Ansibles

Ansibles are the critical lifeline of the galaxy. They keep all the inhabitants connected and together. Without the ansible network, each world would be totally alone, a chilling thought.

History

During the days of IPEC, communications largely consisted of old radio and laser transmission styles. As Mars, Venus and Io were slowly settled, communication satellites spread throughout the Solar System to support the growing need for communication infrastructure. As IPEC readied for its first extrasolar colonization project, it designed and built Drivesat comm. arrays on Pluto. These were dishes numbering in the thousands that formed a massive array capable of transmitting ultra-fast signals. However, when contact was made with the Prime Collective, everything changed; including communications.

Communications has advanced tremendously since the joint teams from numerous Terran governments and the Merion built the first ansible. Transferring information via the atomic nuclei level, ansibles allow communications and data transfer of unsurpassed rates, ensuring instantaneous connections. With the advent of instantaneous communications regardless of distance, colonization boomed.

Due to the ansibles requiring a huge amount of power and data management major colonies adopted them first. Slowly, more and more colonies obtained ansibles, ensuring colonists could chat, and later with the development of the Uninet colonists could visit with friends and families left behind. At first, access to the ansible networks was heavily restricted due to the raw resources needed to run them but quickly enough; the worlds connected their cyberspheres to the ansible network. Soon, colonists on Barnard’s Star could watch a cooking program from Earth. It was an all important link home. The number of colonists rose dramatically.

Overview

All is not rosy, for problems have arisen with the ansibles. Due to the resources and maintenance demanded by the ansible the governments control them and thus control the connection of a planet to the rest of society. Some governments will threaten shutting down ansible connections to keep their populace in line. Control of the ansibles means ultimately control of information and communication. Cutting off the ansible means total withdrawal of a planet from the galaxy. However, many megacorporations have private backup ansibles that allow their networks to stay connected; other chaebols may have entire worlds constantly connected via multiple ansibles to ensure a flow of transactions.

The People’s Republic uses its ansibles as major control factors. Several colonies have been ‘punished’ by having their ansibles withdrawn. In actuality, the People’s Republic merely deactivated the cybersphere, allowing governmental communications to still exist. No government would ever completely disable an ansible, as they’d lose all control over a colony.

Backup systems are present on all the colonies to account for power failures. All colonies maintain Drivesat arrays to communicate in the possibility of ansible failure. Less-developed colonies on the fringe and in remote systems lack ansibles and rely totally on Drivesat comm. arrays.