XMail

[ovka]

I was re-reading my old copy of CT Traveller Adventure. There is a game-mechanic in there for determining how long it takes news of an event or a personal message to get from one place to another. It works something like compare the two starports and find the distance between the two systems, roll 2D, and if you roll higher than the target number for the starport/distance combination, a passing starship carries the news to the next world.

It seems to me that this is something that could be tied into the trade and commerce subsystem (aside from a ship allocating tonnage for mail). I started working on something and came up with a rough idea for how it would work. Then, I was reading through my T5 book (ok, proto-book -- I have the CD rom version which seems like it is a beta copy) and low-and-behold, I found this reference to xmail:

Some versions of the Xmail System use Neutral Output Applets. A message to a specific person is inserted into the Applet and thousands of copies are sent into the xmail system, carried by ships to hundreds of worlds.
When the recipient arrives on one of those worlds and checks an xmail terminal, his specific message pops up on the display console.

This description of the Xmail System is almost exactly what I had come up with -- personal messages moving from system to system carried by passing traders and hitting personal xmail accounts to be accessed at certain starports (A-C plus starports in systems with a scout base). The same process would also carry news of macro events moving from system to system and hitting the local news feeds (pirate activity in the xyz system).

I know that the Xboat System and xmail have always been part of the Traveller universe, but this is the first time I have ever seen it mentioned as anything other than xboats carry messages along the xboat routes at (virtually) the speed of jump, and Scout/Couriers carry messages and packages from the xboat routes to other worlds. I was glad to see that someone read my mind and put this into T5.

That takes me back to the game-mechanic. With a system like this, how long would it take a message to move from system A through systems B, C, and D to system E. The speed of jump is of course one week, but how long would it take before a ship going the right direction picked up the message, and is that ship a jump-1 ship, moving the message slowly, or a jump-6 ship moving it quickly. As I said before, it feels like it should be part of the trade and commerce subsystem.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Baron Ovka

 

[Spinward Scout]

Some versions of the Xmail System use Neutral Output Applets. A message to a specific person is inserted into the Applet and thousands of copies are sent into the xmail system, carried by ships to hundreds of worlds.
When the recipient arrives on one of those worlds and checks an xmail terminal, his specific message pops up on the display console.

The overhead would be enormous, by current standards, if the normal everyday Imperial citizen used X-Mail on a regular basis. 11,000 worlds, some with populations in tens of billions - I'm not going to bother trying the math. That's not to say that a TL-14 civilization couldn't pull it off. Once a message was received, the system would have to have a flag or signal to tell the rest of the worlds to disregard and delete all of the redundant messages.

I'm surprised someone hasn't come up with a personal handheld X-Mail receiver or something built into a Comm, so that the characters don't waste time running into the Starport terminal just to check their messages.

 

[ovka]

Yeah, I was thinking that the system would have to send an acknowledgement signal when the message was received to remove it from the system and stop its propagation. Having said that, we aren't really talking about current, RW TL, but a TL where starports, jumpdrives, and space travel exist. Storage capacities are a little higher.

Cheers,

Baron Ovka

 

[simonh]

Yeah, I was thinking that the system would have to send an acknowledgement signal when the message was received to remove it from the system and stop its propagation. Having said that, we aren't really talking about current, RW TL, but a TL where starports, jumpdrives, and space travel exist. Storage capacities are a little higher.

I don't see why acknowledgement is required, just delete any messages after some period of time. A year should do. That would easily cope with recipients travelling in the opposite direction to the message.

IIRC the population of the Imperium is about a trillion sophonts. A Petabyte of data, which is a routinely manageable unit of storage for a modern data centre, allows for 1 kb of data per person per year. A handful of twitter messages. 1 MB of data each per year would be 1k Petabytes (an Exabyte) which is beyond our capability now, but not actually by all that much and should be feasible in the near future. That's a fair amount of plain text.

I imagine a tiered cost scale for messages based on propagation distance and lifetime. That would radically reduce the total storage requirements of typical nodes in the system. How many people would actualy need to send imperium-wide 1 year duration messages? If it improves efficiency by 1000 times, then we can scale up a reasonably conservative estimated average annual message volume to 1 GB per person. If one in a thousand people are actualy sending messages, then make that 1 TB each/year.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Spinward Scout]

How many people would actually need to send imperium-wide 1 year duration messages?

Just about every noble communicating with Capital/Core from Spinward or the Rim. MegaCorps. Some Domain-wide Corporations. Information and technology requests for Universities.

