Communication Grid

Ships are slow, so messages hold the galaxy together. But signals are not instant either. Every region runs a little behind the others, and some people make a living off that gap.

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Signals and Ships

• Speed. Signals are faster than ships, but not instant. A message between two Core worlds takes days. A message from the Core to the far Rim can take weeks or months.

• What it means. Crews leave with a job and land to find the price changed, the client arrested, or a new bounty on their own heads.

• By region. Core relays are fast and clean. Rim messages are slow, garbled or lost. Most choices on the Rim are a gamble.

• Rush lines. Big companies pay for priority channels, and they are expensive. Syndicates sometimes fake priority messages to steer cargo their way.

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Relays and Charts

• Relay stations. Old satellites, some crewed and some automatic, pass signals along. Most need constant repair. On the Rim they break down all the time.

• Keth charts. Keth crews track lane safety and sell the Archive of Routes, the best lane charts in the Drift. It costs money or a guild card.

• Data brokers. The Data Guilds buy relay logs, clean them up and sell the news. It covers bad lanes, cargo bans, blacklists and new bounties.

• Buying news. Fresh news is sold in every port at high prices. Crews choose between paying for it or flying on old news.

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Trust and Fakes

• Signed messages. Official messages carry a digital signature from an office, a guild or a bank. People ignore unsigned messages.

• Papers. A crew needs ship papers, an ID card for each member, and a cargo list. Fakes are cheap on the Rim and risky in the Core.

• Bounty notices. Bounties go out over the relays with a face, a name and a price. Fake bounty notices go out too, to lure hunters into traps.

• Arguments. When nobody can show who is right, a port judge decides. On the Rim, the local boss does.

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Broken and Faked Signals

• Static. Long messages break down. Gas-giant storms, solar flares and dead relays scramble them.

• Tampering. Syndicates and big companies catch messages and change them. They edit prices, blacklists, bounties and lane warnings.

• Sending twice. Careful crews send important messages twice, once fast and once by a slower, safer route. It costs double.

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Local Fixes

• Bulletin boards. Most ports have a board for jobs, news and bounty posters. Half of it is out of date.

• Courier ships. When a message must arrive right, someone pays a courier to carry it by hand. Couriers are expensive, and pirates love them.

• Trusted relay worlds. Slipwind for the Keth and Brightline for the Synthborn have the most reliable news. Crews stop there just to catch up.

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Everyday Trouble

• A crew lands with cargo and learns it was banned weeks ago.

• A blacklist was lifted in the Core, but the Rim never heard, so the port still fines the ship.

• A rival crew bribes a data broker to sit on some news until they reach port first.

• A bounty was paid out a month ago, but hunters are still chasing the target.

• Syndicates use slow news to charge rush fees at the docks.

Out here, what matters is who heard the news first.