FTL Communication - Effect?
- Thread starter Mithras
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Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
Cheers, Hans.
So a couple of thousand years or so should see charted space fully linked with entangled communicators.
Curiosity satisfied.
ThunderChilde
SOC-13
Just think, each new higher throughput generation of E-comms will have to be propagated at sub-light............
I wanted to introduce a back ground furor over having finally broken the ftl barrier for comms , and then have it not reach the marches in the games lifetime. News reports of the golly gee whiz kind referring to the 12 worlds already linked, yadda yadda yadda.
The whole point was to create an air of a not so static Imperium. With that many trillions of people, and tens of thousands of Universities and research labs, new ideas aughta be bubbling around all the damn time.
Traveller usually feels more like a mausoleum of glacial changes.
Not to say that that is all a bad thing, I like the basic idea of things having reached the apex of design and engineering having had thousands of years to achieve that under almost any situation.
Meandering here gonna stop before I got over a cliff.
I wanted to introduce a back ground furor over having finally broken the ftl barrier for comms , and then have it not reach the marches in the games lifetime. News reports of the golly gee whiz kind referring to the 12 worlds already linked, yadda yadda yadda.
The whole point was to create an air of a not so static Imperium. With that many trillions of people, and tens of thousands of Universities and research labs, new ideas aughta be bubbling around all the damn time.
Traveller usually feels more like a mausoleum of glacial changes.
Not to say that that is all a bad thing, I like the basic idea of things having reached the apex of design and engineering having had thousands of years to achieve that under almost any situation.
Meandering here gonna stop before I got over a cliff.
I have an NPC group that's plundered a pair of Imperial Research Stations and
they've got an Entanglement Holoprojector but it has to be in the same parsec
(hex) as the receiver. They also don't know how to fix it, so once it's gone, it's gone.
I've been re-reading my Grimes books and have decided to implement the "dog's
brain in aspic" psionic amplifier too, so their Darrian psychic will have one
of those. In the Grimes books the amplifier can magnify the Telepath's power
across many light years, so I'm saying it's a function of the Telepath's IQ+3
in hexes. In the Grimes book they can pretty much home in with it so it aids
in navigation too. If you have 2 psychics amplifying each other (also
possible in the Grimes TU) then it's HighestIQ+2 in hexes. A non-psychic can also
be used in emergencies, granting IQ+1 range.
Obviously this won't be all over MTU.
>
shadowdragon
SOC-12
why the devil would you do that? Go to the biggest damn bank in the Imperium and get start up loans, partner with the Emperor, whatever it takes, then ship the bloody plans to each system for local construction. at most you may have to transport components or raw materials if they can not be procured locally. that way the plans at least can travel at the speed of the xboat system....
I have an NPC group that's plundered a pair of Imperial Research Stations .........
.......In the Grimes books the amplifier can magnify the Telepath's power
across many light years, so I'm saying it's a function of the Telepath's IQ+3
in hexes. In the Grimes book they can pretty much home in with it so it aids
in navigation too. If you have 2 psychics amplifying each other (also
possible in the Grimes TU) then it's HighestIQ+2 in hexes. A non-psychic can also
be used in emergencies, granting IQ+1 range.
Obviously this won't be all over MTU.
>
Why would having additional psychics give less range than a lone psychic?
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there might be a proliferation of interstellar ⌧ sites and spammers
different worlds would have different levels of blockers and restrictions
and comms can be FTL yet still be slower than a jump-ship be a long shot.
( a parsec per week is pretty fast...6 parsecs in a week is really really fast....both much faster than c )
Does any of this really matter so long as the FTL comms are still significantly slower than actual travel?
different worlds would have different levels of blockers and restrictions
and comms can be FTL yet still be slower than a jump-ship be a long shot.
( a parsec per week is pretty fast...6 parsecs in a week is really really fast....both much faster than c )
Does any of this really matter so long as the FTL comms are still significantly slower than actual travel?
Highest IQ+2 isn't the same as IQ+3; you're worried about the
+1, I'm not. The idea is also that the parties don't know the
meta-gaming bonuses...they don't know until they try, versus
the munchkin, maximization of bonuses at all costs. In most
cases the team will be looking for something in "jump range"
which is governed by their ship. In some cases they may need
to go beyond this range to find a mis-jumped ship; or to pickup
the odd-plotline the GM has planted 5+ parsecs away.
There's also going to be a skill roll involved and using a live
person vs a "machine" is going to be easier. The idea in the
Grimes uni is that most PCOs (Psionic Comm Officers) "bond"
with their "unit" (dog's brain) and will use that for 99% of their
work.
Two psychics is pretty rare, but in some cases, like one of the
books they're were husband and wife.
"Sorry honey, I prefer the poodle."
>
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There would be at least one component that would have to be shipped; that would be the actual "entangled" particle(s). What's more, those entangled particles probably need a "support system" of some sort to prevent decaying of the entanglement - and I could easily see that as being the BULK of a Quantum Entanglement FTL Comm.
Furthermore, it might only be possible to create the QEPs at will in sufficient quantities at TL16+. That limits WHERE you can build a QEFC, and those places might not be where you feel it most important to USE a QEFC.
Ultimately, though, it's a case of "IMTU" - the way you want it to work may not be the way someone else wants it to work, and your "why the devil would you do that" is less than entirely appropriate, under the circumstances.
I'm still debating where to cutoff using Meson Comms since that
would be a significant boost to stealth.
If most IN Subsector Navies equip their SDBs and Patrol ships
with Meson Comms, they're going to be hard to detect vs radio.
They're also great in Gas Giant radiation belts (as far as I know
anyhoo) no problems with jamming or interference.
cue Meson-know-it-alls insert your knowledge on why YOU CAN'T
DO THAT
Anyway, back to Traveller, I'd say the Mega-Corps would undoubtedly
have Meson comm as fairly standard equipment (with N-Space Radio
as a backup or for comm with regular Joe-tech worlds and ships).
Fairly large corps like Baraccai Technum and so on could utilize it as
well.
I had thought Police Agencies are limited to certain types of comm,
but that might have died Post 911; or if you're working with the Feds.
>
would be a significant boost to stealth.
If most IN Subsector Navies equip their SDBs and Patrol ships
with Meson Comms, they're going to be hard to detect vs radio.
They're also great in Gas Giant radiation belts (as far as I know
anyhoo) no problems with jamming or interference.
cue Meson-know-it-alls insert your knowledge on why YOU CAN'T
DO THAT
Anyway, back to Traveller, I'd say the Mega-Corps would undoubtedly
have Meson comm as fairly standard equipment (with N-Space Radio
as a backup or for comm with regular Joe-tech worlds and ships).
Fairly large corps like Baraccai Technum and so on could utilize it as
well.
I had thought Police Agencies are limited to certain types of comm,
but that might have died Post 911; or if you're working with the Feds.
>
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
So, PCOs have oodles of poodles on their noodles?
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
I'm guessing you're not conversant with Quantum Entanglement, Shadowdragon.
Basically, the transmitter and receiver are 'connected' in an exotic way.
Imagine it as a 'tin can and string' telephone. You can build the ends in different places according to a blueprint, but you still need to roll the quantum string out between them.
Of course, with quantum entanglement once the wavefunction has collapsed (and the information is transferred), the particles are no longer entangled. So, you will only be able to transmit a limited amount of information before you need to send more entangled particles.
whitedalek
SOC-9
what if?
the Ancients accidentally left a few 'entangled' cans in charted space... ; )
making a 'pre-built' network waiting to be reactivated
the Ancients accidentally left a few 'entangled' cans in charted space... ; )
making a 'pre-built' network waiting to be reactivated
shadowdragon
SOC-12
Not even a little bit....and if such is the case then i can't see where it would be even remotely worthwhile to invest in something that may come into use a couple hundred years in the future. At the earliest. Re-vamping the xboat network would be faster and prolly a lot cheaper in the long run..... And possibly requiring all vessels to carry a form of coded dispatch packets as part of the licensing requirements for operation in interstellar space. Personal electronic mails and "library" packets to update the library files in each system. This would also allow "no clue where you are but call when you get this" messages to propagate at much faster speeds than just utilizing the xboat network would allow. This information is uploaded automatically from the ships computers as each jump is concluded, and each ship receives its download when they receive clearance to leave the system from traffic control. Give each message/library data entry a unique identifier and collating the information becomes automatic.
If the receiver and transmitter dont need to be "connected" prior to activation, it wouldnt matter if the required TL is 16 or not if you put the manufacturing plant on board a ship and move it from system to system, building as you go.......
Commander Truestar
SOC-13
Commander Truestar
SOC-13
I always saw that as the equivalent of Pre-American scientific advance.
Before you had this huge hunk of territory with all these folks "speaking freely" you had lots of smaller nations that, while older, had all sorts of limits.
- You could not talk to the guy in the next town because his lord hates your lord
- You could not talk to the people in the next kingdom because they were not on friendly terms with ours..
- You could not say something because of some sort of religious restriction
- You theories came splat up against someone more powerful and they stopped there...and likely, so did you!
But in the colonies we had the same mix of intellects without those restrictions!!! And with oodles of raw materials to feast on intellectually and experimentally.
No one knows where we'd be if Europe had managed to drop its borders and restrictions centuries ago! But such is Human history on this rock.
Now the only real limit on advancement is money. Everything is there including huge hordes of untapped intellect, all tied to all the knowledge needed by the internet. Those who would just need the cash or backing to change our entire world.
Marc
Sounds like an ansible
Marc
The Ansible in the Enderverse is in fact a quantum entangled particle communicator.
Thing is, the quantum enaglement has been demonstrated at TL 8, but only for a few meters. (2008)
Keklas Rekobah
SOC-14 1K
A few random thoughts...
I envision a system just slightly more sophisticated that the Navy's ELF submarine alert system -- something that could send basic data packets at facsimile speeds -- analogous to the crude "spark-gap" transmitters of Terra's early 20th century (just as noisy and wasteful of "untuned" energy).
Okay ... you have a jump grid of superconducting Handwavium/Lanthanum alloy built into the hull of the ship to generate the jump field and translate the ship into jumpspace. The electromagnetic "PRANG!" of this event propagates through n-space at the speed of light, and does not take much more than a standard shortwave receiver to detect.
A j-space transmitter could be made to "stutter" a jumpgrid so that it just almost translates into j-space, but not quite. This would still modulate the j-space "aether," but would not necessarily require the 100-diameter distance for operation.
How fast does the signal propagate through j-space? Let's pick an arbitrary value ... 6^6 parsecs per week ... as the absolute "Speed of Light in J-Space." Roughly 863.2 x 10^96 parsecs per week.
But the inverse-square law does not apply. Let's pick a value that diminishes the signal strength much more rapidly ... inverse-squared-squared, perhaps ... thus making the signal strength drop off more rapidly with range in j-space than in n-space.
Or use Rekobah's Slipstream Attenuation Principle and just declare that while the signal travels 6^6 parsecs per week, current technology (TL-15) only allows the signal to be picked up out of the noise within a radius of six parsecs, and for every step down in TL at the receiving end, one less parsec in range is permitted. So a TL-10 culture one parsec away could pick it up, but the TL-10 system one parsec further from the source wouldn't.
Plus, in order to detect the signal in the first place would require another Handwavium/Lanthanum alloy detector grid at the receiving end -- a grid that might otherwise cover the entire acreage at the VLA Radio Telescope in New Mexico.
A grid that in times of war might be sacrificed to repair the jumpgrids on Imperial warships, or that is so prohibitively expensive that it might only be found on TL-15 worlds every 6 parsecs or so, and only on worlds under control of the Imperial military.
Each station thus positioned could act as a relay in a series of stations. Of course, some errors could creep in to the data being transmitted, and authentication protocols would have to be implemented. And then there are the maintenance costs to consider, and the fact that the system could not be made unidirectional.
And what would a "misjump" mean in such a system? A perfectly clear signal transmitted to a location 36 parsecs in some random direction? And a "drive failure" might mean that at least part of the grid has spontaneously vaporised in the middle of a Class-One military alert for cease-fire...
I envision a system just slightly more sophisticated that the Navy's ELF submarine alert system -- something that could send basic data packets at facsimile speeds -- analogous to the crude "spark-gap" transmitters of Terra's early 20th century (just as noisy and wasteful of "untuned" energy).
Okay ... you have a jump grid of superconducting Handwavium/Lanthanum alloy built into the hull of the ship to generate the jump field and translate the ship into jumpspace. The electromagnetic "PRANG!" of this event propagates through n-space at the speed of light, and does not take much more than a standard shortwave receiver to detect.
A j-space transmitter could be made to "stutter" a jumpgrid so that it just almost translates into j-space, but not quite. This would still modulate the j-space "aether," but would not necessarily require the 100-diameter distance for operation.
How fast does the signal propagate through j-space? Let's pick an arbitrary value ... 6^6 parsecs per week ... as the absolute "Speed of Light in J-Space." Roughly 863.2 x 10^96 parsecs per week.
But the inverse-square law does not apply. Let's pick a value that diminishes the signal strength much more rapidly ... inverse-squared-squared, perhaps ... thus making the signal strength drop off more rapidly with range in j-space than in n-space.
Or use Rekobah's Slipstream Attenuation Principle and just declare that while the signal travels 6^6 parsecs per week, current technology (TL-15) only allows the signal to be picked up out of the noise within a radius of six parsecs, and for every step down in TL at the receiving end, one less parsec in range is permitted. So a TL-10 culture one parsec away could pick it up, but the TL-10 system one parsec further from the source wouldn't.
Plus, in order to detect the signal in the first place would require another Handwavium/Lanthanum alloy detector grid at the receiving end -- a grid that might otherwise cover the entire acreage at the VLA Radio Telescope in New Mexico.
A grid that in times of war might be sacrificed to repair the jumpgrids on Imperial warships, or that is so prohibitively expensive that it might only be found on TL-15 worlds every 6 parsecs or so, and only on worlds under control of the Imperial military.
Each station thus positioned could act as a relay in a series of stations. Of course, some errors could creep in to the data being transmitted, and authentication protocols would have to be implemented. And then there are the maintenance costs to consider, and the fact that the system could not be made unidirectional.
And what would a "misjump" mean in such a system? A perfectly clear signal transmitted to a location 36 parsecs in some random direction? And a "drive failure" might mean that at least part of the grid has spontaneously vaporised in the middle of a Class-One military alert for cease-fire...
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