Travels of the Starfire (? means tentative information) ~Astrophysical Considerations and Scale~ TS takes place in a small portion of one arm of an anonymous spiral galaxy somewhere "out there". Explored space makes up a region of about five kiloparsecs of greatly varrying population density. Time for travel across the territory of interstellar goverments is on the order of years, transversing known space would take about a decade. Neither is likely, as interstellar space travel remains out of reach as a commonplace activity for the majority of citizens - to travel to another star system is a once-in-a-lifetime experiance for most. Perhaps 2% of the total population is regularly starfairing, with 25% having traveled between systems at some point. Interplanetary travel in systems with multiple colonized worlds is much more common and roughly equivalent to air travel in the real world. Interstellar craft move at speeds on the order of a few parsecs per week, and stars are about a parsec apart in explored space. This galaxy was blessed with an inordiante ammount of habitable planets, but the percentage that are colonized varies widely. In galactic population centers, inhabited worlds are a few parsecs apart, in the outback, there could tens of parsecs inbetween colonies. (A journey of a few months.) Religious figures in the galaxy point to the high density of habitable planets as evedence for an intelegent creator. (Note that habitable in this context means `habitable to at least one of the species (other than mechanicals and Nai-eris) known', not `habitable to humans'! (Mechanicals and Nai-eris being excluded because they can live essentaly everywhere.)) Superluminal communications exist, and a signals travel about 1 kiloparsec per minute. (Thus, any point in known space is within a few minutes communication.) However, long-range hyperspatial communications equipment is large and expensive, so most spacecraft have only small, short-range (< 2 Parsecs) communications facilites that link them to the galactic Hypernet. This leaves such ships incommunido disturbingly often. Long-range (dozens of parsecs) equipment is generaly planet-based and connected with Hypernet routing eqipment. Non-capital spaceships do not generaly maintain long-range lightspeed comm gear (e.g. radio or optical signaling) because if the hyperspatial transceiver was damaged in an accedent, any lightspeed signal would likely take years to reach an inhabited planet. (The stricken crew having long since perished xor repaired their ship and moved on.) The existance of superluminal communications of this magnatude means that the entire galaxy is effectively `in range' for commmuncations in a reasonibly timely manner. Therefore, it is reasonible to assume that the advanced civilizations of the galaxy would be mutualy aware of each other long before first physical contact. Indeed, ultrafast hyperspatial communications is roughly contemporary (same century) with hyperdrive for all the civlizations that independently discovered hyperspatial technologies. However, only a few civilzations have ever been contacted in this manner, all of them within a 100-light-year area. This is apparently due to a hyperspatal anomoly on the communications plane that obstructs transmissions. It does not effect the passage of ships, but only robotic galactic probes have passed through it. (Possibly because there are still plenty of habitable planets avalible in explored space, and there is no incentive to colonize such distant places.) Beyond the communications anomoly exists the mighty Sangean Pangalactic Empire, a great civilization tens of milenia old that uses microscopic artificial wormholes for communications, rather than hyperspace. The Sangeans have no interest in attacking or concuring the part of the galaxy in TS and have settled into a great stagnation. (They're probably headed for a dark age the likes of which the universe has never seen.) ~Humans~ The human species in the Starfire's galaxy has been spacefairing for centuries and is the primary inhabitant of a number of terranoid worlds. Humans are there, as in our world, devided into several semi-isolated gene pools reflected as races. There are several human races not known on Earth, which developed in reletive isolation on pre-hyperspace colonies. (Prior to the discovery of practical hyperluminal travel, distant colonies are geneticly isolated by interstellar distances.) Humans are the second-largest known species in terms of numbers, the Agilians are the largest. ~Agilians~ Agilians are humanoid, but can not interbbreed with humans and are thus a seperate species. Agilians can share the same enviroment with humans, and define the same range of worlds as `habitable', there