The obscure Scintilla drive was powered by a special particulate substance present only in red giant and red supergiant stars. Scintillas were highly reactive multi-dimensional particles, as they existed simultaneously in multiple locations; this property of matter would, in human terms, be classified as a form of quantum entanglement. The extremely powerful and volatile particles were hidden from sub-utopian societies, as a certain level of consciousness was required to perceive such an elusive cosmic gem. Once the utopian level was reached, a highly advanced species, such as Zygnians, had another obstacle to overcome before being able to harness the elusive scintillas.
The stars themselves, along with the orbiting planets, were living organisms capable of engaging in telepathic dialogues with the utopian, and post-utopian species. This bizarre communication was quite taxing for Zygnians, as the sheer power of the telepathic link was too intense to be sustained for more than a few human seconds. The stars were not so forthcoming and required something in return for their precious particles. Although regarded as ancient repositories of wisdom, their childish curiosity was still apparent no matter the age. During that brief telepathic moment, a star would request a story to be told, something engrossing and entertaining. In return, it would release a certain amount of scintillas based on the quality of the given story. This mind boggling relationship puts interstellar travel in a closed loop relationship with those celestial fuel providing furnaces. The exploration of distant galaxies was bound to generate an abundance of stories, and therefore secure the necessary fuel for further exploration of the Zygnian universe.
Soon after the S-Drive became fully operational, the entire system experienced a rapid growth in both knowledge and curiosity. No matter the high level of theoretical understanding of nearby systems and galaxies, the ember of fascination was quickly stoked into a blazing desire for endless exploration of the farthest reaches of the universe.
Although they already had a fleet of interplanetary vessels, a more robust and sturdy design was needed to compensate for much higher levels of stress exerted by the more powerful interstellar drive; high levels of acceleration and speed would cause their current vessels to lose hull integrity. The idea to retrofit them with S-Drive was fraught with too much danger, and new design was conceived. It was breathtaking in both visual appearance and performance.
The streamlined exploration vessel, named "TSD-1" which stood for "Twin Scintilla Drive 1", boasted a pair of S-Drive engines; they opted for a dual-drive design to tackle two most critical engineering issues. Redundancy and load distribution were both solved by having two drives working in unison. In case one of them failed, the other would be able to keep the vessel operational, only at lower speeds. One question still remained unanswered; the actual speed limit of TSD-1 was a complete mystery. Only her maiden voyage would sate the ever impatient engineers and provide some empirical data.