Communication Folder

All transmitted communication in the coalition uses carrier waves that travel at the speed of light. While this is fast, the vast distances between stars still makes it so that a single message would take years, centuries, or even millennia to reach its destination, if you just transmitted it towards a recipient in another star system. A message sent between Sisyphus Prime and Prometheus in this fashion, would take 500 years to reach the capital. This is somewhat impractical.

If you, on the other hand, fold space between Sisyphus Prime and Prometheus you can have a long face to face conversation, via hologram, in real time.

Folds in space are unidirectional for matter, but not for sound or radio waves. The Navigational Folder opens their folds in the vacuum of space, most of the time, where there is no sound, but communication via carrier waves is still possible, but those folds are only kept open for as long it takes the ship to pass through it, and has to be large enough for the entire ship. Each has instead at least half a dozen Communication Folders that makes folds that are almost microscopic, since the carrier waves doesn’t need that much space to pass through a fold in space, in fact hundreds of simultaneous signals can pass through such a fold. The microscopic size of the folds means that they require less power and can stay open longer.

Inhabited planets of the Coalition have one, or more, satellites with Communication Folders on them. It’s not a good idea to open a communication fold from the surface of a planet, because atmosphere will escape through the fold, due to the difference in pressure. Keeping them on a satellite cause a minuscule lag, but keeps the atmosphere where it belongs.

Utility

Sending messages to people in other star systems. Messages can be written, holographic recordings, or recorded lucid dreams. Real time communication is also possible between star systems with this technology, both holographic and shared lucid dreams. The technology can be used for espionage, picking up transmissions from hostile worlds, or from Earth, where they don’t know there are humans elsewhere in the galaxy. Radio silence needs to be maintained during espionage, since signals travel both ways through a fold.

Parent Technologies

• Space Folder

Inventor(s)

Treel

Access & Availability

Available on interstellar ships and satellites throughout our galaxy. In the Coalition the satellites enables anyone to communicate with anyone else on any world of the Coalition.

Discovery

The Treel picked up radio transmissions from their destinations while testing the first Navigational Folder eons ago, in their own galaxy. They quickly realized that transmissions could go both ways and requires very little space and energy.