TIIRNET

The Tachyon Interstellar Information Relay Network, often simply called the TIIRNET, is an extremely advanced multi-faceted information and communication network created by the Coalition of Intelligent Organisms to better control the flow of information between their major colonies and interlink various critical systems. Though very beneficial to those living within the Coalition core zones, the TIIRNET is often misused by those with ill intent, including the government itself.

Creation
The TIIRNET is the brainchild of a communication technology scientist named Vatasim Bovoen, a Nyuuvian working for the Coalition’s Department of Galactic Sciences during the middle of the First Coalition Golden Age. For much of her life, Vatasim had possessed an interest in ancient human history, and frequently studied fragmented records to learn more about what life was like on Earth before the Upheaval Conflict. She was particularly drawn to the concept of the internet, a massive communication network that spanned the entire planet. She thought such a network would greatly help the Coalition if it could be implemented on the interstellar scale, and luckily for her, the technology required to start this project would emerge only a few years later. The development of tachyon projectors made FTL communication feasible, and allowed Vatasim to finally turn her vision into a reality. Using her own money, she set up a simple experiment involving two tachyon projectors. One projector was placed inside her lab on Echelon, while the other was located on a Hydrogen mining colony some 45 light years away. Using this pair of projectors, Vatasim was able to send and receive small packets of information between computer systems at both locations in just a matter of minutes. Over time, she placed more projectors at different locations, upgraded their strength, and eventually created a basic network of projectors that allowed information to be sent between computers at any location to any other location. She compiled her findings and spoke to her project supervisor about expanding the experimentation into a full-fledged research project for the entire communication technology division. Though originally skeptical about the practical applications of her work, her project supervisor was nevertheless intrigued, and agreed to devote a moderate portion of the communication technology division’s resources to pursuing her research further. With these extra scientific resources, Vatasim was able to construct more elaborate relay networks over larger distances. To aid in the tachyon emission process, she constructed numerous relay satellites at various key points near Echelon, which could receive and bolster tachyon transmissions using extremely powerful projector grids, greatly improving the effective range of her technology. It wasn’t long before Vatasim’s prototype TIIRNET was complete and ready for full-scale implementation, but sadly, this is where she began to run into trouble.

At this point in Coalition history, the communication technology division of the Department of Galactic Sciences licensed most of its technological breakthroughs to Trekmalar Enterprises, the largest communication technology manufacturer and retailer in the entire Coalition. Likewise, when her project manager heard that Vatasim had nearly completed her research, he took steps to license her technology to Trekmalar. This was completely against the wishes of Vatasim herself, who wanted the finished TIIRNET to be public property, accessible and manageable by all. She worried that if such a technology was licensed to a corporate entity, that same corporation would turn her life’s work into simply another tool to generate profit, and it would never reach its full potential. She was able to stop her project manager from giving Trekmalar the license, but he was still upset. After some petty arguing, both agreed to archive the new technology and work on other projects until a better plan for its implementation could be created. Things were relatively calm for a few weeks afterward, but in less than a month after the TIIRNET prototype was archived, Vatasim was assassinated by operatives from Ardent Sliver and her TIIRNET research was stolen. Thankfully, these operatives were caught by Galactic Police officers stationed on Echelon, and were thoroughly questioned. They claimed to have been hired by Trekmalar Enterprises to acquire the TIIRNET research and kill Vatasim to ensure Trekmalar was the sole inheritor of the research. Naturally, they were all executed, and the research was returned to the Echelon archives. Realizing the inherent danger present in keeping the TIIRNET research around Echelon, the project manager of the communication technology division chose to retrieve the research and send it up to the Maximum Oversight Committee, who, hopefully, could find something better to do with the technology. The MOC decided to license the technology to the Coalition government itself, and barred all other corporate enterprises from accessing it without their permission. This controversy over TIIRNET resulted in a considerable amount of strife between the DGS and Trekmalar Enterprises, and caused a falling out that removed their position as the communication technology division’s chief proprietor.

With the TIIRNET technology now in the hands of the Coalition government, further progress could be made towards implementing it across the entirety of Coalition space. The Coalition improved upon Vatasim’s old designs for tachyon relay satellites and constructed a plethora of them all across Coalition space. Within only a few decades, almost ever colony and Dyson Sphere in Coalition core space had TIIRNET access. As the fervent expansive energies of the First Coalition Golden Age died down, though, the expansion of the TIIRNET across the rest of Coalition territory slowed, leaving many of the colonies in the Kiracian Group completely without TIIRNET access.

Operation
The TIIRNET is a heavily-maintained information network, and the Coalition goes to significant lengths to ensure it is always running at peak performance. Managing data transferral across interstellar distances is a difficult process, but the TIIRNET is capable of simplifying this by making use of the tachyon’s unique properties. Invisible particles, traveling at faster-than-light speeds, tachyons are the standard for FTL communication across numerous interstellar civilizations, and the Coalition is no exception. Any data transferral that occurs on the TIIRNET is done via directed tachyon emission, in which tachyon particles are generated and emitted in highly specific directions, intervals and frequencies. Practically unstoppable, these particles travel through space until they are received by special TIIRNET receiving equipment, completing the information transmission.Tachyon receivers can be located on spacecraft, colony structures, Dyson Spheres and satellites, meaning virtually any installation belonging to the Coalition can communicate with the entire network, regardless of where they are. The speed of these transmissions varies depending on the proximity between tachyon projectors/receivers, but the upper limit is around 5-6 minutes. This is because the TIIRNET makes use of numerous tachyon relay satellites to speed up transmissions and ensure they reach their destinations smoothly. These satellites are completely automated, and are little more than gigantic tachyon projector and receiver complexes. By redirecting and strengthening tachyon transmissions, these satellites reduce the travel time for transmissions and protect them against data loss through particle dispersal.

Though networked throughout a considerable portion of Coalition space, the TIIRNET is not always perfectly reliable. Tachyon transmissions can become corrupted as the particles dissipate during their travel, and though this issue is largely rectified by tachyon relay satellites, areas in which these satellites are more sparsely placed (or completely absent) suffer from tachyon dispersion much more severely. This is the case in many areas of the Kiracian Group, where TIIRNET coverage is difficult to come by. Though communication with the network is still possible at these immense distances, the latency between transmissions is much greater, as is the possibility for data loss through particle dispersion. Likewise, Coalition spacecraft must be within range of the TIIRNET satellite network in order to get reliable coverage, and those that fall outside of this range will be unable to communicate via the TIIRNET, unless they have extremely powerful tachyon projector/receiver systems that make up for the increased distance. This has caused information sharing among the more distant colonies to be drastically limited, a trait that has been blamed for the emergence of radical ideologies among these colonies that led to the Galactic Revolution.