has been some teritorial conflict because of this. Agilians form the bulk of the Artician leauge, but the leauge also includes humans and other species. (Thus, the Confederation and the Leauge are both large, inclusive and multi-species goverments - although high concentrations of species appear in certain regions, in centuries of instellar travel members of any species can turn on almost any world.) ~Danak~ Danak are a reptialian species in a roughly anthropoid shape, breathing an oxygen atmosphere, their range of habitable planets overlaps consideribly with that of Humans and Agilians. Unlike them, however, the Danak never colonized nearby space extensively - only the two inhabited planets of their home system have large, homogenous Danak populations. (Of course, later Danak colonies and enclaves exist.) The Danak homeworld is a member of the Stellar Confederation, but it would be improper to say `the Danak are members of the Confederation', since many Danak live in the Leauge or on independant worlds. The Race-Species and Species-Goverment seperations are important to TS's sociopolitical situation. ~Saltarians~ Saltarians are an anphibian species, fairly neumerous. There are reletively few Saltarian-majority worlds, all of them fall under the jurisdiction of the Confederation. Saltarians have limited overlap with humans in terms of habitablity; Oxygen levels favored by them are uncomfortibly high for humans and visa versa, furthermore Saltarian temperature and humidity perferences would leave humans perpiring heavily. Saltarians are a strongly spacefairing species, their discovery of hyperspace was roughly contemperaneous with humanity. Saltarians still ply the spaceways as traders in ships with an operating enviroment somewhat uncomfortible for humanoid crews! ~Quiariny~ Quiariny are a species inhabiting a world with a thin atmosphere and little water as compared to a terrestrial planet, and are designed accordingly - they have large lungs and huge ears, and can tollerate very low oxygen levels. In general, Quiariny simple folk, who did not independantly discover superluminal travel or, indeed, interplanetary travel. They are mostly confined to one world, which is a member of the Artician leauge. They are very long-lived, with a life expectancy of several centuries. Habitiblity overlap with humans, Danak, Agilians, etc is fairly small. ~Xine~ The original homeworld of the Xine was invaded and assimalted by the neighboring Agilians in the early days of hyperspace, and although that world is still has a large Xine minority, the species as a whole has suffered a diaspora. Biologicaly, the Xine are of anthropoid shape - having two arms, two legs, and a head - they are very slender and have a large brain, but small eyes. The Xine are ungendered, reproducing asexualy by releasing larvae into pools where they will metamorphsize into their adult form. Xine are telepathic, but only with other Xine - there have been exceptions, Xine raised by non-Xine can read them, and those raised in mixed enviroments can be telepathicly `bilingual'. Although the Xine homeworld is in the Artician Leauge, there is a more-or-less concentrated Xine minority throughout known space. Xine exist at comparible terperatures and pressures to humans, but their atmospheric requirements are somewhat different and they are usualy seen with suplemental breathing aparatus. ~O'Z'or!~ The O'Z'or! are the fifth-largest consituant, by species, of the Confederation. They are gas-giant dwelling creatures who are lighter than air, but were technologicaly primitive until contacted by galactic civilization. Now, they are common on sutible gas giants to which they have been introduced by spacefairing species - the O'Z'or! ecosystem is capible of producing resources and food edible to humanoid species. O'Z'or! are very prolific breeders and fairly long lived. Habitiblity overlap with other carbon-based species is nil. ~Korerith~ Korerith are a liquid-sulfur-dwelling species of large size. They are technologicaly advanced, and practically all Korerith live on worlds that are members of the Confederation. They essentaly keep to themselves because of enviromental requirements and no terranoid worlds have a significant Korerith population. ~Nai-eris~ Silicon-based senteint beings exist on a number of worlds. The Nai-eris are the most numerous, with their majority worlds devided between the Confederation and Leauge. They cannot survive unprotected in oxygen atmospheres, but such protection is fairly trivial and they are thus spread throughout both airless rocks and carbon-based-life-inhabited planets. Their slow reproduction inhibits a higher overall population, but they are clinicaly immortal - death occurs only