So I'm looking for works of science fiction that feature three things: how interstellar ships will function, how FTL travel might work, and how FTL communication might work.

So according to Spacedock, Isaac Arthur, and other sources:

• Space navigation will work something like this: a spaceship will have tools like accelerometers, gyroscopes, sextants, and star trackers which navigators would use to triangulate their ships position based on the stars. They will also need a 4D starmap and a database of each star's brightness, size, and emission spectra in every charted solar system so they can use them as reference points. And in order to chart a solar system, they would probably first have to send out probes to each system. The probes would then either a) head back and the crew would download the navigational data the probe has recorded or b) the probe would transmit the information it has gathered before it loses power. And there is also the possibility that an interstellar civilization would spread satellites throughout a solar system in order to create more reference points. [5,11]
• Spacecraft will need thermal regulation systems like radiators to collect the ship's waste heat and dump it out into space. There are four varieties of radiators that can be used by spacecraft: solid radiators, droplet radiators, flux-pinned radiators, and plasma radiators. And to avoid damage either from asteroids, solar flares, or attacks from enemy ships the radiators will have to be either armored, retracted with the ship relying on a heat sink (although this is only a stop gap measure), or designed to be harder to damage. [8]
• There is also a good chance that an interstellar spaceship's propulsion systems will basically be an advance form of Ion Thrusters powered by a fusion reactor. I'm guessing that said reactor will be fueled by Helium-3 or something just as good like Deuterium Deuterium, deuterium tritium, or proton boron-11. Depending on the design, the spaceships will have stationary thrusters (Ex: Rocinante from the Expanse, spacecraft from For All Mankind), rotating thrusters (Ex: Serentiy from Firefly, Prometheus from Alien Franchise), or both. And they will have a Reaction Control System (RCS), a flywheel system, and/or a thrust vectoring system to control the ship's heading in space and its ability to land [6,7,15,16,22].
• Speaking of landing the ship will need to have heat shielding in order to avoid burning up in the atmosphere and use its thrusters to deaccelerate and make adjustments to direct the craft to the landing site. After atmospheric reentry is complete they will have to use its thrusters, parachutes, air brakes, and/or deployable wings to continue deaccelerating and reach the landing site. If the landing site is going to be reused it will need to be flat and have a strengthened surface with a blast shield to stop debris. And naturally the ship will need proximity sensors to avoid crash landing [9].

From my understanding there are a few plausible theories on how FTL travel could work like wormhole networks and halo drives. For now, I just want to focus on one plausible form of FTL. A machine called an Alcubierre drive.

According to physicist Miguel Alcubierre, it is scientifically plausible to create a "warp bubble" to compress space Unfortunately there are a few problems with this theory. For starters, it requires a form of exotic matter (negative mass) that is still highly theoretical. And there are also engineering issues like energy requirements and how to control the warp bubble from inside the ship. And since the warp bubbles might accumulate a lot of photon radiation there is a good chance that when the ship stops, and the bubble disperses, this will unleash an energy dump powerful enough to wipe out an entire planet. However, since this, theory is still a work in progress physicist and engineers are still working on ways to get around these problems. For example, a few years ago a german physicist named Erik Lentz proposed that it might be possible for an Alcubierre drive to use positive energy over negative energy. And the Advanced Propulsion Laboratory in New York just released a paper theorizing that it is possible to create a warp bubble with just ordinary matter. And according to Professor David Kippling to get around the radiation issue all the crew has to do is make sure that their ship exits outside of the target system when they drop out of warp [3,4,12,13,17,18,19]. In any case I'm looking for works of science fiction where FTL travel is possible thanks to the Alcubierre drive, or a machine that operates much like an Alcubierre drive.

Note 1: I prefer works of science fiction where the method of dispersing the warp bubble is done with a machine from inside the ship, instead of an external machine that disperses the bubble when you arrive at the destination. The reason I prefer the former is because it avoids creating a Catch-22 dilemma. You can't have FTL without creating negative energy generators at both ends and you can't create negative energy generators at both ends without FTL [12].

Note 2: Given the fact that these ships have the potential to cause a nuclear fallout (fusion) or wipe out an entire planet (Alcubierre Drive) it seems highly unlikely that the average Joe will be able to own their personnel starships. Chances are that such ships will probably be owned by governments or private corporations. Naturally, the former will want to use such ships to explore other planets, transporting essential supplies to other planets and colonies, and use them as military vessels. The latter will also want to use these ships for exploration, transporting supplies and goods, and some might even want to use these ships for space tourism purposes like as cruise ships. In any case both parties will probably want their pilots and navigators to undergo rigorous testing to verify that they are capable of flying such a craft along with various tests and inspections of the ships engines, reactors, and Alcubierre drive to prevent the ship from crashing, blowing up, or wiping out an inhabited planet.

Note 3: Of course, even if the necessary precautions have been taken there is still some probability of a spaceship crashing, blowing up, or wiping out an inhabited planet either as a result of pilot/navigator error, mechanical error, or being hijacked by a group of extremists. The consequences of such an incident would be disastrous to say the least, ranging from the extinction of an entire pre-spaceflight civilization to full-blown war between interstellar powers.

And here are all of the plausible ways interstellar communication might work based on responses from other redditors and a few articles I have found:

• Quantum physics - although it is not yet possible, I still like to believe that quantum entanglement or quantum tunneling might be one of the ways FTL Communication is made possible. [10]
• A laser network - based on u/JoeStrout, u/AtomizerStudio, and u/Daealis comments a network of laser containing streams of data is one way interstellar communication might work. [1]
• A system like the interplanetary internet project. [2. u/ramriot, u/Metlman13, 21]
• Wormholes - Based on an article I found on the debrief it may be possible to create miniature wormholes that can be used to send electromagnetic waves from one point to another. [14]
• Based on u/DaChieftainOfThirsk and u/Electrical_Monk1929 comments it may be possible to use a network where ships are used to deliver data from system to system. [2, 20]

Sources:

1. https://reddit.com/r/Futurism/s/LdxaaW4NFY
2. https://reddit.com/r/Futurology/s/gSERp7woRX
3. https://earthsky.org/space/warp-drive-chances-of-faster-than-light-space-travel/
4. https://www.livescience.com/55981-futuristic-spacecraft-for-interstellar-space-travel.html
5. https://youtu.be/-6fSqC_euhE?feature=shared
6. https://youtu.be/-9B6B2vvr60?feature=shared
7. Realistic Spacecraft Maneuvering (youtube.com)
8. https://youtu.be/w5fvy1ZcIZk?feature=shared
9. How To Land on Other Planets (Realistically) - YouTube
10. Harnessing Quantum Entanglement: The Future of Space Communication | Digital Daz
11. Interstellar Navigation (youtube.com)
12. What's Stopping Us From Building a Warp Drive? (youtube.com)
13. Warp Drive Breakthrough Could Enable Constant-Velocity Subluminal Travel, Physics Team Says - The Debrief
14. Tiny Wormholes May Be Usable for Interstellar Communication - The Debrief
15. Fusion Propulsion - YouTube
16. The Spaceship Propulsion Compendium - YouTube
17. https://thedebrief.org/theoretical-lentz-drive-could-make-star-trek-warp-technology-a-reality/
18. impossibility_of_warp_drive.pdf (sfu.ca)
19. The Lentz Soliton FTL Drive (washington.edu)
20. What will the internet look like in the space/interstellar age? And what would we need to do to establish and maintain internet connections between colonies? : r/AskEngineers (reddit.com)
21. The Interplanetary Internet - IEEE Spectrum
22. Team Phoenicia: Guest Post: Helium-3, Lunar Chimera by James Nicoll