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It seems almost every form of faster than light travel in sci-fi is technically not faster than light, but rather a loophole - for example, a warp bubble, hyperspace, subspace, wormhole, jump drive, folding space etc.

What is the most modern depiction of craft or phenomena travelling superluminally, at or above c, without a 'loophole'?

Especially interested if there is a good explanation, and not simply ignoring, pre-dating or discounting theory (for example, a device that negates the mass of the object, thereby allowing it to reach c without increasing to infinite mass).

TheLethalCarrot
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Conrad Bennish Jr
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    Of course. I think that was very common in the good old days. For instance, if I remember right, E. E. Smith's Skylark outran light without benefit of warp bubbles, wormholes, or the like. – user14111 Jun 05 '18 at 05:59
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    Of note might be Futurama where, as I recall, they raised the speed of light. Not by technobabble, they just passed a law. – Cadence Jun 05 '18 at 06:10
  • I'd love to learn of some more examples, apart from Skylark – James from NZ Jun 05 '18 at 06:24
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    This is very broad. List of works that contain x areplicate off-topic – Valorum Jun 05 '18 at 06:51
  • All FTL stories which were published before 1905.. – user931 Jun 05 '18 at 09:44
  • I'm glad others are also interested in seeing more examples, but I do see the point that 'gimme lots of examples!' is quite broad. I've had a go editing it, hopefully it fits the standards now? Thanks. – Conrad Bennish Jr Jun 05 '18 at 22:41
  • Most modern??? Don't you mean the oldest? That's the opposite of "most modern" – ThePopMachine Jun 05 '18 at 23:17
  • I'm also confused about what "not a loophole" means. By all known physics, anything that goes FTL must be using a loophole. Also, why is something like a warp bubble a loophole, but something like "rnegating your mass" is not a loophole. This just makes no sense. – ThePopMachine Jun 05 '18 at 23:19
  • Most modern? That could change any day. Or every day. – amflare Jun 05 '18 at 23:49
  • I said most modern because as has been pointed out, 'oldest' would simply be 'anything before 1905'. – Conrad Bennish Jr Jun 06 '18 at 00:22
  • ThePopMachine by loophole I mean a process by which the object effectively moves from one location to the next in an interval of time shorter than sub-light travel would arrive, without actually travelling at or exceeding c. In my example negating mass would still have the object travelling at or exceeding c. Not to mention that by all known physics, a hyperdrive also isn't possible. This is scifi/fantasy we're talking. – Conrad Bennish Jr Jun 06 '18 at 00:29
  • Would the "we are not in the same dimension as Earth and here speed of light is not a limit" explanation also qualify? Piers Anthony wrote something like that in his "Mode" series in 1991 – Yasskier Jun 06 '18 at 01:22

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In Skylark of Space by E.E. “Doc” Smith, the speed of light is no limit at all. Einstein was simply wrong! The ships in the Skylark series use simple acceleration, and end up going very, very fast, hundreds of thousands of times the speed of light. Plus there's no relativistic time distortion.

"About three hundred and fifty million miles," he stated. "Clear out of our solar system already, and from the distance covered he must have had a constant acceleration so as to approximate the velocity of light, and he is still going with full...."
"But nothing can possibly go that fast, Mart, it's impossible. How about Einstein's theory?"
"That is a theory, this measurement of distance is a fact, as you know from our tests."
"That's right. Another good theory gone to pot.

Skylark of Space was originally serialized in 1928, and first published in book form in 1946.

enter image description here

Here's another: In Around A Distant Star from 1904, by Jean Delaire, there's a ship which travels at 2000c, so they go out 2000 or so lightyears with a big telescope, to see Jesus teaching in Israel. Unfortunately this one doesn't have such awesome cover art. enter image description here

Z. Cochrane
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