Wormhole Networks

A single wormhole connects two points in space, in a federation spanning dozens of inhabited worlds, and hundreds of encompassed systems, setting up networks of wormholes for travel, information exchange and resource sharing is vital.

A traditional wormhole generally has two termini, and it has been problematic creating reliable and stable wormholes with more that this quota, but for the moment wormhole networks have tried to mimic one of these ideal wormholes that could link any planet to any other planet.

The way is to use many pairs of wormholes, with several per planet linking to several other planets, in an ideal situation every world would be equipped with bridges to every other world, however there are a few problems with this idea.

The first is that this would require a huge number of gates, and these gates are difficult and energy expensive to produce.

The second is that such a high degree of connectivity is not generally needed, far better to use a number of jumps at different destinations on frequently used gates, than to purposely build a gate which would be very infrequently used and would compete for systems and resources of other gates.

The third is more of a tactical consideration, perfect connectivity would become a major threat in wartime when a force would be able to storm across unprepared worlds using there gate connections, this would also be true for disease or for another unknown menace.

Also consideration for the increased maintenance times and material expended on such a system make this concept a little ideal. In reality each planet is connected to a few of its neighbours, and longer journeys and made by successive jumps across the federation. This, for the most part has proven very satisfactory, due to high degrees of autonomy the amount of traffic is generally low enough to allow for this kind of network. For the major worlds more gates are employed, this provides a degree of redundancy. This sort of system is not only used to connect worlds together, but also for places on those worlds, linking communities and continents.

With this kind of system each node, whether it be a planet, a major city or a community will have a dozen or so connections to close destinations (communities will always have one link to a major city), this means a dozen wormholes, however this does not mean a requirement for a dozen gate devices.

The system was revolutionized in its early days by the realization that each gate can anchor more than one wormhole each, however these wormholes remained distinct from each other and could be individually manipulated. Each gate can hold up to hundreds of wormholes, the energy cost of holding many is little more than holding just one, as when the wormholes have collapsed to infinitesimally small termini, as when they are not in use, their energy consumption is very low, practically supplied by the surrounding environment.

However the gate can only open one wormhole at a time, in attempting in opening more than two wormholes at the same time, the termini become unstable, and unusable. Two simultaneous wormholes is just about possible, with their termini planes opposite each other, though this situation is less than optimal. Signaling systems used the collapsed wormholes to pass information between gates, this is used to activate the receiving gate when it is being called from another site. Basic mechanisms are in place to ensure that a gate does not attempt to open more than one wormhole at a time, and a simple operating system regulates the operation of the network.

The sort of system described above is typical of a network that has been used for a variety of functions, from communications between worlds, to the transfer of resources between manufactories, and the translations of ships from one system to another.

However some networks are more specialized, one these kind of networks have hundreds of gates with only one destination, and the receiving gate has connections to these hundreds gates, acting as a sort of hub. This sort of system is used refueling craft from a central depot, and so they can continue their flight without concern for refueling. Or as an escape measure on other spacecraft providing a sanctuary to crew whose ship is far too damaged to remain upon, without having to risk hanging in space to be rescued.

Another system provided links between ships in a squadron, giving secure communications, and providing a degree of stealth as no overt communications need to be broadcasted.

Wormhole networks will continue to evolve to new applications found for them, and they will always serve as a major lifeline for communications, transport and resourcing.