(On the Hunt) Chapter 23

Pride: On the Hunt

Chapter 23

Complicating Factors

(On the Hunt) Chapter 22

Pride: On the Hunt

Chapter 22

The Next Phase

(On the Hunt) Chapter 21

Pride: On the Hunt

Chapter 21

Find the Answers

Tech Notes: Communications

One of the key challenges for any spacefaring faction is establishing and maintaining communications over vast distances. Many races develop faster-than-light travel before FTL communications; the two categories rarely use the same underlying technology. The Alliance groups all commtech into four categories, which become more exclusive as distances increase.

It is worth noting that a common interstellar communications 'technology' among the Alliance, at least for civilian purposes, is not a technology at all, but simple physical transport. The Alliance Merchant Marine's Postal Subdivision coordinates the routing of physical mail through its existing infrastructure. Though slower than interstellar transmissions, writing a letter and sending it through the cargo network is reliable, efficient, and far less expensive than any other option.

Local communications operate at the speed of light or slower; they encompass most planetary and shipboard systems. Nearly every Alliance member race has a unique type of local comms, though the vast majority rely on electromagnetic waves, light pulses, or laser technology. There is no standardized local comm system, though most combined-tech Alliance ships use fiber optics due to the market and contract dominance of the fiber optic specialist Prysmastar Systems.

Ship-to-ship (STS) communications are sometimes considered an extension of local comms, as they rarely operate at superluminal speeds. The Alliance classifies them as a separate category due to their significantly different operational requirements. STS systems link spacecraft at relatively short ranges. They permit communications between members of a fleet, but also with any vessels encountered while traveling. As such, STS systems must be able to receive and transmit many different formats based on the origin of the other vessel.

The standard Alliance STS system is the Multifunction Lightwave Relay. For communications between Alliance vessels, the MLR uses a lightweight and efficient line-of-sight laser system; due to the miniscule power requirements of this system, MLR-based laser transceivers can also be carried by spacewalking crew to communicate with their vessel. The MLR is also capable of receiving and transmitting augmented radio waves (used by the Drules and many independent races) and flicker/pulse light signals (used primarily by the Vex-Cha).

Many member races still utilize their own STS systems for their own vessels. These races will often install MLRs only on command vessels; in joint operations the command vessel will relay orders to the rest of its fleet via its native STS comms. Other races have adopted modified MLRs with their own STS system integrated, often to avoid needing to retrofit older vessels.

Hyperbroadcast (HBC) communications are relatively flexible FTL comms, used to transmit across interstellar distances. These comms can move significantly faster than even the fastest FTL ship, but are generally utilized at such distances that messages may still take hours or days to reach their destination. Only three forms of HBC technology exist among the Alliance: hypertachyon, hyperpulse, and augmented laser. Hyperpulse was the technology the Kolaliri used during the time of their empire, while augmented laser systems exist among several member races.

Hypertachyon technology, often considered synonymous with hyperbroadcast, is the Alliance's standard HBC tech. It originated from the ancient Glis Empire's communications web, which utilized 'hypertachyon packets'—a form of specially energized light pulses—to send information at vast distances. Though the underlying technology was lost when the empire fell, thousands of transmitters remained with the Grand Convoys. After the formation of the Alliance of Five Powers, Biboh engineers assisted in attempting to reverse engineer the system, filling in the gaps with their own ship-to-ship wave propagation technology. By the time of the Galaxy Alliance, a useable hybrid system existed; several new member races have helped to refine the technology since.

Hypertachyon transmissions operate at a base rate of roughly 5.7 light years per hour. This can be modified by passing through atmosphere, where the packets are slowed via light scattering; after escaping the atmosphere they can 'snap' back into their original configuration and continue. Due to this scattering, hypertachyon packets produce little more than a garbled mess when received within atmosphere. Planetary bases and civilian facilities must utilize an HBC relay satellite in orbit, connected to the ground by local comms.