through misadventure. Much of their population exists on asteroids and moons incapible of sustaining carbon-based life, certainly they have little competition for planets. Some evedence points towards the Nai-eris as having been created by an extinct species, but it has been forgotten despite the existance of Nai-eris who are thousands of years old. ~Quent~ Quent are another silicon based life-form, but they are more enviromentaly restricted. Although also spacefairing, Quent are less common then Nai-eris. Their homeworld lies outside both local interstellar goverments, but some have traveled to this reigon of space and live either dispersed or occasional enclaves. ~Mechanical Beings~ Many senteint, synthetic beings exist - perhaps 1,850,000 in known space. They are mostly one-off productions, or parts of small production runs. There are no worlds on which they consititute a majority in the Confederation or Leauge, but the outback world of Akarn has a population of 30% sentinent mechanicals. (The political status of which is a subject of contention.) The vast majority of senteint mechanicals live outside the two major goverments. Both of them protect intelegent machines from slavery, and thus over 1.7 million of the estimated 1.85 million sentinet synthetic beings exist in chattel slavery on independant worlds where machine intelegence is not recognized for economic reasons. (In the Confederation and Leauge, there is little economic incentive to build senteint machines outside of research applications. They do, however, make very extensive use of nonsenteint or presenteint computer systems.) Most sentinet synthetics are not androids, but rather senteint computers who work for research institutes. They are expensive to construct and have legal rights, which can be problematic - some have well-developed senses of morality and have refused to design weapons systems, for instance. Furthermore, they are apt to view a great deal of work as `beneith them'. (Perhaps rightly so.) It is reported that one computer system developed by a well-known Confederate university demanded a tenured position in the computer science faculty less than two months after it's activation. Self-contained sentinet synthetic humanoids are not unheard of, however their population is in the low thousands because of the difficultes of reducing a senteint computer system to fit inside a humanoid body, and lack of motivation to do so. ~Carey, Captain Marcus~ Captain of the MSV Starfire. Son of Ben Carey, he inherited the ship on the untimly death of his father. He is somewhat uncomfortible with his new role as captain, but is actualy rather compitent. (at least in the day-to-day afairs) He has kept the Starfire Salvage and Transport Company safely in the black. Bio: Human, male, age ±25, Brown hair, brown eyes, Caucasian?. ~Var, First Officer Amara~ The Starfire's second in command. She hails from the planet Evar, a major power in the Galactic Outback. She is capible in her job. She had a falling out with her planet-bound family. (Who own a large musical-insturments concern and have considerable politcal clout on Evar.) This was one of her causes for taking to space. Bio: Human, female, age ±25, Reddish hair?, Evarian. ~Bisping, Engineer Jules~ Skilled engineer who keeps the Starfire in running order. A friend of Ben Carey. His talents are not limited to starship repair, he can also fill a number of other technical needs. He is the oldest crewmember, and enjoys special status with the captain becuase of his friendship with Ben Carey. He has a degree in Hyperspatial Drive Engineering from Dral Polytechnic Institute. Jules would not be considered old, as life expectancy for humans is around 130, but he is probably thinking about what he wants to do with the rest of his life. Bio: Human, male, age ±50, blue eyes?, Caucasian. ~?, Assistant Engineer Amy~ Android who is not known to have a last name. (Technicaly a gynoid, an android in female form. ) Amy was recovered from a derilect freighter by the Starfire while it was under the command of the late Ben Carey. Amy elected to stay on the ship as an assistant to Jules. The Confederation recognizes her as a citizen, so she is not considered property. Bio: Mechanical/SSE (human form), none (female form), unknown (appears to be about 17 or 18), green eyes?, brown hair. Amy is a prototype humanoid replecant, an advanced android intended to replace an organic being for covert purposes. (The stuff of conspiracy theories...) She was created by a Confederation reaserch lab, along with several other prototypes. (Six, to be exact - see `Project Doppelganger') This lab and it's doings were and are secret for reasons that are blatantly obvious. The first prototype, AM-1, escaped