New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[warellis]

How do you feel about this style of FTL comms from Mass Effect:

Communications Edit
Real-time communication is possible thanks to networks of expensive mass relay comm buoys that can daisy-chain a transmission via lasers.

Comm buoys are maintained in patterns built outward from each mass relay. The buoys are little more than a cluster of primitive, miniature mass relays. Each individual buoy is connected to a partner on another buoy in the network, forming a corridor of low-mass space. Tightbeam communications lasers are piped through these "tubes" of FTL space, allowing virtually instantaneous communication to anywhere on the network. The networks connect across regions by communications lasers through the mass relays.

With this system, the only delay is the light lag between the source or destination and the closest buoy. So long as all parties remain within half a light-second (150,000 km) of buoys, seamless real time communications are possible. Since buoys are maintained in all traveled areas, most enjoy unlimited instant communications. Ships only suffer communications lag when operating off established deep space routes, around uninhabited outer system gas giants, and other unsettled areas.

During wartime, comm buoy networks are the first target of an attack. Once the network is severed, it can take anywhere from weeks to years to get a message out of a contested system. In systems where a buoy network has not yet been built or has been destroyed, rapid communication means ferrying information through high-speed courier ships and unmanned data drones.

Essentially if a ship wants to report something, it first has to find a buoy to plug into. And there is always the danger of the local buoy network getting destroyed during attacks and thus cutting off the area until it is repaired.

[AlexanderHowl]

I do not like it because it is instantaneous. I like the games, but one of the reasons that I like Andromeda better than everything in the series but the first Mass Effect is because you are not connected to a Galactic Internet. I prefer that communications depend on people (and the trade in information also gives a reason for interstellar travel).

[warellis]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I do not like it because it is instantaneous. I like the games, but one of the reasons that I like Andromeda better than everything in the series but the first Mass Effect is because you are not connected to a Galactic Internet. I prefer that communications depend on people (and the trade in information also gives a reason for interstellar travel).

Yeah there they have to carry messages Pony Express style because they haven't set up buoys yet. And, IIRC, their QECs were also down.

[Astromancer]

{The Farfarers}

I'm rereading LeGuin just now, how do you guys feel about Ansibles? They basically a FTL drone that flies through a type of hyperspace no lifeform can pass through and live.

You have a much faster form of comunication, but it would be involved in ways radios just aren't. The whole of the end of her first novel involved sneaking onto an Ansible and setting it to take a message to the lead character's home base, and then getting away before the ansible drones with the H-Bombs show up.

[AlexanderHowl]

Once again, I do not like any FTL technology that can be automated, as I want a reason for biological humans to be involved.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I'm rereading LeGuin just now, how do you guys feel about Ambiciles. They basically a FTL drone that flies through a type of hyperspace no lifeform can pass through and live.

You have a much faster form of comunication, but it would be involved in ways radios just aren't.

I can see it being somewhat useful in my own setting, though not so much for communications as for long-range preliminary scouting of star systems along the frontier. We're talking the FTL equivalent of the Pioneer, Voyager, and New Horizons probes, though, not the Juno or Cassini probes that pop into orbit around a planet. Pop in, take pictures and other readings on a fast pass through the system, and pop out and back home so that the exploration agencies can see the data.

The reason for this is in my own setting hyperspace travel has an adverse effect on biological systems; it'll still affect electronic ones in the long run, but the electronics can get deeper into the hyperspace onion - and hence go faster - than people can dare to go.

Detailed exploration - and the potential to get into trouble - will still be handled by people, because the game is about people.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I can see it being somewhat useful in my own setting, though not so much for communications as for long-range preliminary scouting of star systems along the frontier. We're talking the FTL equivalent of the Pioneer, Voyager, and New Horizons probes, though, not the Juno or Cassini probes that pop into orbit around a planet. Pop in, take pictures and other readings on a fast pass through the system, and pop out and back home so that the exploration agencies can see the data.

The reason for this is in my own setting hyperspace travel has an adverse effect on biological systems; it'll still affect electronic ones in the long run, but the electronics can get deeper into the hyperspace onion - and hence go faster - than people can dare to go.

Detailed exploration - and the potential to get into trouble - will still be handled by people, because the game is about people.

Is that the only reason? My biggest problem with Transhuman Space is that there's no reason for organics to be used for anything interesting except that the PCs are probably mostly organic.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Is that the only reason? My biggest problem with Transhuman Space is that there's no reason for organics to be used for anything interesting except that the PCs are probably mostly organic.

Well, my own space opera setting is rather SafeTech when it comes to transhumanist technologies such as brain uploads/emulations and non-humanoid full-body cyborg conversions. In some cases, such things are just not possible; in others, the technology was never fully developed due to socioeconomic, political, and/or religious reasons. It's also lacking in nanotech (despite being TL11^) and the high-biotech areas have stalled out at mature TL9. Think more Star Wars Original Trilogy, Guardians of the Galaxy, or similar rather than Transhuman Space Plus FTL.

[warellis]

You know what I wonder, why not just have transhumanistic tech without the brain uploading and all?

Sarah Newton of Mindjammer Press mentioned this regarding brain uploading:

[21:23] <+SarahNewton> 21st century earth has currently no real idea what “mind” is. The current theory of “quantum mind” proposes that there are even quantum level phenomena which give rise to consciousness, which if true pretty much means

[21:23] <+SarahNewton> there’s no way to copy or transfer mind / consciousness.

And It's a central premise of her RPG that despite there being transhumanistic tech, it actually isn't possible to truly upload a mind. At most you have something that is based off, but actually isn't, you.

Not all aspects of transhumanism are really as game changing as that.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Well, my own space opera setting is rather SafeTech when it comes to transhumanist technologies such as brain uploads/emulations and non-humanoid full-body cyborg conversions. In some cases, such things are just not possible; in others, the technology was never fully developed due to socioeconomic, political, and/or religious reasons. It's also lacking in nanotech (despite being TL11^) and the high-biotech areas have stalled out at mature TL9. Think more Star Wars Original Trilogy, Guardians of the Galaxy, or similar rather than Transhuman Space Plus FTL.

Yeah but that's pretty much beside the point. Is there a reason why the detailed exploration can't just be done with robot probes that move so much faster than people?