Interdiction is the act of pulling an object out of warp, whether it is simply to request something, or to cause harm.
Gravitational Emergency Drop (A.K.A. Interdiction Centrifuge)[]
Some spaceships and all starships use the navigation suite, with the blueprints issued to all registered ship manufacturers. Something that the NS contains is a gravitational anomaly measuring device which detects gravitational wells and gravitational waves and sends feedback to the emergency autopilot causing the ship to drop out of warp, to prevent spaceships from ramming massive objects in warp. These GAMDs can detect fields as weak as most asteroids.
If a starship contains a centrifuge big enough that spins around sufficiently massive objects, then it can create extremely small gravitational waves acting as a giant net just powerful enough to cause another starship to emergency drop. However, the destination of the interdicted has to be known and the interdictor has to have enough Delta-V and warp factor capacity to overtake the target and position itself between the target's start and destination. The cost of building a starship for this is immense due to the sheer power that the centrifuge and the rest of the starship need to be moved around in normal space and in Alcubierre space.
- Pros
- Massive interdiction window, waves travel at the speed of light
- Cons
- Costly; if a lot of interdictors are needed and there is no resource-heavy, uninhabited planet, jaunts to other systems will be needed to prevent depleting any asteroid fields. In other words, just having an interdiction centrifuge on a ship makes it a capital ship.
- Massive; very unmaneuverable, can only engage enemy ships via deploying other contained ships, further putting pressure on the engines and warp drive. This also makes it very difficult to get between the target and the target's target.
- Faster warp drive required to catch up and overtake.
There are a lot of cons, however these interdiction centrifuges' ability to forcefully cause target ships to drop makes them popular among galactic authorities and armies.
Signal Interception[]
Another method used is by simply requesting another ship to drop out of warp by having the target intercept signals instead of gravitational waves. This is used when emergency repairs are needed, or the interdictor wants to trade resources or give fuel.
It is heavily debated if this counts as interdiction at all, however it's argued that this does take the interdicted out of warp if they consent to this.
- Pros
- Lightweight and cheap; all that is needed is a transmission device with enough power, or good enough timing to appear in front of the interdicted.
- Cons
- Consent required, interdicted may not drop.
- Again, faster warp drive required.
Hacking[]
Hacking is like signal interception, albeit it tells the autopilot of the interdicted to drop out of warp. This is a popular method of interdiction that pirates use to plunder unsuspecting starships when within systems that have low employment rates for programmers working on security systems. However, systems with a higher rate of security programmers often have starships harder to interdict though hacking.
- Pros
- Lightweight and cheap
- Works on most ships
- Cons
- Faster warp drive required
- Programming and engineering expertise required to jerry-rig a custom navigation suite and hack remotely.