Space is Big

A reader asked me in the comments from yesterday’s post where I got my ideas for setting up the mechanics of the Aristeia universe. Specifically,

If I may ask, how and why did you decide on the rules you use for spaceflight and interstellar communications? Having communications only travel at light speed, forcing slow ships to be the means of communication between the core worlds and other colonies interests me because it varies greatly from my way, where communications travel nearly instantaneously while ships travel somewhat slow, but still not as slow as yours. I love your system too and I was just curious on how and why you decided on it as the rules for your fictional universe.

In many Sci-Fi space opera’s space works such that you can communicate across the galaxy instantly but getting to places takes a bit more time. How much varies. In Star Trek, getting across the galaxy takes 70 years but in Star Wars its a matter of hours/days. It’s also highly variable within a series (check out this great chart from  Memory Alpha to see just how much it varies).

One of the themes and inspirations for Aristeia was the American Revolution. Part of what fueled that conflict was the vast distance between America and Britain. It took a few months to get here from there, so I matched that by placing the core of the Alliance roughly three months away from the Kreogh Sector.

Now, placing your enemy a few months away doesn’t make much of an impact if faster-than-light communication is possible. Many of the issues of the American Revolution were caused or exasperated by this relative isolation. The British, and Alliance, have to respond to news that’s months out of date, and then it takes months more for anything to happen as a result.

Slow communication also makes things more complicated for military commanders. You send a scout to a system you want to attack, it takes time to travel there and back. A lot can happen during that time. Right now, with radio, satellites, the internet, we’re all use to the idea of knowing where everything is and what happens instantly. But that’s not how it’s been for most of human history. And space is big.

So how fast are the ships in Aristeia? The relative velocities and travel times are set.  The Cutty Sark is faster than the Defiant Glory. It’s a four day journey from Sulas to Irod via freighter. Those are all fixed. But what speed is that in terms of lightspeed? I left that intentionally vague to avoid the trap Star Trek falls into with widely variable, and sometimes batshit crazy, speeds.

Will this communication limit always be in place? It is for this trilogy. But technology progresses. Some concepts I have for future stories in the universe mirror our own development;  FTL communication (radio), ability to track ships in hyperspace (radar), etc. None of those are fixed as being impossible, the characters in the stories just haven’t figured them out yet. Just like it was possible for Ben Franklin to build a radio to help the Americans during the Revolutionary War. But he didn’t.  And neither do our heroes.