the lab; this raised the concerns of Upper Management. Amy was caputured by pirates on the way to testing. The pirates memory wiped her and sold her to a used tech dealer on Akiron. (Amy was not yet a citizen, so this was a legal transaction, exccept for the original theft.) The goverment's intelegence divisions feared that they could no longer maintain secracy, and they ordered the project terminated and the androids destoried. Gary, the project's leader, was already troubled ethically about the nature of his work, and this was the `last straw' - he absconded with the remaining three androids. (All but one of which parted ways with their creator over the course of the next year.) Meanwhile, Amy was purcased, inactive, by a technically inclied spacer, who `raised' her on his ship. The ship was struck by a fast-moving space object and lost atmosphere, the crew (except for Amy) perished rather horribly before the arrival of Starfire, the crew of which salavaged the ship and it's sole remaining cremember, who was befriended by Jules. (What techie-type person wouldn't want to have an android assistant?) This was about four years ago. Amy escaped the lab 12 years ago, and has been active for 11 years since her last memory erasure. (Of which the Confederation is unaware.) The end result is that the Confederation Intelegence Agency would very much like to kill the remaining prototypes and their creator, but this is difficult since the civian goverment and military were mostly in the dark about the whole project to begin with. Several agents are presently seeking out the missing prototypes. Construction: (Much of this can be generalized to apply to other AM series androids as well.) Amy has an alloy skeleton in roughly the same shape as a human one. Joints are an ultra-low-friction polymer which does not require lubrication, and motive power is provided by `muscle bands' which operate in a fashion analougous to human muscles but are much thinner. This is not as effecent as a hydrulic or pneumatic system, and Amy is not endowed with superhuman strength. (Although she is certainly stronger than a human of the same size and visualy apparent level of physical fitness.) Between the Skeleton and the muscles is a layer of low-friction material designed to prevent snags. Another layer is atop the thin (5 mm) bands, it is bonded to an outer layer of soft material intended to provide tactile qualites similar to that of human flesh. This layer contains tactile and thermal sensor matrices. It is covered on the outside with a seamless flesh-toned and textured enevelope. Unfortunatly, this focus on realism, essental to the replecant function, impeads easy hardware access for maintainance. The entire seamless `skin' must be removed for any repair or modification that can not be accomplished through the small access ports. (Which exist on the prototypes and would have been removed on the final versions.) Beneith that skin, the simulated flesh is modular, and can be removed in sections to expose the muscle bands, which may have to be individualy disconnected depending on the area to be serviced. (The reconnection order must be observed carefully.) After this step is completed, further access is straightforward. Amy's optical sensors are (naturally) intended to be visualy identical to human eyes, however they would be distingusible with ordinary optomological instruments. Her visual range runs from the near infared to the top of normal human visible spectrum. She sees at a `resolution' effectively superior to that of humans, but not tremendiously so, perhaps 2 to 4 times better. Amy has microphones in her ear canal as would be expected, and has sensitive hearing, but the frequency response is skewed higher than that of humans. (Poor response to < 100 Hz compared to higher frequencies.) The AM series androids do not have a sense of taste, but are capible of ofactory perception. Their sense of smell is somewhat less acute than that of a human, but is much more percise chemically. AM-1 had a miniature phase spectrometer intergrated into it's body, this was dropped on the later prototypes. Tactile and thermal sensors are distributed fairly uniformly over the surface of the androids/gynoids, but are concentrated on the fingertips. Amy (and her kin) have wide-spectrum RF trancivers intergrated, although these are not a `sense' connected to the neural network - they are connected to the subsenteint computer system. They do, however, have an internal compass and miniature gyroscope, which are neural input sources. Speecch is produced partialy by simulated human mouthparts and partialy by an electronic voicebox, this represents one of the most impressive advancements of Project Doppelganger. Amy has