Article 50: BioWarp Buoys
Communication is one of the cornerstones of civilization, but in the greater galaxy, it is one of the most difficult tasks to accomplish thanks to a number of factors that impair it. Distance and the speed of light, obviously, preclude radio waves from trading back and forth without years of wait time between systems, and faster-than-light couriers are costly and still require travel time that tends to be more trouble than it's worth. Early on in the Golden Alliance's history, Velar Firesoul created the first recorded mahoutechnological spell which tapped into the unidimensional realm of subspace (Although Uruseiyan history records usage of subspace decades before Firesoul's experiments, the conflicting nature of old Uruseiyan warlord recordings make it impossible to pin down a true date for this.) since the early days of the Golden Alliance subspace has grown less and less reliable with its frequencies being clogged with ever-finer layers of emergency frequencies and noise. Different factions have different means of attempting to secure their subspace broadcasts, from the Elemental League's proprietary ultra-high-frequency broadcasters and receivers to the Castaways Treaty Systems' Seed Sibling Encryption Androids, but that hasn't stopped any factions from developing ways to communicate at long range without the need for subspace.
The Angelic Protectorate long had such a means in the form of their Edict Tablets, huge devices of enchanted stone which could inscribe prayers from the non-divine of nearby planets, but its carvings grew fainter at a farther distance and required tremendous choirs of devout worshipers to function at all. The biggest breakthrough with the advent of the Galactic Anarchists, who were able to use what they dubbed the chatter phase of their Entropic Phase Generator to spread messages to all EPG-equipped vehicles. Though the destruction of Pharadon's massive EPG device meant the end for the galaxy-spanning web of connectivity, the Devilings' natural teleport abilities still meant that the most powerful among them could maintain links between two worlds long enough to relay messages in an instant. This valuable ability led to many of them being hired by other factions to serve mostly as spies, and a few even allowed their abilities to be studied so that some variation on their natural magic could be employed to facilitate interplanetary communications. The end result of this research is the BioWarp Buoy, which remains today the only remotely affordable option for near-planetary communications.
A BioWarp Buoy is a small, spherical object measuring about 1.5 meters across. Most versions of it also feature a magnetized rail ring that orbits it close to the surface. Most of these act as satellites, though some are installed on important ships, space stations, or planetary installations to serve as terminals that make communications truly instantaneous. The BioWarp Buoys themselves have a number of devices built into them, but the most important among them are the microprobe launcher and receiver. Typically, the microprobe launcher is located in the rail ring, which uses magnetic propulsion combined with a miniaturized BioWarp spellcaster to massively accelerate the microprobe then launch it with extreme precision towards another buoy. The microprobe itself has few onboard systems and is rarely more than a centimeter in diameter, but is composed mostly of entropy-charged mahoucite in a protective metal shell. When a microprobe is launched at another BioWarp Buoy, it creates an entropic trace as it flies, which terminates at the other buoy which will then catch the microprobe with its receiver unit, using a precise combination of spellcasting times and advanced mathematics to decelerate the probe and guide it to a relatively soft landing. The process repeats, with the buoys firing the microprobes back and forth to maintain the trace and leave the channel open. Multiple probes form a chain from destination to destination to create a web of connected communications channels.
Of course, this isn't a perfect system. Regardless of the tech involved, it's not too unlike using a string to connect a pair of tin cans, and if the entropic trace is severed, either through deliberate sabotage or a nearby elemental event throwing the traces off, the bouy can only assume that its intended target is still in its original position and can fire another probe once it has attempted to course correct. Buoys tend to carry additional probes, not only for that reason but because they are consumable and will eventually degrade over time, lose their charge through use, or be knocked off-course by micrometeors or other hazards, and more expensive and reliable buoys have more stored microprobes. The communication through the entropic traces is not inherently secure, but the connection has enough bandwidth that they can support further encryption. The further the distance between buoys, the farther and faster a microprobe must travel, and there are hard limits to the maximum distance between each buoy. Hard lessons with regards to the BioWarp Buoys were learned during the subspace outage of the 14th century, and regulations have placed the optimal distance of BioWarp Buoys at approximately 5 light-years, with a maximum of 23 light years between each buoy. A few buoy networks still exist, such as those between Terra and Mythar, but they have largely fallen out of use in favor of a mix of emergency subspace broadcasters and netcores, as a buoy network cannot handle the data load of a planetary internet. Some planets can expect to have a working buoy network only on election years or during times of war, after which it quickly breaks and goes without maintenance until someone with a bunch of money needs some easy publicity.
Interestingly, a new pair of entries into the Castaways Treaty Systems have brought with them advanced BioWarp Buoy technology, allegedly salvaged from possibly Nekopotamian ruins on the planet Gynaria. This advanced Buoy creates what researchers call a two-dimensional entropic trace microprobes, significantly increasing bandwidth to the point that massive data transfers can occur between them. Unfortunately, the technology to create these has yet to be replicated and only exists within facilities on Gynaria, and other factions are racing for the ability to steal, sabotage, or replicate the technology, which many fear may lead to both military and pirate operations targeting Gynaria or even holding the planet hostage for the new microprobes it can produce.
