====== Galactic Communications ======
There is always a great need for intercommunication between distant points.  While [[info:ftl:start|FTL Drives]] cheat the speed of light in various ways to travel fast, wireless signals are largely bound by the speed of light still.  There are, however, a few ways that the speed of light can still be cheated to allow for near-instantaneous communications.

====== Local Communications ======

Local communications, that being communications within "walking distance" of a location, is still largely handled by wireless protocols not too unlike what exists today.  Just with more advanced encryption and security.  When using your tablet, it is connected to some local network which may be connected to a broader network or not based on the location.

Tablets interact with each-other in a localized fashion in a way similar to bluetooth.  They can be networked together locally for playing games or exchanging information.  There is a "bump" protocol where you can tap your tablet to another's to send a file or money to the other person's tablet.  This, essentially, uses this bluetooth protocol.

All ships, all space stations, and most civilized planetary locations will have some local network that can be connected to and used by individual tablets.  Many planets have a global network akin to a modern cellular network, or at least have some city-wide network for colonies that only inhabit a small percentage of their planet.

Generally speaking, one can assume such a network is in place in any given location for the purpose of roleplay.

====== Ship to Ship / Ship to Station Communications ======

These communications are usually done by good ole fashion radio-style transmissions, complete with the joy of distance-based delays and such.  Therefore, communications are really only practical for relatively short distances.  For busy star systems, sometimes with multiple inhabited areas, this is not always practical.  And so, enter the concept of a Local Relay Station.

===== System Local Relay Station =====

A busy star system will likely have many -- perhaps even hundreds -- of local relay stations.  These stations would be spread out within the star system, mostly near common entry vectors, and listen to standard radio signals.  Receiving these signals, they use quantum teleportation to instantly relay the signals to some common base station.  Then responses from the base station can be broadcast out of the local relays via radio.

Quantum teleportation isn't like a Star Trek teleporter; instead, it conceptually works as considering two RAM chips separated by a great distance but the contents of the RAM is instantly synchronized in both locations.  It is the instantaneous teleportation of data.  The "trick" is quantum teleportation requires some connection between the two communicating parties; this connection can be a beam of light (i.e. a laser) and thus the relays require line of sight to each-other in order to work.

However, each relay is relatively inexpensive and thus there can be many of them. They usually operate in a large mesh network in which any section being cut off doesn't impact overall connectivity.  This enables communication between some central hub (such as a space station) and the outer reaches of the system it is in.

Quantum teleportation can also be used in other such communications -- even between two ships, as long as they are able to connect to each-other by laser.  It is a secure and instantaneous form of communication that has many applications in the 'local communication' realm.

====== Long Distance / Intersector Communications ======

Here's the section we've all been waiting for; if the best we can do on a local basis is connect base stations via light, how do places hundreds of light years apart communicate?

The answer: Long Distance Comm Relays.  In general, when speaking about "comm relays", one is referring to these long distance relays as opposed to the local relays.  The local relays are a bit like plumbing; nobody really thinks about them until they stop working.  But Long Distance Comm Relays are something people, especially in the realm of business, interface with on a daily basis.

A Long Distance Comm Relay has a lot in common with [[info:ftl:tunnel|Tunnel Drives]] because they both operate on the concept of using a wormhole to connect two distant locations and enable travel between them.  However, a Comm Relay will have a microscopically sized wormhole that is tuned to be incredibly stable and as "short" a connection as possible to enable, essentially, a fiber-optic style light-based connection between relays in the network.

As such, Comm Relays require an incredibly fixed position; they must stay in place, perfectly still, and maintain that location so that the incoming/outgoing wormholes aren't disturbed.  They also, generally speaking, require a fairly strong power source -- often one akin to what's on the Legacy.  As such, a Comm Relay is expensive to deploy and somewhat fragile.  In times of war, they are a clear and early strategic target for in invading fleet.  They are also fairly common targets for terrorism and other such chaotic attacks.

That said, Long Distance Comm Relays, despite the expense, are understood to be a requirement for modern society.  And therefore they have been deployed extensively, and not just in populated sectors; they have even been deployed along common trade lanes, so that ships that are underway can briefly stop, engage with a comm relay, then go on its merry way.

The Legacy, for instance, will stop every few days at a "truck stop" style comm relay, pick up waiting messages and send queued requests, then keep going along.  This is how the Legacy stays somewhat connected while it is under-way.  At times, there may not be many comm relays for long stretches, and the Legacy is left in the dark communication wise during such long journeys.

There is a fee to use the comm relays, of course, and they can get congested or overwhelmed if there is too much utilization in a given sector.  They are capable of supporting real-time communications but there can be laggy bits now and then.  Consider it like trying to do a video call overseas; it will ... mostly work, most of the time.  Asynchronous communication is somewhat more common as a result, whenever possible.