Editing HorizonVirtual:Places

= Systems =

The first thing you need to know about systems is that they are big. When one megabyte of unoccupied permanent storage appears to wakers as one square mile, a single PC's hard drive space may provide enough Program Space equivalent to a small city. Multiply that by the number of interconnected PCs in any given User Space city and you start looking at a system the size of a large nation. Then when you look at the raw computing power available during business hours in a major international data confluence like New York, the resultant system in Program Space is likely to be as large as an entire planet.

This is why systems are expressed in D20 terms as planes and treated as such in the ''Virtual'' text. Planar travel is indeed equivalent from hopping from one whole sphere of existence to another.

== Major Systems ==

'''Known Systems:'''
* New York Hub
* Calnet
* Virtual London
* NOL (Pacific Rim system)

== Small to Mid-Size Systems ==

'''Known Systems:'''
* NeoTokyo
* Peru EN

= Travel =

While all communication between individual computers occurs via ports, only the major trunk lines or high traffic connections are represented in Program Space by data access ports. The hubs, switches and servers that manage traffic within an individual LAN form the "terrain" within a system, and their quality is represented by the roughness of that terrain. Access to individual PCs or servers is usually represnted by doors, hatches or other, smaller representations of access.

== Conditions And Weather ==

= Timekeeping =

The ''Horizon: Virtual'' text establishes a unit of Program Space time in the section on the Programmer class: a "cycle". It is described as the length of time required for a programmer to rest in order to regain the capability to execute rewrites. For the purpose of the [[HorizonVirtual:The_Waker_Dictionary|Waker Dictionary]], I've linked that length of time to the standard Wizard rest time of eight hours.

The text also establishes that "a minute in User Space is the equivalent of a day in Program Space." So each day's worth of Program Space time would include three cycles.

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
! User Time
! Program Time
! Equivalent Real Time
! Breakdown
|-
| 6.31e-5 Seconds
| '''1 Hexbit'''
| 1 Second
| 1/6 Microcycle
|- 
| 3.788e-4 Seconds
| '''1 Microcycle'''
| 6 Seconds
| 6 Hexbits / 1/240 Minicycle
|- 
| 0.09 Seconds
| '''1 Minicycle'''
| 24 Minutes (1,440 seconds)
| 240 Microcycles / 1/220 Cycle
|- 
| 20 Seconds
| '''1 Cycle'''
| 8 Hours
| 220 Minicycles
|- 
| 1 Minute
| 
| 1 Day
| 3 Cycles
|- 
| 1 Hour
| 
| 2 Months (60 Days)
| 180 Cycles
|- 
| 1 Day
| 
| 2 Years (720 Days)
| 4,320 Cycles
|- 
| 1 Month (30 Days)
| 
| 59 Years
| 129,600 Cycles
|- 
| 1 Year (12 Months)
| 
| 710 Years
| 1,555,200 Cycles
|- 
|}

= Planes =

== Electron States ==

The ''Horizon: Virtual'' equivalent of the Ethereal Plane.

== Wireless (Astral) Plane ==