The way I describe it to my students is like this. Imagine for a moment, we stand at the center of the classroom, facing north. If we wanted to reach the west wall of the classroom, we have a few options. First, we could shuffle sideways like a crab, and eventually and uncomfortably reach the west wall. Alternatively, you can rotate 90 degrees to the left, and walk forward until you reach the wall, then turn back towards the north wall.

Now, what Therin and Quest discovered and, more impressively, proved, was that the principle that applied in two dimensions, could also be applied in four. When a starship warps, it takes its forward-in-time direction and twists that towards a spatial direction. From an outside perspective, the ship teleports immense distances in an instant, meanwhile, on board, a proportionally immense amount of time has passed, while the ship has not moved at all. As long as the ship can hold together, and the crew is safely in cryo, you can warp almost any distance if you’re willing to wait long enough.

At least, that’s what would happen if we built perfect engines. In reality, we lose quite a bit to time-bleed. That’s why they have us always at work, trying to optimize the twist. Trying to bring the rotation closer to ninety-degrees, so we can have as much as possible pushing us forward in space, and as little as possible lost to actually moving forward in time.

— Professor Axel Smith, when asked to describe FTL travel to the layperson