If there's a direct address to send it to, tho, there's no need for the redundancy. So the redundancy would probably only be needed for those without a 'permanent address'.

 

[rancke]

Just about every noble communicating with Capital/Core from Spinward or the Rim. MegaCorps. Some Domain-wide Corporations. Information and technology requests for Universities.

All of whom will be using J6 couriers instead of J4 X-boats following badly designed routes.


Hans

 

[robject]

I'm surprised someone hasn't come up with a personal handheld X-Mail receiver or something built into a Comm, so that the characters don't waste time running into the Starport terminal just to check their messages.

Sounds like an excellent task for ThingMaker!

 

[rnadams2]

What different types of communication are needed? You have:

News, for everyone's general consumption. This is most likely gathered, filtered by Imperial censors, then beamed to outgoing X-boats and/or couriers, who then send it to news outlet stations and satellites upon reaching the next system. The data's then disseminated by local media outlets

Personal, address-specific communications. By "address-specific," I mean that the message is encrypted, sent to X system, then beamed to a server that holds it until someone claims it. When a message arrives, an alert is sent to the intended recipient's (whatever device is carried for general communication and such--a cell phone analogue), and it can be claimed from that device. That alert would be repeated every x hours until acknowledged in case the recipient's not "home" (ie. not in system).

Personal or general non-address-specific communications. Like emails that can be grabbed from wherever one happens to be, blog posts (or whatever serves the same purpose), etc. The interstellar internet, basically. Such data is disseminated locally very much like our own internet, using satellite relays to get the information to the ends of the system. When an X-boat or courier is ready to leave the system, all data posted between now and the time the last one left is uploaded to the ship, then relayed to satellites when it arrives at its destination,and then uploaded to the local networks. In this way, "travellers" can "check their email," although it's going to be not nearly as reliable as other communications types, especially for worlds off the beaten path. Again, done through their cell phone analogue.

Sensitive/Classified information. This is encrypted and carried on a thumb drive-like device that is delivered by hand to its recipient, whose address, of course, must be known.

Packages/physical stuff. It's got to go to at least a known world for pick-up or delivery. An alert is sent out to the recipient's cell thingie so he or she knows it's arrived and from where it can be picked up.​

Whenever an X-boat or courier heads out to another system, data and parcels are loaded up, then offloaded when arriving to their destination.

Did I miss anything? This might not be the "official" way its done, but it makes sense to me.

 

[Selandia]

There is the issue of data type, but also the issue of carrier type.

The Xboat Imperial network, intended to provide the basic infrastructure without which some world may fall off the grid. Now, the dissemination patern might not be optimum for the best use of the information, given its nature or its recipient. It may take half a year for the info to ger "round cape Horn" (or whatever the joke is in the TI) but it will get there.

Planetary subsidized links. Local gov do subsidize trader or scoutship to get better service than the Xboat would offer.
example: Rethe is not on the j4 Xboat route; it will receive info from Dhian at J2, as well as from Roup with a J2 to Wochier and J2 to Rethe. Note Roup is 1 jump away from Regina.
To get news in 1 jump from Regina, the govt will subsidize a J5 route to Regina or at least a J3 route to Yori (who receive it mail from Regina through J2)

Multi systems Commercial services will jump at the opportunity to offer a communication edge to their clients.
- High value info, Ex: buy crops cheap on Inthe -an Ag- before news of some disaster on Focaline -competing Ag- reach Inthe
- offer a longer/larger storage at destination than Xboat net
- diversified dissemination patterns for non adress specific message
- multiple planets, planetwide collect points, and planetwide fowarding,
- Staroogle will have server all over the places, uploading and downloading email so that you will have it through a fairly transparent (except for invoicing) process
and a lot more...(a major source of adventure for they do subcontract to scoutship and hire shotgun rider for special cargo...)

Private Xpress service, for those that need an edge and do not want to share it. Or Private service on public system. On the J5 service Regina to Rethe, Lord Rethe has the data treated while in jump, insuring that he does have the relevant info for his business as soon as the courrier enters in system.

If it makes enough sense for people to pay enough for it to make aprofit, it will exist (wishfull free market thinking)

have fun

Selandia

 

[rnadams2]

Then you get interstellar FedEx, UPS, and DHL, as well as Western Union-type services. And don't forget, on a smaller and more personal note, all the enterprising free traders out there who happen to be going in the right direction.