The primary use of HBC systems is communication between space stations and nearby planets, or ships and space stations. All known HBC systems require a fixed point as a destination. As such, they are only situationally useful for transmitting to active vessels. A ship wishing to hold a two-way communication via HBC will typically indicate that they are either holding position or moving directly towards the other party, and thus able to receive a return message. Otherwise, HBC transmissions from ships are assumed to be one-way. These are generally routine operational messages; due to their long travel time and relatively unsecure nature, Alliance policy prohibits sending reports or other sensitive information via HBC except in emergencies.

Subspace communications are the Alliance's fastest and longest-ranged system, based on technology originally devised by the Akese. They function by sending laser transmission through a subspace channel, also known as a pinpoint wormhole. These channels operate on the principle of relative spacetime conjoinment, an Akesian theory similar to quantum entanglement. Essentially, all subspace relays on a network are connected on a fifth-dimensional level, permitting messages to be sent over an effective space of mere inches to cover hundreds of light years in an instant.

Though the actual transmission takes only a fraction of a second, subspace relays have several complicating factors. The equipment required is both huge—a single 'compact model' generator is the size of a small house—and delicate, not to mention prohibitively expensive. Generating the subspace channel is a process requiring several minutes and an enormous amount of energy on the transmitting side. The channel itself is unstable and collapses after slightly less than a second, at which point the generator must spend several hours recharging. A receiver assembly has minimal power draw and no recharge time, but a syncing period with the transmitting relay requires both sides to be stationary.

Due to their size and power draw, only large starships or fixed sites can support a subspace relay; due to the limitations of the channel, transmission volume is strictly limited. To maximize efficiency, Alliance-operated subspace facilities limit transmissions to text with basic formatting, except for in cases of military necessity. Some of the rare civilian subspace networks permit more complex data, though it tends to be very costly. Alliance facilities will transmit civilian data when they have the capacity to do so, but military and government transmissions take priority, making them unpredictable and unreliable for civilian use.

A typical ground site subspace relay consists of a hub—the transmission chamber—attached to one or more generators. Depending on the traffic at the location, up to a dozen generators may be used. The receiver assembly is at the bottom of the transmission chamber, which is programmed with multiple terminus points; each time a new subspace channel begins to form, the chamber automatically recalibrates to the next terminus, ensuring multiple messages can be sent and received simultaneously without the channels colliding. (Channel collision is not dangerous, but does hopelessly scramble the messages.) Starship relays usually include five to ten terminus points; only Unity-class flag dreadnoughts and Semaphore-class communications cruisers carry multiple generators.

Like HBC systems, subspace communications with a moving vessel have extra complications, in this case due to the need for a stationary target while syncing. Usually a subspace-capable ship will depart with a prearranged schedule of 'reception stops' in case its home base needs to make contact. Being impossible to intercept, subspace comms are the Alliance's required manner of relaying any sensitive information between ships, stations, and planets.

A fifth theoretical category exists: Planar communications. As of this report, no known communications technology can reach a ship inside of hyperspace, or indeed any other extraspatial plane. Options based on planar scanners and more esoteric theories are being researched by several Alliance-funded programs, but none have yet borne results.

(On the Hunt) Chapter 20

Pride: On the Hunt

Chapter 20

Call and Response

Tech Report: Alliance Shielding (AMAS)

History

Having been developed specifically to counter Drule weapons, Earthling refractive* armor was the original basis of Alliance damage-prevention technology. This armor used aluminum oxynitride and graphene in a specialized microlattice to scatter incoming laser fire, and a layer of reinforced photovoltaic panels underneath to absorb the scattered light into a battery for the armored vessel's use. It was vulnerable to ballistic weapons, which could disrupt the microlattice on impact, but with the Drules favoring powerful laser weaponry this drawback was seen as acceptable.

After the GA's formation, the Kolaliri integrated echo restructuring—a precursor technique to crysforging—into this armor, allowing it to 'remember' its original form. A simple energy pulse triggered by the ship's engineers could then restore any damaged microlattice to a pristine state. Later still, the Daesulos would integrate their own intelligent-reflex technology, eliminating the need for engineers to manually trigger such repairs; the armor could do so itself, drawing on the energy it had absorbed from enemy fire.

