NOMAD Technology: The Hypernet

The Late Galactic Age sees the creation of the “Hypernet”, a true galactic distributed network of Hypernet Nodes.

New Ship Technologies

Hypernet Node (Late Galactic)

Price: +2 or more to Payload, +20% or more to base hull cost.

Hypernet nodes can continuously send data to, and receive data from, other Hypernet Nodes within transit range. The amount of outgoing data depends on the latency and throughput for a Node’s Technology Age. However, a Hypernet Node can receive much more incoming data by sharing the load among other Nodes in the same star system.

Each +1 to Payload and +10% to cost doubles the amount of data a Node can send. Most such “hubs” reside on orbital stations.

See below for more information.

Hypernet Terminal (Early Cosmic)

Price: 150,000 Cr per parsec of range, 1 Cargo

Using the same technology as the FTL Communicator (FTLN 98-99), a Hypernet Terminal can send and receive from a Hypernet Node somewhere within range. Each Terminal occupies one Cargo space on a ship or station.

Throughput and latency depend on the connected Node. The Terminal can only connect to one Node at a time, and cannot itself act as a Node in the Hypernet network.

A Hypernet Terminal usually connects to the computer system of a ship, station, or planetside base. Thus any number of users can share one Terminal, but simultatneous users must divide total input and output between them. For more scalability, use a sufficiently large Hypernet Node.

New Personal Technologies

HyperComm (Late Cosmic)

Price: 200,000 Cr per parsec of range

An advance over the Hypernet Terminal, a HyperComm connects to the nearest Hypernet Node within range. Unlike a Terminal, a HyperComm fits in the hand of a Medium-sized humanoid. It has a viewscreen that displays Hypernet data much like an advanced OmniComm might.

Throughput is half that of the connected Node, due to limitations in the underlying technology. (Latency remains the same.) The unit contains an embedded OmniComp that uses compression, application encodings, and other tricks to use bandwidth efficiently.

Normally a HyperComm has only one user. With a touch of a button it can act as a base station for any number of OmniComms who will share the same Node input and output channel.

Hypernet Operations

By the Late Galactic Age, extended research into information transfer through hyperspace leads to a network more similar to a planetary system’s Omninet¹. It breaks large messages into “packets” and uses priority and routing algorithms to move data through the network more-or-less fairly.

Nevertheless, the Hypernet has some notable differences.

Latency and Throughput

In the Late Galactic Age, each packet on the Hypernet requires a day to arrive at the next Hypernet Node. Each outbund packet contains not much more data than an FTL Telegraph message: 64 kilobits per second, enough for a grainy video or between 2000 and 8000 characters of text depending on encoding. Each packet requires a second to tramsmit fully.

Generic compression algorithms and per-application encodings can reduce the number of bits required to express a message, but the Hypernet’s mandatory encryption adds some overhead, so it all balances out. If the sender is interrupted while sending a message, the receiver may get partial data, or completely undecipherable gibberish. (GM’s decision.)

Even if a large message is complete, if it has to transit across multiple nodes, it may take more than the number of transits in days to arrive, because of the way the Hypernet breaks up messages and assigns priorities. In general, for each large message the GM should roll 2d6 and add the smaller die to the number of days the message takes to work its way through the network and reassemble itself in a coherent order.

The Early Cosmic Age brings further breakthroughs in FTL communications. Thus the Cosmic Hypernet runs a lot faster, as seen in the table above. Early Cosmic speeds are comparable to a basic modem of the Late Atomic Age. The Late Cosmic Hypernet is equal to broadband from the Early Space Age in every way.

Government and Corporate Control

Maintaining a Hypernet entails quite a lot of expense. Unlike lean FTL Telegraph protocols, Hypernet Nodes exchange a lot of internal routing and bookkeeping messages.

For this reason, a Hypernet typically remains in the hands (or manipulators) of interstellar governments and large corporations. Some governments use the Hypernet to broadcast propaganda to all the systems under their control; others reserve it for military and administrative use. Large corporations may use it to disseminate the news they want citizens to hear. Very rarely do the owners of a Hypernet open it up to private use, and even then sending physical media via ship may be cheaper.

Hackers can and do sometimes send messages across the galaxy disguised as “protocol” or “informational” messages, but more repressive interests have “gray hats” to jam these channels or shut them down.

Mobile Destinations

Most users connect to Hypernet gateways available in each star system. Only ships that venture to less advanced star systems carry Nodes with them. Because of the FTL lag time, routing messages to an FTL-capable ship moving between stars turns out to be a hard problem.

When a ship connects to a Hypernet Node, it usually registers its location. (Some ships may elect to connect in “hidden” mode for security purposes.) Given the lag between nodes and the possibility of stale information, a message may take much longer to arrive than a simple analysis of the node network might indicate. After several failed retries, the network forwards the message to a queue at the ship’s registered home system.

For example, a ship may connect to a Node in System A. A message wends its way through the Hypernet until it reaches System A, but by then the ship has moved on to System B. When the message gets to System B, the ship has moved to C, and so on. After trying to reach the ship, the message returns to the ship’s home office at System K, and the sender (eventually) receives a notification that the message has been forwarded to System K for eventual delivery.

GMs can actively track the progress of an important message and network notifications of where the ship currently is on a sector map. Or not.

Hypernet Stations

Hypernet Relay

Technology Age: Late Galactic

Hypernet Relays are typically in orbit around a planet or sun, exchanging data with other relays, with ship-borne Hypernet Nodes, and with any ship-board or ground stations using conventional channels.

Modifications:

• Automation: +1 step Crew, +1 step Payload (noted above), +10% Cost
• Hypernet Node: see above, -2 Payload, +20% Cost.
• Travel Multiplier (x3): +10 Payload.

Travel Multiplier: x3

Cost: 60,000 + 150% = 150,000 Cr

Monthly Cost: 4669 Cr

Hypernet Hub

Technology Age: Late Galactic

Hypernet Hubs are small manned orbitals around an inhabited planet that serves the same purpose as a Hypernet Relay. Personnel on board can resolve problems with the Hypernet link.

The station is defended against terrorists and saboteurs, but cannot withstand a sustained military assault.

Modifications:

• Automation: +1 step Crew, +1 step Payload (noted above), +10% Cost
• Hypernet Node (x8): see above, -9 Payload, +90% Cost.
• Point Defense Grid: -1 Guns
• Travel Multiplier (x3): +10 Payload.

Cargo: 1 Shuttle (24 spaces), 8 spaces remaining

Travel Multiplier: x3

Cost: 60,000 + 20% = 72,000 Cr

Monthly Cost: 4669 + 20% = 5603 Cr