Developed by Dr Plaxton on Caspar. Using light instead of plasma, it could allow ships to travel at previously unimaginable speeds "in real time". Atlan's space choppers could manage Time Distort 12.6 with the Mark I drive, and theoretically TD-15 with the Mark II (which was, however, too large to be installed in a space chopper, despite being readily portable). Scorpio was fitted with the Mark II drive and was reported to leave Bucol-2 at TD-12.
Plaxton spent three years on Caspar developing the drive, with an unspecified previous period working on it for the Federation. She referred to 3,000 hours of work on Caspar, and Atlan referred to his space rats combing a dozen worlds for the raw materials. Few details of its functioning were given, although a photon generator chamber was mentioned.
See also HYPERDRIVE, SPEED, TIME DISTORT, INTERGALACTIC DRIVE.