems.