Editing FederalSpace:Technology (section)

==== Commentary ====

'''Susanoo Orbatos:''' One thing that hasn't been hit on is communication, in the TNG era just about everyone can have a real time conversation across the Alpha Quadrant. While it would be neat to just say "no faster than light communication its all done by courier" I don't know if I like that for the core worlds(I rather do like it between core and Frontiere and definately across Star Nations). Any technojargon for why when someone is PVPing on Federal Space's version of WoW they don't end up having to wait 5 years to move against that guy on Alpha Centauri?

'''Scarik:''' Since this society can throw ''entire warships'' through space faster than light I can't see how they would have trouble throwing information. The way in which this is done is important, it could be streaming, or have to rely on distinct packets.

Within a star system I would think its nearly instantaneous, much like how the internet works now. ['''Shadowjack:''' Agreed.]

Outside it could require a probe filled with information to be filled, then warp to the system its destined for. So email and forum posts would work normally since you can't easily see the lag, but IM and telecommunications would suffer from lag.

There could also be wormholes. If the technology can only support very tiny ones such that only light can pass through them you have great communications potential but no other effect on the technology of the setting.


'''Myth:''' Communications in Trek seem instantaneous, once you have the channel established. Even on ''Voyager'', once they got the link, they could talk normally.

['''Shadowjack:''' And this always drives me ''crazy.'' :D]

Maybe messages are sent through the old Borg Transwarp Conduits. Maybe we use teeny-tiny wormholes. Maybe there's a string of little stutterwarp drones shuttling back and forth, or one little commdrone stringing pseudogravitic cable. 

I vote for the wormhole, myself. One small enough not to need any exotic matter to hold it open, almost too small for a comm channel. That way we can have static, and lost signals at ominous times, and garbled and hard-to-make-out orders. Also, PCs won't be double-checking things with Mainframe Luna, and admirals won't be leaning over everyone's shoulder, trying to micromanage everything. (And, if they try, we can conveniently "lose the signal".)



'''JohnBiles:''' Here's a thought. Really massive bandwidth transfers require huge amounts of energy and large recieving facilities, which can then transfer it easily within a system at low cost. This allows settled worlds to have a fast-acting Galactic Wide Web. But it hampers the remote control of probes because they need huge amounts of fuel and equipment to run a high bandwidth connection to the probe-masters. 

So you could send a ship to Beta Epsilon XXIII to build a reciever/transmitter facility to send probes around a system, but at that point you're visiting the system manually.

It also means ships in the field can't afford to spend too much time on the phone back to HQ, thus creating the Trek environment of commanders making big decisions on their own instead of being on a tight leash.

'''Shadowjack:''' A good compromise.


'''s/LaSH:''' Regarding bandwidth: Perhaps the problem isn't that it's limited, but that it's unlimited. Anyone with an ansible device can get into the network. A drone ship might be set up to take only mil-spec encrypted data packets, so it's very very hard to take control of it remotely, but you can still hit it with a denial-of-service attack and leave it dead in the water. (This is what I'd do, at least.)

A few quick data packets for important briefings can go unnoticed in the datastream, so the Admirals at Starfleet HQ can rant at our captains as the plot requires, but a full ship's telemetry is a beacon to enemy hackers.

'''Shadowjack:''' Interesting reversal. All ansibles vibrate together…?

'''Fringe Worthy:''' Well, actually, you want to be careful here. There is a form of unbreakable encryption. One Time Pads. The one restriction is that you and your friend need an identical pad of random bits. And as long as you and your friend have bits to talk to each, you have enough bits, you only use the bits once, and the timing of sending messages doesn't reveal operational information, and you and your friend keep these bits secret (You can destroy these bits once you've decoded the message if that's fine) (*note, each of these assumptions have issues you can drive a truck/plot through) then your communication can't be read by a person in the middle. Even if they are Q. Of course, Q can waltz over to you, and with/without a beating, pry the results of you reading the message out of your head.

One possible trick: People have ansibles. Ansible connections though, are collapsed when you go FTL. It takes time to rebuild your ansible to ansible connection link. Make it proportional to distance.

So you can have a fast store and forward system in the local system, and the ship can visit a com sat's location to talk through a local ansible. If a ship is parked somewhere, it can craft a new link, and if it's safe, it can leave a com sat while it jounces around the system. Though, sats can be broken and blocked and otherwise abused. They should only have enough crypto for decoding store and forwards messages and well to encode any operational info it gets. Ie, to uniquely identify data it's sending and that only only it, or anyone who can violate it's protected data stores without triggering any of a number of self-protection systems that would otherwise wipe out its bucket of random bits.

'''Shadowjack:''' This is fairly elegant, actually. A long trip requires time to reestablish contact; a short hop keeps you close to the network. 


'''KRNVR:''' Commodity Comms - iFTL on a budget

High energy can become matter. Sometimes, Entangled Quarks. Remember when they used to think they could use these to communicate? Well, that didn't work, but it gave us a head start when we figured out we could string wormduits, because they'd already given that a lot of thought.

Now, when a ship leaves a world, it's usually got a cargo worth infinitely more than it's weight in gold - because it doesn't have any weight. Sure, the maintenance machinery for the end of the wormduit can be heavy, depending on how much you want it shielded, and how many wd you want in the one fixture. Some have hundreds, if they're planning to push big data through, that centijoule half-life means they want spares.

Of course, the wd is only really as valuable as where it's connected to, which is why you ship your other ends to someplace like Memory Alpha, Nexus Three, or whatever. But then, a huge pile of wd terminae becomes a prime target if things go south... that's why there's no Nexus One. Anymore.

In the Empire, they get around that by having long-haul wd terminate anywhere but together, it's a law, even- no more than a fist, ah, five, wd are allowed to come together. Of course, hardened Imperial installations make their own determination of what 'together' means. YOU tell some warlord he can't talk to all his holdings directly.

Supposedly the Rihan have miniaturized and quieted the shielding needed for a wd to survive warp travel, and they're beginning to lay their own threads into Fed space. Of course, the Fed respects all territorial boundaries, and would never lay thread through the Neutral Zone.

'''Shadowjack:''' Aha, so we're basically dragging the ends of wormholes around—or quantum-entangled particles, or whatever technobabble we need. 

Interesting: this takes it in the direction of ''telegraph'', sort of, having to set up a network. "Wireless telegraphy" is being developed…

'''Myth:''' That does explain all those big styrofoam containers that were always falling (unconvincingly) on Worf. Other references to cargo were living matter, special vaccines, and the like. ['''Shadowjack:''' :D]



'''John Morrow:''' With respect to communication, I think there was evidence of two kinds of long-range communication on the show -- real time two way conversations and messages sent and received over time. My suggestion is to have the "Federation" "wired" with an instantaneous communication system that's like hopping on the Internet because they've build an infrastructure of stations and satellites to support it. Once you travel outside of the "Federation", you have to rely on a high energy communication that sends messages and receives them like a long distance communication version of the transporter. Those messages travel at warp speed and take time to reach their destination. Thus you'll have high speed parts of the setting for local stuff and low speed for exploration travel.

'''Shadowjack:''' Probably the best compromise: beyond the frontier, you have to wait for the mail.