But, yes, definitely you'd have locally-subsidized services to augment the Imperial ones and get info spread out away from the official X-boat routes.

 

[aramis]

I've been reading that we're approaching the physical limits of the storage media, so I wouldn't expect much more than 1 petabyte per cm³... ever.
Still, that's 1000 petabytes per cm³, or (after losing 50% for mounting structure and access space for maintenance) about 7,000,000 petabytes per Td

 

[ovka]

News, for everyone's general consumption. This is most likely gathered, filtered by Imperial censors, then beamed to outgoing X-boats and/or couriers, who then send it to news outlet stations and satellites upon reaching the next system. The data's then disseminated by local media outlets

Personal, address-specific communications. By "address-specific," I mean that the message is encrypted, sent to X system, then beamed to a server that holds it until someone claims it.

Personal or general non-address-specific communications. Like emails that can be grabbed from wherever one happens to be, blog posts (or whatever serves the same purpose), etc. The interstellar internet, basically. Such data is disseminated locally very much like our own internet, using satellite relays to get the information to the ends of the system. When an X-boat or courier is ready to leave the system, all data posted between now and the time the last one left is uploaded to the ship, then relayed to satellites when it arrives at its destination,and then uploaded to the local networks.

Sensitive/Classified information. This is encrypted and carried on a thumb drive-like device that is delivered by hand to its recipient, whose address, of course, must be known.

Packages/physical stuff. It's got to go to at least a known world for pick-up or delivery.​

Whenever an X-boat or courier heads out to another system, data and parcels are loaded up, then offloaded when arriving to their destination.

That should cover most situations. My question is how long does it take? Assuming that any message/package traveling along the xboat routes takes exactly one week from jump world to jump world, what happens off of the standard jump routes? Consider the following scenarios:

Case 1 above. On day 100 of the campaign, the PCs are on Aramis (SPIN 3110), headed to Zila (SPIN 2908) via Natoko (SPIN 3209) and Pysadi (SPIN 3008). An incident (say a pirate attack) occurs on Pavanne (SPIN 2905). When do the PCs hear about it?

Case 2 above. On day 150 of the campaign, a message for the PCs is left on Zila (SPIN 2908) and given an address of Paya (SPIN 2510). How long does it take to get there? The PCs will get the message the first time they are in the Paya system on or after that date.

Case 3 above. On day 200 of the campaign, the PCs are trading in the Towers cluster on Junidy (SPIN 3202) headed to Rugbird (SPIN 3102), Jesedipere (SPIN 3001), Yebab (SPIN 3002), Nasemin (SPIN 3003), Feneteman (SPIN 3104), and Towers (SPIN 3103). A message intended for them is put into the system on Heguz (SPIN 2706). The sender of the message doesn't really know exactly where the PCs are, but assumes the PCs are somewhere in the Aramis Subsector. How long until the PCs get the message?

Cases 4 and 5 above will be similar to case 2.

Case 6 would be delivery by private courier to a group of travelers. The only difference between this and case 3 is that there is some intelligence to the delivery. Case 3 assumes the message just moves through the system automatically. Case 6 assumes that the courier can read the travelers' filed flight plan and figure out where to go next. This case is relatively easy to determine when the PCs receive the message/package.

Cheers,

Baron Ovka

 

[ovka]

I've been reading that we're approaching the physical limits of the storage media, so I wouldn't expect much more than 1 petabyte per cm³... ever.
Still, that's 1000 petabytes per cm³, or (after losing 50% for mounting structure and access space for maintenance) about 7,000,000 petabytes per Td

That may be true in the RW, but we're talking about a higher tech universe where jump drives defy what we "know" to be the laws of physics.

Cheers,

Baron Ovka

 

[mike wightman]

I've been reading that we're approaching the physical limits of the storage media, so I wouldn't expect much more than 1 petabyte per cm³... ever.
Still, that's 1000 petabytes per cm³, or (after losing 50% for mounting structure and access space for maintenance) about 7,000,000 petabytes per Td

That's the limit of TL7.8 storage media for you.

By TL13 the limit will be much higher.

 

[aramis]

That's the limit of TL7.8 storage media for you.

By TL13 the limit will be much higher.

How? The physical density limit of semiconductor media is being reached already - Quantum tunneling is slowing chip increases, and a petabyte in a CC is already at that point.

Moore's Law broke 3 years ago. Actual improvements in chip technology have been about 25% over the last 4 years... not the 26% per year needed to maintain the progression under Moore's Law.