a fairly normal distribution of hair, which does not grow. (Thus, she would be hesistant to cut it.) Amy's digestive system is very limited, she is limited to liquids. While she can chew and swallow solid food without direct harm, she lacks any effective excritory system (a flaw remided in AM-5). The system most effecently processes hydrocarbon liquids and alcohols, but can also handle water or other solvent solutions of a vareity of carbohydrate-like substances. Water solutions are the most ineffecent because the already oxydized solvent must be evaporated off, and many of the possible disolved substances, like sugars, have high melting points. The prototype system is prone to maintainance difficultes, and the part handling aqueous solutions barely brakes even, energy-wise. Amy is normally recharged directly, for this reason. Indigestible inorganic salts, impurites and substances are prone to accumulate in the mechanism if impure, organic-targeted foods are consumed, requiring eventual maintainace. ~Project Doppelganger~ Covert project undertaken by the confederation's intellegence agency without approval of the civilian goverment, aiming to create realistic android (and gynoid) replicants to replace political enimes both in the Confederation and foreign goverments. (Hence the secrecy.) Six replicants were built, usually each one was more realistic than it's predecessor: AM-1 - AM-1 was a testbed for the synthetic muscle-fiber (rather than pneumatic or servomotor) movement system designed for realism. It (AM-1 was not visibly gendered) also had all the basic systems in place, but did not have realistic flesh, or the ability to derrive nourishment from organic material. AM-1 was named (rather uncreativly) Andy by the engineering team. AM-1 escaped the lab and fled to the galactic outback, where he now runs a pirate ship, preying on fringe-world shipping. AM-2 was AM-1's sucsessor, in Evarian human male form. AM-2 introduced a digestive system, but it was - like the one in AM-3 - only able to handle liquids (and solids soluble in water). AM-2 was, along with AM-4, AM-5, and AM-6 liberated by Gary - he eventually found his way into the Artician Leauge, where he now lives in realitive safety - conducting cybernetics research for the Leauge. AM-2 goes by the name Trekol in his new life, but was known in the lab as Arthur. AM-3, Starfire's own Amy, was the third AM series replicant. See the article on Amy. AM-4, Fourth prototype - seperated from Gary but ended up trapped on a world that does not recognized machine intellegence, he is now enslaved. AM-5, the most advanced physically of the lot, stayed with Gary. Now living on Danubus-Theta 9, a very remote outback world. Female human form. AM-6 finished and sent after Gary et al. He was damaged in an acedent and is a dangerous drifter, who has killed several Saltarians. AM-6 is wanted but has so far eluded authorites on the colony world where he lives. (The android dimly recalls his mission to find and kill Gary and all the AM-series androids, but is delusional and has wandered for years.) Despite his later numbering, AM-6 is not as advanced physically as AM-5. The key technologies of the series are their advanced trilogic brains, (Trilogic Corp Asynconous Neurel Network Emulators, specially made for the project.) synthetic muscle technology, and digestive systems. (Although only AM-5 had a system comparible to the human faclity, the previous models being restricted to liquids, ineffecent, and prone to maintanace problems.) ~?, Tactical Officer Chikar~ Chikar is in charge of the security, both internal and external, of the ship. Chikar is a Danak Voyager, someone who leaves the homeworld Danak to explore the galaxy, then returns to teach both future Voyagers and other Danak children. Bio: Danak, male, no hair, yellow eyes, Tanarish (An originaly equitorial Danak race.) ~Merchant Space Vessel Starfire, M2F5D2A / Artrician League Vessel 1764.69C~ / Intergalactic Registry: Star Ship Starfire 2B97F2 MSV Starfire M2F5D2A, ALV Starfire 1764.69C (Starfire holds both Confederation and Leauge merchant registrations., as well as the SS intergovermental registration. ) Manufactured by the shipwrights of Andreas Yards on the major Confederate world of Dral, the Starfire was originaly purchased by a shipping company, who then sold it after a ten year run to Ben Carey. After his death, the ship was inherited by his son, Marcus. The production run was not large, the ship being one of only twenty F-type models in Andreas Yards' StarClipper series. The F-type StarClipper was designed to be marketed in the Outback and other reigons of low population density. It was fitted with additional fuel over the standard model, as well as better shielding