Basic Trope: The realm used for FTL and/or teleportation is dangerous
- Straight: A trip through hyperspace is dangerous for anyone who doesn't take the proper precautions; they're likely to end up insane or dead if they make the trip while conscious.
- Exaggerated: Without proper preparation for hyperspace, you'll be lucky if you die; a Fate Worse than Death is more likely. And even with every precaution, ships sometimes just... disappear. If this happens and a ship gets lost in the aether, pray it never comes back.
- Downplayed:
- Hyperspace is trippy and not for the faint of heart, but it's no more dangerous than regular space, and won't drive a mentally healthy person insane.
- Hyperspace is very dangerous, but it's conventionally dangerous. A ship needs expensive special shielding to avoid vaporization in hyperspace, but it lacks any deliberately malicious threats.
- Being in hyperspace feels like being beaten halfway to death with a frozen, but still, somehow odiferous, turd.
- The hyperspatial creatures analogous to a Space Whale (a hyperspace whale, if you will) is a vicious, ravening predator made out of Anti Matter/ tachyons/ strange matter/ some other nasty substance. So a ship needs to outrun a hungry monster that will either devour them or explode with literally earth-shattering force (or worse) if it catches them. Outside of places they reside, Hyperspace is almost as boring as normal space; even peaceful or pleasant at times.
- Justified:
- Hyperspace follows a different set of physical laws, so the effects on beings from our universe will naturally be unpleasant.
- Hyperspace is, literally, Hell.
- Inverted:
- Hyperspace is a profoundly beautiful and peaceful realm; many ships take tourists through it just for the experience.
- Hyperspace is so lovely that a religion springs up around it, reasoning that it has to be Heaven. This still results in the viewports being blocked off everywhere, on the reasoning that looking at "God/the gods" is instantly and spectacularly fatal. All the rituals associated with hyperspace travel are geared towards placating said holy being(s). Some even prefer the Alcubierre Drive for religeous reasons, to avoid tresspassing into Heaven
- Hyperspace is so beautiful that if ships do not make it in and out in time, their crew members may become infatuated with the environment and refuse to leave it.
- Subverted:
- Humanity's first few trips through hyperspace are horrifying, but it eventually turns out that hyperspace has its quiet spots and its dangerous zones; the first trips had the misfortune of being through the latter.
- By tradition, new recruits to the Interstellar Marines are told all sorts of horror stories about hyperspace jumps. The older Marines are actually just screwing with the recruits.
- Double Subverted:
- The so-called "quiet spots" are traps, or otherwise more insidious than they seem.
- All the old, "phony" stories about hyperspace are actually very real, albeit from an era before warp shielding was invented to make the trip far more bearable. And of course, the ship is eventually forced to jump with a damaged warp shield...
- Parodied: Hyperspace is a giant, perpetual death metal concert, where the greatest risk is being moshed by an Eldritch Abomination.
- Zig Zagged: Hyperspace trips may be uneventful or fatal or just plain weird, and there is no way to predict how well a trip will go in advance.
- Averted: Hyperspace is given no particular thought. Ships jump through it, pretty lights, back to normal space.
- Enforced:
- A Science Fantasy needs an equivalent to Hell or just some place to put its Eldritch Abominations.
- There needs to be a reason why characters can't just escape to hyperspace whenever they're attacked, so the writers decide to make hyperspace so incredibly nasty that the protagonists are better off just dealing with their enemies in realspace.
- Lampshaded: "Yeah, it's not all pretty lights and trippy sounds like those movies of yours. Hyperspace is a scary place."
- Invoked: Hyperspace was built by the local Abusive Precursors, and they decided to install "surprises" to punish lesser races impudent enough to try and use it.
- Exploited: One of the nastiest weapons or criminal punishments is a device that sends the target on a one-way trip to hyperspace.
- Defied: After a lab rat gets sent through hyperspace and comes out very much not a rat anymore, scientists decide to scrap the hyper-drive and either start work on an Alcubierre Drive or just abandon the whole idea of FTL altogether as not worth it.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Every window on the ship shuts down and every external sensor deactivates before a hyperspace jump, and they can't be reactivated until it's over.
- Played For Laughs:
- A conscious trip through hyperspace isn't directly shown, but it temporarily causes something akin to Funny Schizophrenia in its victims — especially the Straight Man, though the Cloudcuckoolander may come out unscathed. Hilarity Ensues until the affected can be cured of Hyperspace Madness.
- The only danger in hyperspace is a furious ghost of Albert Einstein who will attack any ship moving faster than c.
- Played For Drama: A character is driven mad by hyperspace travel, and their loved ones mourn the loss of their mind.
- Played For Horror: One in two trips is attacked by monstrous creatures beyond comprehension.
- Deconstructed: No one wants to travel through hyperspace because it's so dangerous.
- Reconstructed: Ships are able to take appropriate precautions that reduce the risk of danger and play calming meditation videos to reduce the fear. It's still a scary experience, but people can handle it.
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