In this self-repairing form, refractive armor became nearly immune to attrition damage; only attacks which outright ripped bits of armor away would have lasting effect. It was considered the Alliance's single greatest asset in battle against Drule ships, and over time has forced the Fourth Kingdom to completely redirect several weapons programs to counter it.

Due to the effectiveness of refractive armor, shield technology was something of a niche. Several forms of shielding technology did exist, but few were particularly useful: Glis projected force barriers were unwieldy, and the knowledge of how to produce them was long since lost. Biboh pulse shields were designed for space dust and radiation, not combat. Earthling energy shields had limited absorption capacity and interfered with their own ships' weapons. The military had little interest in improving on any of these technologies, and most languished.

Despite High Command's indifference, the civilian sector still displayed some interest in shield development. Refractive armor was strictly military technology, and even primitive shields had been the difference between life and death for many cargo vessels during the original Drule invasion of human space. With the next invasion seeming inevitable, shields were in demand on civilian vessels, but without military funding the technology saw only creeping incremental improvement.

This started to change when the Kazthol joined the Alliance in 2221. Their homeworld of Skotathyr lay on the edges of an asteroid belt, and was regularly bombarded with meteors. To deal with this, the Kazthol had developed artificial atmospheric domes: layers of ionized gasses which could be deployed over population centers to burn up anything that made it through the planet's natural atmosphere. The Kazthol were happy to offer this technology to anyone who asked, and within two years nearly every major shield manufacturer had Kazthol engineers among their ranks.

Li-kari Shielding Systems produced the first working model of a shield based on this technology: the Li-kari Exo. The Exo system worked extremely well against physical objects, but was less effective than hoped against energy weapons, which tended to cause system overloads after only a few shots. It was, however, an enormous improvement over any previous system. Similar shields were soon being produced by several other companies, and the Alliance as a whole saw a modest uptick in economic activity from increased merchant confidence.

Noticing this, the Alliance Council voted to distribute some research grants to encourage further shield development. Though it was a small amount compared to what the military could have provided, it was enough to spark a new wave of innovation.

The defining breakthrough in Alliance shield technology came in 2234, when continuing efforts by researchers at Servallis Security Development partially unraveled the ancient Glis shield projectors. Integrating Glis directional force matrix technology with the Kazthol artificial atmospheric generators, Servallis shocked its competitors with the release of the Atmo-Matrix A in early 2235.

By using an outward ionic flow derived from the Glis projectors, the Atmo-Matrix shield system achieved nearly double the effectiveness against physical projectiles via a principle they called plasmatic friction. But most importantly, the system was highly effective against energy weapons, concentrating the Kazthol atmospheric shield into a permeable semisolid able to 'catch' all incoming energy. The shield's ionic flow structure would then rapidly disperse the captured energy throughout the shield, giving it far more absorption capacity before being overloaded.

The Atmo-Matrix revolutionized the shield industry almost overnight. Other companies began producing similar models remarkably quickly; it would later come out that Servallis had secretly licensed the underlying technology. Though they wanted to recoup their development costs, they believed it was inevitable that the military would need the system in time, and knew they wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand alone. By the time the licensing agreements expired, most manufacturers had begun to make their own improvements to the base design. Spacecraft shielding had become a robust industry despite being shunned by its most obvious clientele.

Servallis' prediction on that matter proved correct, though it took the better part of a century. In 2318, the Alliance's first contact with the Galra revealed the limits of their refractive armor in brutal fashion. Galra weaponry included solid-state cutting plasma and massive-bore ion acceleration cannons, both of which could tear through the Alliance's prized armor as though it were foil.

High Command, stunned and slightly panicked, immediately looked to issue contracts for military-grade shield development. A rather amused shield industry, with Servallis in the lead, offered the products they'd already been making for decades. On modern warships, refractive armor and powerful shield systems are paired to offer the most efficient and versatile protective suite possible.

*In scientific terms, "refractive armor" does not utilize refraction at all, but rather dispersion. The formal name of this armor is "Laser-Dispersive Photonic Capture and Reversal System," which was never commonly used for obvious reasons.

Function