On 05Oct2019 1253, Cian Witherspoon wrote:

> Fast FTL Radio
>
> Fast, cheap FTL communication makes it easy to hold an interstellar state
> together. Trade becomes relatively safe, as merchants can easily check the
> market at their destinations before they even load cargo. Military fleets
> can be smaller but still used efficiently, since they can quickly be called
> together in an emergency. On the other hand, merchants and military
> officers alike will find their freedom of action limited, with superior
> authority always an FTL call away. Captains will rarely take action without
> referring to HQ for orders!
>
> If FTL communication is this easy, the GM may want to impose limits on it
> to make sure that it can’t ruin a dra- matic situation. FTL “radio” may
> have a limited range, forcing the state to set up “repeater” beacons and
> ensuring that a ship out on the frontiers can’t call home. Communications
> may be unreliable, with “static” or some other blockage appearing at
> appropriate moments. Or perhaps messages are still delayed enough in
> transmission that a call for help can’t be answered immediately!

Or it's fast, and cheap per-message, but still requires a huge (and
fairly expensive) transceiver station, too big to be placed in any but
the biggest ship, too expensive for a backwater world to pay for itself.
Thus only major fleet flagships will have FTL comms, and only wealthy
worlds and those poorer worlds that are in strategic locations
(especially if the system has limited range, so you need relays). As
with the railways in the US, worlds will lobby to be the location of a
relay station, as those on the network will flourish, while those
off-net will tend to languish.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief