| Description: | The Xboat system was the primary means of imperial communications from the time it went online in 6093 until the advent of FTL communications in the year 6482. FTL communications allow radio-like communications at speeds faster than light. When the technology was first implemented, the transmitting and receiving stations had to be well outside the gravity well of any celestial bodies, including the primary. Thus, the first system consisted of ships that would spends months in space well beyond the orbit of the furthest planets in the system.
The technology has improved tremendously since then to the point that FTL communicators can function within a system as long as they are not affected by a gravity well other than the primary. This, of couse, led to a plethora of communications satellites in solar orbits, These satellites relay data traffic (generally digital data packets) between the inhabited world(s) and the satellites for further transmission to other worlds.
Note that such means of communications are not instanteous. Such communications travel at about 1 parsec per hour which, though much faster than Xboat communications, still means that it takes 8 hours to send a message from Jewell to Regina, and another 8 hours to get an answer back (assuming they answer right away). |