Storage going holographic isn't going to be all that much better.

At a certain point, improvement becomes impossible.

 

[mike wightman]

Impossible with TL7.8 physics. Simple answer is it won't be based on semi-conductors.

Graphene may offer higher data storage densities, and who knows what may be possible at TLs beyond 8.

If I knew how to go beyond our current physics paradigm I'd be writing a nobel prize winning physics paper

 

[rancke]

Impossible with TL7.8 physics. Simple answer is it won't be based on semi-conductors.

Molycircs. (Molecular circuitry -- buzzword in several recentish SF series).


Hans

 

[Selandia]

That should cover most situations. My question is how long does it take? Assuming that any message/package traveling along the xboat routes takes exactly one week from jump world to jump world, what happens off of the standard jump routes? Consider the following scenarios:

Case 1 above. On day 100 of the campaign, the PCs are on Aramis (SPIN 3110), headed to Zila (SPIN 2908) via Natoko (SPIN 3209) and Pysadi (SPIN 3008). An incident (say a pirate attack) occurs on Pavanne (SPIN 2905). When do the PCs hear about it?

May be nevers. Pavane is a nowhere world. Is there a picket? as a trader went to refuel at the gaz giant and got caught, who is there to see it and report it? Where is the reporting ship scheduled to jump? Best case, a scoutship picket may jump to the scout base J2 Nasemine, from which special despatch will be sent to all likely jump springboard system to warn them of pirate at destination, likely using the plentifull J2 type S. Given the urgent nature of the dispatch, any ship on its way out would relay the info. Zila would be 4xj2 away (report to Nasemine and spread to Aramanx then Carsten then Zila), if Zila is included in the "mailing list". The Time taken by each jump is uncertain here. When the courrier broadcasted the warning as he entered Nasemine, was a ships few hours away from jumping to Carsten, or would you need for the courrier to go to Aranmanx, then may be forced to refuel because nobody else is going to Carsten?

Case 2 above. On day 150 of the campaign, a message for the PCs is left on Zila (SPIN 2908) and given an address of Paya (SPIN 2510). How long does it take to get there? The PCs will get the message the first time they are in the Paya system on or after that date.

If you claim that a weekly J4 service accessible to civillian link the amber zone Zila to the navy base at Paya, about 3 weeks. otherwise, given the size of Zila, there should be (IMTU) weekly mail to Aramis, and few times a week to the base and shipyard at Paya

Case 3 above. On day 200 of the campaign, the PCs are trading in the Towers cluster on Junidy (SPIN 3202) headed to Rugbird (SPIN 3102), Jesedipere (SPIN 3001), Yebab (SPIN 3002), Nasemin (SPIN 3003), Feneteman (SPIN 3104), and Towers (SPIN 3103). A message intended for them is put into the system on Heguz (SPIN 2706). The sender of the message doesn't really know exactly where the PCs are, but assumes the PCs are somewhere in the Aramis Subsector. How long until the PCs get the message?

Can't says, IMTU Heguz (pop2 gov 2) would not even be "in the system" for more than a mail subsidiy to the friendly trader that make a (monthly/bimonthly /trimestrial?) run to it.

Case 6 would be delivery by private courier to a group of travelers. The only difference between this and case 3 is that there is some intelligence to the delivery. Case 3 assumes the message just moves through the system automatically. Case 6 assumes that the courier can read the travelers' filed flight plan and figure out where to go next. This case is relatively easy to determine when the PCs receive the message/package.

True since the main factor of uncertainity IMTU for Heguz: which month will the mailman pass ? will be ruled out.


have fun

Selandia

 

[aramis]

Molycircs. (Molecular circuitry -- buzzword in several recentish SF series).


Hans

Hate to break it to ya, but we're already down to the point where the physics prevent going smaller and make we electrical circuitry smaller than living cells.

 

[ovka]

Is there something in the trade and commerce system (I am still reading through my T5 CD ROM) that could be used to come up with this? How often does a ship come through a given star system? Is it based on Ix, Ex, RU, starport, TL, Pop, Trade Classifications, trade routes, or, more likely, some combination of all of these)? I would love to have an automated way to determine this ... plug all of the information into a spreadsheet along with jump distances to all neighboring worlds, and determine how long it takes to get from world x to all worlds within six parsecs of it. Repeat for the time it takes for the message to get to the next world, and so on.

Cheers,

Baron Ovka