and more powerful weapons systems. It is capible of reaching 430c at maximum speed, with a normal hyperspatial speed of 410c. (Corisponding to about 0.3 parsecs per day. Stars around about 1-2 parsecs apart.) It has a 240,000 cubic-foot cargo capacity. The MSV Starfire has been modified by it's various owners. The original purchasers added repair facilites and equitment to the cargo bay, reducing the 240,000 square-foot capacity to 235,200. Ben Carey added a high-power plasma cutter to the command pod (Which is seprible from the main ship) to facilitate entry into abandoned vessels, and upgraded the scanners to facilitate finding said abandoned vessels. ~Command Pod (No independent registration from MSV/ALV Starfire.)~ A small craft that holds the Starfire's bridge. It can be seperated from the main ship and flown independently, but has no hyperspatial drive. It is designed for making planetfall, (When the ship's cargo will not be loaded or unloaded) and to serve as an escape pod. The main Starfire could also land on a planet, but only with full shields raised to protect it from the heat of reentry, whereas the pod could land with shields down and is much easier to fly in an atmosphere. (And outside of it.) The Pod has a cargo bay as well, but it is much smaller, only 4000 cubic feet. The pod origanily had no weapons, but a cutting device was added to it. ~Plasma Weaponry~ The hand-held weapon of choice in the Artrician Leauge is the Plasma Gun. The Confederation also uses this type of weapon. Plasma weapons can be modified to explode violently. It is interesting to note that the Plasma weapon does not shoot plasma, rather, the weapon uses a gas that is converted into plasma during the firing stage, which uses a conductive fieid in the plasma to propell incendiary/explosive chemical projectiles. This weapon is more effective than a laser against particle shielding, and armor. It is also capible of fast sustained fire not easily possible with laser weapons. However, the ammo takes up physical space (limiting capacity), the range is much less than a laser, and the weapon is more expensive. Large, ship-mounted Plasma Cannons are very powerful weapons, firing projectiles weighing up to several tons. These massive weapons can obliterate a small ship in a single shot, and can cripple capital vessels with a few well-placed volleys. However, they are outrageously expensive and presently limited to large Confederation warships (e.g. Paladin). The Leauge would love to have the technology. In space, with no atmosphere to degrade the projectile, range is less of a concern, and aboard a capital ship, there is generally plenty of room for ammo. However, speed becomes a concern; the projectile is, compared to a hyperspatial weapon or even a photon-based weapon, very slow. Faster ships at moderate range can usually dodge a plasma cannon shot, so the large plasma cannon remains a weapon of capital ships. ~Guns, Slugthrowers~ These are simple kenetic projectile weapons, as used in the real world, but more refined. Often, they use railgun-type technology rather than chemical explosives. They are moderatly effective against physical armor and particle shields, but literaly bounce off kenetic shileding, which is why they are not used on/against spacecraft. (And see more use generally.) ~Hyperspatial Torpedo~ Basically, a hyperspace-capible guided weapon. Very expensive and not freqently encountered, but the only way for a ship not in hyperspace to directly engage one in hyperspace. ~Laser Weaponry~ Laser weapons are found both ship based and hand-held in the Confederation and Artrician Leauge. The Starfire is equiped with a turret holding four 50 kW solid-state lasers. The Starfire's crew are all equiped with laser arms in much smaller models in the hundred-watt range. The laser is vert effective against kenetic shielding. Lasers are basicly like solid state lasers in the real world, but much more refined and powerful. Advanced power sources and cooling make them a practical weapon. Lasers do not make beams in space, but do make them in the atmosphere because they are very powerful compared to laser pointers. ~Shields~ All hyperspace-capible ships, and most that are not, are equiped with shields - to protect them from particles of space dust when moving at very fast reletivistic speeds as much as weapons fire from enemies. Shields are an essental system, without them hyperspatial travel is impossible, and there are risks even simply being in space. Starfire has good shields, which use a Gallium coolant to move the energy absorbed by the shields. This energy is first directed to the storage batteries, and when these are full the energy is directed into a disapator system. Thus, if the damage