Originally published at: The Spice Way | The Eldraeverse
In the year 8054, a forward-thinking Initiative of Ring Dynamics, ICC, evaluating the expansion program for the stargate plexus based on the recent advent of the frameslip drive, a free-flight capable FTL technology which would allow the positioning of stargates with speeds and at distances previously unattainable, made a proposal to the Directorate named after the historic trade route. That proposal was for a new backbone for the stargate plexus which would cover the entire galaxy, if thinly – rather than expanding by constellations, using the new frameslip drive to build braided “thread” routes out along each galactic arm, connected…
I’ve been wondering since you introduced Fittlers a while back and mentioned that they can carry wormholes at effective FTL velocities whether we might see baseline humanity getting contacted by the Eldrae. After all, I believe you’ve said humans are probably still around, albeit as a single-planet civilisation.
If previous comments about Humanity being further from the galaxy from the core are correct, and the map here very roughly corresponds to actual galactographic position, then that places humanity somewhere around the Outer Rim station. <scratch that I was wrong about where Sol was supposed to be relative to the Imperial Center, a more likely location for Earth is somewhere near Cal Perinte, since it’s after Transveil which I assume is named after it being right smack in the middle of the plot device keeping them from discovering us.
Some thoughts of mine:
- It seems as if Ring Dynamics would need to severely reduce the tolerance of their stargate timekeeping, so as to prevent random causality loops from popping up in this vastly extended network.
- We can probably expect to see an overall migration of Imperial / Associated Worlds activity towards the Long Bar constellation, to take advantage of its better connectivity
- I can’t seem to find the Voniensa Republic on this map, has it been conveniently skipped past?
- Speaking of skipping, weren’t the Elsewhere Society supposed to take 200000 years to arrive at the Large Magellanic Cloud? How did they suddenly set up stargates at both of the clouds? (Unless they used the frameslip drive already). And in that case did they bother to pick up Deep Probe One?
- I don’t think there’s yet been a hard figure for the speed of a frameslip drive? Leaves me wondering how long this network would take to setup. And indeed, how massive would such a ship have to be to carry multiple stargates and their kernels and STILL form a frameslip bubble around the whole thing?
- I just realised that the Empire is no longer bound to the Local Group for all eternity as any slower-than-light-expanding civilisation would be. I can’t imagine the cultural effects of this.
For those having trouble figuring out how this matches up with real space, here’s the Annotated Ape Edition of the map:
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The Timebase is life. The Timebase is love. The Timebase is happiness.
…we just built a set of Interstellar Interstates (Interstells?) specifically so we wouldn’t have to do that.
It’s too small to readily fit on the map, which is, after all, of the entire galaxy. (Also, whoever drew up the map probably didn’t give a pound of butts for the Republic, not that they bothered putting any other polity boundaries on the map either .)
They haven’t, yet. Remember, this is a proposal .
(And taking a frameslip drive through the gate to their on-the-way gates and bolting it on to accelerate their schedule is almost certainly top of their list. That part may have already happened.)
Cruising speed in the early era is around 200 lights. Peak performance before you run into insoluble instability problems (i.e., you have to compute the solution to the instability in under one Planck time) is somewhere a little over 4800 lights.
…also, why would you do that? Carry the next leg’s gate to its destination. Wait for them to gate the next link-pair out to you, activate it, then repeat. There’s no need to carry multiple gates at once.
Hey, welcome aboard this crazy train!
However, unless something awfully compelling by way of an idea turns up, there’ll never be any humans in this 'verse.
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Also, some notes on this scenario from last time:
Contact: Earth Thoughts | The Associated Worlds (eldraeverse.com)
The Timebase is life. The Timebase is love. The Timebase is happiness.
The Timebase needs more worldbuilding articles on the nitty-gritty technical details, stat!
…we just built a set of Interstellar Interstates (Interstells?) specifically so we wouldn’t have to do that.
But surely since 3 of the lines connect there anyone setting up shop nearby would have an advantage in terms of response time / overall connectivity?
It’s too small to readily fit on the map, which is, after all, of the entire galaxy. (Also, whoever drew up the map probably didn’t give a pound of butts for the Republic, not that they bothered putting any other polity boundaries on the map either .)
Fair enough!
They haven’t, yet. Remember, this is a proposal .
(And taking a frameslip drive through the gate to their on-the-way gates and bolting it on to accelerate their schedule is almost certainly top of their list. That part may have already happened.)
Ah I think I confused “dispatched stargate to cloud” as “stargate has already reached cloud and is operational”.
…also, why would you do that? Carry the next leg’s gate to its destination. Wait for them to gate the next link-pair out to you, activate it, then repeat. There’s no need to carry multiple gates at once.
I keep forgetting you can gate stargate-pairs intact.
Also the average Imperial on a daily basis, I suppose?
Intermanus / intermani? Latin for arm/hand
On previous maps, the Imperial Way was a triangular route linking Lumenna-SĂşnáris, Palaxias and the Conclave system, while the long-range route comparable to the LethĂäza Trade Spine in length was called the Mercantile Corridor. Does the Imperial Way now include the Corridor?
No, that’s just me screwing up the labeling. It ought to be the Mercantile Corridor.
Oops. 
Much as I enjoy writing technical pieces, that would be about as interesting as the complete set of NTP RFCs crossed with a textbook on general relativity. Probably not fun either way.
Fair enough haha, and I hope that didn’t sound too demanding; was not my intent
I’m always amused and annoyed when people construct a new word from several existing ones, and pick the wrong part of an existing word/phrase to keep.
- Interstellar + Interstate Highway → dropping the highway part
- (dutch) Digital + Analfabeet (an + alpha + beta → no letters → illiterate) → digibeet (digitally illiterate)