[mosshadow]

Just wondering, why is it that the GTVA never tried to contact earth with Sublight ships or short range FTL jumps. During some of the missions command contacts you despite not being near the carrier or any other capital ship so that would imply they have FTL communications across a small area (since they don't talk between nodes). So why didnt they try sending a ship to earth with small jumps from Alpha Centauri (which is 5 light years away) or if that doesn't work they could send dozens of unmanned ships to link up a FTL communications line.

[procdrone]

4,3 ly to be precise.

They can't jump out outside the gravity well of the star, that's the subspace drive limitation, only workaround is a jump node.... but the only one connecting to Sol was collapsed during the great war.

They could still try to contact them on the regular FTL transmissions, i bet they could have technology to send messages at that distance, light or laser, idk.

But why not? Because it is a game, and they wanted to build a setting where Sol state is unknown.

[NGTM-1R]

They almost certainly have contacted Sol, but given the issues of data rate and the like for communication over that distance it's possible that they've learned very little. It's not simple to hold a conversation when you have to wait eight years for a reply.

[Herra Tohtori]

That's assuming that the locations connected by subspace jump nodes are linked to same time through normal space. There is no guarantee that is the case.

Clearly, all locations interconnected by jump nodes share a stable time coordinate, which allows a multi-system civilization to exist in a meaningful sense, and more importantly maintains some kind of story continuum. But the fact that intersystem nodes basically connect parts of space through a shortcut (subspace), it is just as likely that there may be a temporal shift as you travel through the node as well.

Perhaps as you travel from Sol to Delta Serpentis via the original node, you don't emerge in the "same time" as when you left Earth. You may be decades or centuries off. There's really no guarantee. This is not mentioned in the games, but I think it's entirely plausible that traveling to Alpha Centauri through the nodes may actually mean you're in a different time than Earth.


And that's assuming that you're even in the same universe. In fact, since jump nodes leading to future or especially to the past have a tendency to generate brain-imploding paradoxes, it's entirely possible that each jump node leads to a different universe altogether, just to make sure that future Terrans can't communicate with past Earth from Alpha Centauri, or vice versa...

[Lepanto]

Just to nail this down, exactly HOW long would it take for non-subspace radio transmissions to travel back and forth between Sol and Alpha Centauri?

[NGTM-1R]

Just to nail this down, exactly HOW long would it take for non-subspace radio transmissions to travel back and forth between Sol and Alpha Centauri?

4.3 years one-way, 8.6 years to get a response...not accounting for turnaround time at the destination if they need to think about the response.

[Gee1337]

IIRC correctly from GCSE physics lessons, radio waves essentially travel at the speed of light (someone please correct me if I am wrong). Now, I thought Alpha Centauri was actually 4.5 light years away from earth, but TheHound says its 4.3 light years. So, there is your answer for the time it takes a message to go one way!

The only other way to communicate faster than the speed of light, I imagine would involve a technology which would utilise tachyon particles, which can travel faster than light. How fast tachyons travel has not yet been measured as far as I am aware, because I think they are still a theorised exotic particle.

Spoiler:

Blue Planet touches on this in WiH Act 3 when it says that they had already had some kind of contact with earth, which gives reasons for why the Tevs started to attack Sol!

[Lepanto]

Thanks. So it's even more illogical that the FS2 GTVA had no clue what was going on in Sol. Another bit of canon that anyone writing a realistic-ish campaign needs a workaround for.

[Phantom Hoover]

That's assuming that the locations connected by subspace jump nodes are linked to same time through normal space. There is no guarantee that is the case.

Clearly, all locations interconnected by jump nodes share a stable time coordinate, which allows a multi-system civilization to exist in a meaningful sense, and more importantly maintains some kind of story continuum. But the fact that intersystem nodes basically connect parts of space through a shortcut (subspace), it is just as likely that there may be a temporal shift as you travel through the node as well.

Perhaps as you travel from Sol to Delta Serpentis via the original node, you don't emerge in the "same time" as when you left Earth. You may be decades or centuries off. There's really no guarantee. This is not mentioned in the games, but I think it's entirely plausible that traveling to Alpha Centauri through the nodes may actually mean you're in a different time than Earth.


And that's assuming that you're even in the same universe. In fact, since jump nodes leading to future or especially to the past have a tendency to generate brain-imploding paradoxes, it's entirely possible that each jump node leads to a different universe altogether, just to make sure that future Terrans can't communicate with past Earth from Alpha Centauri, or vice versa...

This is such an ugly attempt at patching the universe it's better to just leave the red herring of relativistic communications unmentioned altogether.

[Phantom Hoover]

IIRC correctly from GCSE physics lessons, radio waves essentially travel at the speed of light (someone please correct me if I am wrong). Now, I thought Alpha Centauri was actually 4.5 light years away from earth, but TheHound says its 4.3 light years. So, there is your answer for the time it takes a message to go one way!

The only other way to communicate faster than the speed of light, I imagine would involve a technology which would utilise tachyon particles, which can travel faster than light. How fast tachyons travel has not yet been measured as far as I am aware, because I think they are still a theorised exotic particle.

Spoiler:

Blue Planet touches on this in WiH Act 3 when it says that they had already had some kind of contact with earth, which gives reasons for why the Tevs started to attack Sol!

Radio waves travel at the speed of light because they are light. FTL communication obviously exists in the Freespace universe (your conversations with command don't have any latency, and besides you could just have a courier jump around with your messages); but it seems to follow the same rules as FTL travel: constrained to within a system or through jump nodes.

[Herra Tohtori]

This is such an ugly attempt at patching the universe it's better to just leave the red herring of relativistic communications unmentioned altogether.

Exactly.

That way lies madness.

[mjn.mixael]

That's assuming that the locations connected by subspace jump nodes are linked to same time through normal space. There is no guarantee that is the case.

Clearly, all locations interconnected by jump nodes share a stable time coordinate, which allows a multi-system civilization to exist in a meaningful sense, and more importantly maintains some kind of story continuum. But the fact that intersystem nodes basically connect parts of space through a shortcut (subspace), it is just as likely that there may be a temporal shift as you travel through the node as well.

Perhaps as you travel from Sol to Delta Serpentis via the original node, you don't emerge in the "same time" as when you left Earth. You may be decades or centuries off. There's really no guarantee. This is not mentioned in the games, but I think it's entirely plausible that traveling to Alpha Centauri through the nodes may actually mean you're in a different time than Earth.


And that's assuming that you're even in the same universe. In fact, since jump nodes leading to future or especially to the past have a tendency to generate brain-imploding paradoxes, it's entirely possible that each jump node leads to a different universe altogether, just to make sure that future Terrans can't communicate with past Earth from Alpha Centauri, or vice versa...

It's unfortunate that this very idea was ignored or dismissed by others... I find it fascinating. Reminds of Interstellar by Nolan. That whole (proven) concept kinda blows my brain a little bit.

PS: I knew when I saw a Herra Tohtori post it was going to be interesting...

[Phantom Hoover]

So in an effort to find interesting tangents to this topic, I observe this: FS intrasystem jumps are, apparently, able to navigate through the entire solar system with ease. In the densest parts of globular clusters, the average distance between stars is about the same distance; so you should be able to jump continuously between hundreds or thousands of stars, as opposed to a single system. Discuss.

[procdrone]

Well, I think that command DID contact with Sol, but kept the contact within very high level of security, so alpha 1 couldn't know it, and later, they had more to worry about, like the Shivans.

Only persons like the leader of the security council, or general assembly would be the ones to know.

[niffiwan]

So in an effort to find interesting tangents to this topic, I observe this: FS intrasystem jumps are, apparently, able to navigate through the entire solar system with ease. In the densest parts of globular clusters, the average distance between stars is about the same distance; so you should be able to jump continuously between hundreds or thousands of stars, as opposed to a single system. Discuss.

Can habitable planets (for Terrans/Vasudans) exist in globular clusters?  Or would all infrastructure need to exist in orbit?

[mosshadow]

Well, I think that command DID contact with Sol, but kept the contact within very high level of security, so alpha 1 couldn't know it, and later, they had more to worry about, like the Shivans.

Only persons like the leader of the security council, or general assembly would be the ones to know.

Why would they keep it secret though? Even if its a slow communication they can use it for morale and information transfer. They should be having all their universities and technical schools sending technology back and forth.

[procdrone]

Actually i played a campaign that featured such solution

Well, who knows, Command tend to keep things secret, like Bosh and ETAK, they knew all along.

[Gee1337]

IIRC correctly from GCSE physics lessons, radio waves essentially travel at the speed of light (someone please correct me if I am wrong). Now, I thought Alpha Centauri was actually 4.5 light years away from earth, but TheHound says its 4.3 light years. So, there is your answer for the time it takes a message to go one way!

The only other way to communicate faster than the speed of light, I imagine would involve a technology which would utilise tachyon particles, which can travel faster than light. How fast tachyons travel has not yet been measured as far as I am aware, because I think they are still a theorised exotic particle.

Spoiler:

Blue Planet touches on this in WiH Act 3 when it says that they had already had some kind of contact with earth, which gives reasons for why the Tevs started to attack Sol!

Radio waves travel at the speed of light because they are light. FTL communication obviously exists in the Freespace universe (your conversations with command don't have any latency, and besides you could just have a courier jump around with your messages); but it seems to follow the same rules as FTL travel: constrained to within a system or through jump nodes.

Yea I did know, but I wasn't entirely sure if my memory was accurate (it's late here in the UK.. so a coupla beers and whiskys n that...).  Yes, there is obviously ftl communication there, but I presumed that it relied on the subspace nodes which is why I didn't mention it as I felt it was covered earlier. However, we could probably do with a resident physicist to maybe shed some light on communication involving tachyon particles to see if it would be possible. If it is, then I would presume that this is a tech that the GTVA has not yet been able to implement.

[BritishShivans]

this thread is painful to read

I do wonder, however, is anyone interested in the idea of the GTVA/Sol sending each other one-way packages/status updates on each government's situation? The story idea/implications?

you know, rather than "gtva/sol have had literally no contact since earth's jump nodes got nuked" because that's dumb

i'm kinda up for the idea of earth being all "what the **** did you people do. why did capella explode" and the gtva being all "well excuuuuse us it was the shivans"

[Phantom Hoover]

Can habitable planets (for Terrans/Vasudans) exist in globular clusters?  Or would all infrastructure need to exist in orbit?

No, planets would not be stable enough to support life. I think that makes the environment a bit more interesting in some ways.

i'm kinda up for the idea of earth being all "what the **** did you people do. why did capella explode" and the gtva being all "well excuuuuse us it was the shivans"

Capella's 42ly away from Earth, man.