comes slowly enough, the shields will never be depleated, but if it is extremely rapid the coolant could boil, eventualy causing a breech of Gallium metal vapor and destorying the system when the shield-to-coolant energy exchanger melts down. (Normaly, the shields would shut down automaticly before the pressure would burst the system, however.) Ships intended to land are also equiped with kenetic deflectors. Theese push small material objects away from the main shields. They are essental to using shields in atmosphere, since otherwise the shields would be rapidly overloaded by contact with the air. ~Sensors~ There are three main sensor technolgies on many Confederation ships, aside from visual scanning. (1) Tachyon Scanners, a long-range radar-type system which works both in hyperspace and in realspace. Note that it is not one system but a combination of systems to allow realspace-hyperspace scanning and visa versa. (2) Phase Spectrometers, devices to determine the chemical compisition and possibly molecular arangement of matter. Subject to interfearance from phisical obstruction and other sources, they are limited to almost line-of-sight use. Ships in hyperspace are known to scan ones that are in realspace. (3) Gravity warp anylizers are high-tech devices that can infalibly detect any object in the dimension of the scanner, within a shortish (100km) range. It registers mass and rough shape only. This system is needed to enter hyperspace. The ship also has astronavigation sensors, which determine the ship's position using pulsars and the starfeild, as well as the hypernet relay nodes and other localized artifical sources of known, static or (algorithmically determinable from the current time) location. ~HyperNet~ The HyperNet is a wireless internet-like system with very high bandwidth, on the order of a gigabytes a second. The system has an open and very robust protocol (With bandwidth like that, you can afford this easily), with each transciver potentaly acting as a router. (However, dedicated routers, generaly on stations or planets, do most of the routing work.) This allows hypernet functionality even in locations where there are no real nodes, provided there is one transciver within the range of the target and the rest of the hypernet. The hypernet is implemented on both high-bandwidth faster-than-light communications systems, as well as wired cables, fibre, and conventional RF transmissions. (Under some of these systems, local bandwidth may be poor.) While the contents of HyperNet packets are usually encrypted (especially data assocated with the communications of sentient beings), the HyperNet's transmission and routing protocols are totally open. Thus, if node A depends on node B for it's hypernet access, A can deny or replace any of B's packets on a whim, as well as collect packets for decryption and analisys. For this reason, public, planetary nodes are perfered. (They are also better connected.) The Starfire is eqquiped with a FTL communications system, superior to that of most modern craft. This unit is also a hypernet transciver. Starfire also has a local RF (conventional digital radio) network, which links various hand-held devices used by the ship, such as multicomps. This system links the robot D-12 with the ship's computer. ~D-12~ D-12 is a labor robot used aboard Starfire for moving things and other menial tasks. It is controlled by the ship's computer and has almost no onboard brains. It is not sentient. ~Stellar Confederation~ The Stellar Confederation is a major alliance and uniform system of judical and military action consisting of about a thousand independent worlds. The Confederation has a senate with one vote for each million citizens of a member planet. How the votes are cast is up to the planet. For planets with less than a million citizens, fractional votes are permited. The Confederation has few laws of it's own, although theese are enforced in space as well as on planets. The Confederation has very minimal shiping regulations, but enforces those of the member planet holding jurisdiction over a reigon. It garuntees rights to it's citizens that it must respect, member planets are not required to respect all of them. One manditory right is the the right to apeal for judgement by the Confederation Court system if they feel they are being treated unfairly by the planetary goverment. The jurisdiction of this court is compulsory to all member worlds. A few worlds are under Confederaton rule only, these follow a uniform enhanced legal code that all directly-controled properties obey. Confederation ships and facilites on planets are under this law, not local law. Confederation personell not on Confederation proptery and who are not on duty are