Limits of known space and human expansion

[Fiskap]

The wiki says that all space more than 300 lightyears away from Sol is considered to be part of the Frontier.

But where are the limits of known and explored space really at, with current bluespace tech? 500 lightyears? 1000 lightyears? ...2000 lightyears?

Could there be any permanent human activity that far away? For example, a relatively small (and independent) planetary settlement 1000 lightyears away from Sol with next to zero contact with other human societies due to it's extreme remoteness? So far away that most people don't actually believe it exists?

How much time would it even take to reach a settlement like that, and would it be expensive? I remember reading somewhere that bluespace travel is pretty fast in general, making it possible to reach another system in the matter of hours. But when your target is 1000 lightyears away?

That's all for now.

[Rusty Shackleford]

If I remember correctly, all of the stuff in the known Aurora universe is contained within a sphere of 2000 light-years. Not because bluespace is slow, but because the galaxy is so damn big. If someone could dig up that pseudo-map I made, where I highlighted the human sphere of influence, as well as those of the other species, and overlaid it on a picture of the milky way, that would be great.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Rusty is right afaik. There's the bubble of human colonization, then a slightly larger, more oddly shaped bubble of 'explored territory' and little pockets here and there outside that.

Exploring unknown space is incredibly dangerous and not something to be done lightly. Telescience is a very accurate representation of bluespace travel without bluespace gates or bluespace beacons to lock onto. Imagine you're trying to teleport to the outpost and the equation changes every second attempt when you reach a new location! Now imagine you're jumping the entire escape shuttle to it, without hitting either the outpost or anything else on that z-level. You might miss everything and hit empty space, but you also might bluespace right into a solid object! Most exploration vessels have extremely advanced navigation, but the attrition rate is still very high. Explorers have one of the lowest life expectancy.

The biggest investor in exploring unknown space are the Sol Alliance and Nanotrasen. The Sol Alliance funds expeditions to unknown space, but the secrets uncovered over the hundreds of years of exploration have lead to a winding down of efforts. It was an expedition to an unknown star system that lead to the creation of the Nar'Sie cult, and one has to wonder how many expeditions were infiltrated by changelings...

There's also the question of the point of such exploration when they can't colonize much of anything they find, since it would be farther away than the colonies that originally defected from Sol.

The mega-corporations have much smaller scruples about these things. There are unknown plasma deposits just waited to be exploited, and all kinds of secrets to monopolize.

[Guest]

Right, what these above said. Colonies that far out are possible, but word 'isolation' wouldn't even cover it. Going that far out, they wouldn't be able to return to known space due to bluespace bacons being too far away to get locked on reliably. It can be connected, but they have to be powerful and wealthy enough to have their own bacons. Which adds a new problem: Pirate raids. The bacon turns them into a target, and that far out, they can't get any patrol ships to help them. So only way to really survive would be almost complete isolation. Atop of that, conventional warp engines are too slow at those distances, due to insane distances.

[Owen]

Right, what these above said. Colonies that far out are possible, but word 'isolation' wouldn't even cover it. Going that far out, they wouldn't be able to return to known space due to bluespace bacons being too far away to get locked on reliably. It can be connected, but they have to be powerful and wealthy enough to have their own bacons. Which adds a new problem: Pirate raids. The bacon turns them into a target, and that far out, they can't get any patrol ships to help them. So only way to really survive would be almost complete isolation. Atop of that, conventional warp engines are too slow at those distances, due to insane distances.

 

I like bacons. Bluespace bacons are even better. They taste very good.

[Guest]

Fuck you. Fuck you, English, and your silent letters.