High Particle Communications Systems

HPCS Technology and its Applications

High Particle Communications Systems (or HPCS for short) is a satellite relay-based communications technology designed to transmit visual and audible data over vast distances in real-time. It was first conceived by Quadraspace Industries on Earth in the first decade of the 22nd century, when interstellar travel was quickly gathering pace and a more reliable means of communication with distant worlds was becoming increasingly important. Like navigating deep space safely through the use of navigation beacons, the principle of HPCS was that beacons placed at intervals along a FTL (faster-than-light) route could receive and pass on transmissions to each other at near-FTL speeds due to the signals consisting of light particles that were drastically accelerated via electromagnetic waves. Through this early attempt at the technology, there was a delay of mere minutes between worlds in the Sol system and those in Alpha Centauri, although data was prone to corrupting due to cosmic and solar radiation affecting the beacons. Later, this problem was corrected with appropriate hydrogen-infused materials for shielding. The quality of the transmissions was improved and the delay decreased over the centuries, with HPCS becoming the standard means of communicating across the vastness of the Earth Empire and its inhabited planets.

For the people of Arcadia, their ability to communicate with the rest of civilised space was compromised with the assumed destruction of a portion or the entirety of the HPCS beacon route laid down during the early days of the planet's colonisation. This was achieved by the Mazerites in the process of their full-scale invasion of the Earth Empire, but no one on Arcadia knows the true extent of the network's condition. By some saving grace, it is assumed that the HPCS beacons orbiting Arcadia, known as ARC-0371/Pan and ARC-0372/Themis, are still functional as communications across the planet's surface remain uninterrupted, allowing the various factions to communicate seamlessly with each other despite the distance between them. Without maintenance, however, no one is sure how long these satellites will last.

"It is largely taken for granted that we will be able to communicate endlessly with each other like we always have done, such is the permanency of HPCS technology. We are, however, teetering on the brink of a communications dark age as I speak, unseen since the earliest days of both our species... an Arcadia devoid of diplomacy; of trade; of effective cooperation; that is what we face someday if we do not find an alternative."
- Taken from a keynote speech by Dr. Magnus Carter, Head Scientist of the CFAS Communications Technology Department  

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