The Teraport is a
hyperdrive developed by
Kevyn Andreyasn in the online
web comic Schlock Mercenary by Howard Taylor. It's really a pun based on the idea of what a transporter from
Star Trek does. In the words of its inventor:
It reduces the subject to standing Gravetic waves, then transports them, and itself, through billions of nanoscopic wormholes to the destination.
The nature of the technology made most early users wary of it, due to the fact that they were being atomized and put back together. Thus the pun is that it's the "tear apart." To power the transportation of a mass so far through hyperspace a random atom from here and there around the body being transported is turned into energy.
Political and Martial Implications
For most of recorded galactic history in Schlock Mercenary, space travel between systems is done nearly entirely using a system of fixed hyperspace pathways called Wormgates, the administration of which is controlled by the powerful F'sherl-Ganni. The development of a form of transportation for any material or materiel to be somewhere else instantly lead to the complete revision of military tactics by the AI of the Post-Dated Check Loan which came under the ownership of Tagon's Toughs early in the comic's history. Most of the comic has been dealing with the aftermath of this technology and the adventures of the crew because of it. It has lead directly to several wars that the main characters and tertiary characters have been involved in, specifically the Teraport Wars, the Conflict with the Dark Matter Beings, and the ongoing Invasion of Andromeda.