How are gems able to travel the vast distances between star systems? Well, it looks like they just showed us how! The attention to detail in this show is remarkable.
(explanation below)
The closest star to earth, besides the sun, is about 4.4 light years away, meaning that traveling at the speed of light, it would take 4.4 years to get there. The approximate diameter of our galaxy is 100,000 light years. According to known laws of physics, matter cannot travel faster than light. So how is Homeworld able to go around galaxy conquering so quickly?
That ship appears to be creating an Alcubierre drive, one of the only theoretical propulsion methods capable of faster-than-light interstellar travel. I’m no expert, so correct me if I am wrong, but the physics behind it essentially are that it compresses the fabric of space in front of it and expands the space behind it, effectively meaning that the ship does not move at all, but rather rides on a ripple in the very fabric of reality. Matter cannot travel at speeds faster than light, but there is no limit to how fast space itself can expand.
One proposed method for creating an Alcubierre drive is to create an artificial black hole in front of the ship to compress the spacetime in front of it. That is what they are doing here! Sorry for the long winded explanation; I get really excited when cartoons do their science right!
So there you have it, that is the level of technology Homeworld possesses.