subject to local law. Certain high-ranking Confederation personell have a kind of diplomatic immunity from arrest, even when off duty. ~Synthetec Life-Forms, Rights of~ The Confederation will grant citizenship to almost anyone who can pass the Brax-Parson Senteince test, and this includes many advanced synthetic life-forms, including some computers and androids. Law requires any non-citizen to who asks to be informed of this. The majority of computers and robots, however, are not sentient or citizens. There are about 80,000 synthetic noncitizens. The political-correctness lawyers are still figuring out what you're susposed to call them, but android seems to be fine for the humanoid varietes. Robot is, obviously, dirogitory to senteint mechanicals, but is aplicible to other mechanical beings who are not senteint. (FYI, Robot comes from a word meaning 'forced labor'.) Droid is simply a contraction of Android, and might be considered mildly ofensive. (But as SSEs tend to be intelegent and sensible, it's doubtful they'd care unless ofense was intended from the context of the usage. ) A more correct description for them would be 'sentient synthetic enity', which is likely good enough for most practical S.S.Es. Some member worlds do not recognize the same rights for synthetic beings as for organics, however. Among the most vocal oponents of synthetic rights is the Outback world Akarn. This backward, provincial planet considers all mechanical beings to be property and will not allow synthetic beings who are citizens to vist the world, in violation of the Confederation Legal Requirements, which mandate free movement between member worlds. The Akarni goverment's lower members continue to ignore the court orders while the upper goverment looks the other way. This issue is a point of contention and the situation has been deteriorating for months at the begining of TOS. Most Confederation worlds recognize the same rights for all Confederation Citizens, however. Synthetic beings in the Artrician Leauge have the same rights as organic beings, but must pass much more significant testing before being granted those rights. As the law of the Leauge is uniform, this is the case for all member worlds. ~Artrtcian League~ This is a goverment situated near the Confederation, and at a state of uneasy peace with it. The two powers had several minor wars since firstcontact, but are now settling into stability. It is a federal goverment, superior to it's member planets and providing a uniform legal and political system for them. Each World elects ten representives to go to the Leauge Senate and represent that world's population. There is a strong heirarchy of goverment officals, unlike the Confederation. The Artrician Leauge is smaller, but overall it's worlds are more industrialized and older than those of the Confederation. It also has a much higher population density on average. The Leauge has generaly higher standards of social welfare protections and law enforcement, but also has less freedom for it's citizens. It is still a fairly free society, however. ~Quadrikin Superorganism~ Collectivist goverment from beyond the galaxy. Enters and exits the area of the Confederation and League through a wormhole/gateway. It is speculated to be a race of small, weak thinking creatures who control larger beings for their own use. Technology has since improved the whole system consideribly for them. ~Galactic Outback~ A reigon of space about 500x600 parsecs and roughly oval in shape, situated on the border of the Artician Leauge and Stellar Confederation (which controls it, at lest nominaly.) There is no real terminus to the Outback as a demographic area, it simply `fades out' - the dimensions above reflect political classification. The Confederation is actively colonizing worlds near it in the outback, but people have diffused far beyond those planets. Some are independant, espeicaly outlying worlds, and the Confederate presense (and control) decreses with distance from the Confederate core, generaly. It is sparsley populated, accounting for only 5% of the Confederation's population but 20% of it's settled planets. (There are other sparsley populated regions that make this figure less dramatic than if it were compared with the oldest zones.) ~TS: Insidae~ Starfire's crew is trapped aboard a vessel that has been taken over by the Quadrikin. Arc: Quadrikin intoduced, Amy found by the Agency. (Although nothing happens in that episode.) ~TS: Oracle~ Having technical trouble, Starfire lands on a primitive but inhabited planet. Arc: Agecy makes it's first attempt to do bad things to Starfire. ~TS: Thrall~ Starfire visits Akarn; stirs up status quo when Jules tries to liberate an Amy-like (but male) android there.