NationStates Jolt Archive

Somewhere in deep space, work was beginning.

Sure, it was not as exciting as a superweapon – at least superficially. But for the Allaneans, it was far more exciting than any superweapons could ever be – for it dealt with the exchange of information and knowledge between a variety of races.

As the first step, backbone-grade quantum-entanglement modems were being produced in cooperation with the Department of Research, Evolution and Development, the Allanean Liberty Networks Corporation, and others. A variety of messages was sent out abroad, asking for help with the initial programming and planning involved.

* * *

From: Reijiro Techno, Director of the DREAD.
To: Relevant entities in the Uploaded Minds

Dear Friends!

As you may or may not know, the Allaneans are beginning development of what is essentially an intergalactic Internet for ESUS members and others. Would it be possible for you to begin considering, first of all, the creation of a new galactic-grade protocol similar to the ancient IPv6 protocols, but with even more unique adresses, and second, the use of facilities at the Home of Many and other UM colonies as a main DNS server?

Thank your for your help.

Disclaimer: The use of the term 'Evolution' in the name of our Department does not imply endorsement of the theory of evolution. We are aware that many Freemen do not endorse that theory, and that at least some races are known to have been artificially created.

* * *

From: Reijiro Techno, Director of the DREAD.
To: Posted on various Kanuckistani Internet fora

Dear Friends!

As you may or may not know, the Allaneans are beginning development of what is essentially an intergalactic Internet for ESUS members and others. Would it be possible for you to begin considering cooperating with this project, namely linking your communications system to this new “GalacNet” (provisional name) and also lending us use of your massive experience in developing and deploying CTE communication networks?

Disclaimer: The use of the term 'Evolution' in the name of our Department does not imply endorsement of the theory of evolution. We are aware that many Freemen do not endorse that theory, and that at least some races are known to have been artificially created.

* * *

From: Reijiro Techno, Director of the DREAD.
To: Snail-mailed to Neo-Mekkanta's Embassy in Allanea, handwritten in blood on the skin of a communist guerrilla from the Federation.

Dear Friends!

As you may or may not know, the Allaneans are beginning development of what is essentially an intergalactic Internet for ESUS members and others. We wish to inform you that we would like Neo-Mekkanta to join this wonderful project, so we could enjoy the products of your awesome culture via this new Galacnet.

Disclaimer: The use of the term 'Evolution' in the name of our Department does not imply endorsement of the theory of evolution. We are aware that many Freemen do not endorse that theory, and that at least some races are known to have been artificially created.


Similar letters were forwarded to every member of the Extra-Solar Union of States and other allies and friends of Allanea.

An individual which called itself Tsixvkzjək answered with a simple message: "Message received, it will be relayed. ~Tsixvkzjək" The egalitarian society of the network has a dislike for official titles and even job descriptions.

Interstellar communication of course existed earlier already in the form of the links between the different nodes of the uploaded civilization. The idea to use the outdated and euklidic protocols of the internet for such a communication seemed to be a either challenge or a bad idea depending on who to ask. Maybe this was a matter of mentality. The Uploadees are mostly no humans even though the occasional immigrant gained citizenship here and thus had a completely alien viewpoint. This different viewpoint was the reason why the Uploadees considered the task very hard. It meant first designing a set of protocols which fulfills the task efficiently and then changing it in a way, that the humans and other races would use it. This last task however seemed to be impossible for the Uploadees since many lacked the understanding of the human approach to these issues. Eventually someone called Nsvinktrətrıskl sent a message to DREAD:

To: Reijiro Techno, Director of the DREAD
From: Nsvinktrətrıskl

Reijiro,

we would prefer assistance in translating ideas/concepts/approaches for integration in existing human and important alien Operating Systems. It would be advantageous if networking experts would decide to fork() one instance to the Home of Many to tackle existing issues efficiently.

Yours,
~Nsvinktrətrıskl

And so it was done. For the six Allanean programmers – three humans, an elf, and two Dohwar – six chairs were set up in one of the deep underground dungeons that secured DREAD's various secrets – telepresence chairs were set up via quantum entanglement datalink (uploads were not used for fear of the Duplicate Problem). The avatars of the beings were various – three penguins, a small levitating whale, and a talking tree leaf, as well as a walking gold-plated robot.

The penguins belonged to two Dohwar (using the usernames <K'reeek'-week> and <Niiir-deem>), a human known as <Emperor_Penguin>. The two other humans - <Fourpio> and <Freedos> used the 'robot' and 'whale', and the elf, naturally, deployed as <Legolas> the leaf.

And so, arranged at the beams of a virtual six-point star, the six programmers' avatars appeared in the virtual 'space' of the Home of Many.

The interface was strange for Nsvinktrətrıskl, Selikrtsnı, Jəltr and the other ones of the team. They used the avatars which looked very human and very twencen (they were even clad in suits). The place, they allocated for the meeting also was really earthy - in fact, it was the vision of an artist (Ltl'ıiqsa) of the interior of the Internet Engineering Task Force. Most of the time, it was very true to the original, but it were the little things, which were a bit off: like the fact that every singly written text was in Esperanto.

"Hello, I am pleased to meet you!" said Nsvinktrətrıskl. "How's the latency?"

A metadata feed explained that Ltl'ıiqsa designed this environment to be considered auspicious by the allanean standards since it very much resembled the places, the terrestric internet was developed in and that they'd be free to ask for another environment.


Edit: wrong nation, treat this as an uploaded Minds posting!

The mini-whale moves ponderously as it makes its answer – not audible, but instead appearing as semi-transparent bubbles floating out of its mouth. On every bubble, there is a glowing text – a word or two. The whale uses actual speech bubbles!

"The latency is minimal right now - not really due to any 'lightspeed delay' but more due to the minimal drawbacks of the neural interface. As you know, we are not direct uploads, bur rather using a DNI input-output device."

The penguins squawk their agreement.

OOC:
Sorry, I kinda, um, fergot about this. Hehe.


IC:

The Allanean approach to initiating contact did not, perhaps contrary to their expectations, make it's way to any of the larger companies or regulatory bodies, instead eliciting responses from, on average, several individuals of varying experience per forum, threads sometimes dying, other times inspiring tangentical discussions.

Often people would suggest hardware makes, or make little sales pitches for their own designs - of surprisingly professional quality, at that - where upon discussions of hardware and soft, and network implementation, frequently followed, a back and forth of benifits and drawbacks.

Perhaps the most useful result would be the myriad of links to retailers large and small, offering everything from CTE power cells and plug-and-play home networking to massive high-bandwidth communications backbones, including those military contractors responsible for Kanuckistan's share of the Union Battlenet - most available for export, often customised to work with the buyer's hardware.

The usually strong bias towards small, sometimes even in-home manufacturers was ever-present, but CTE was something whose production was a national secret, and only a few large companies were allowed to make the thermally entangled material at the heart of a data or power node, forcing all other manufacturers to purchase these basic components.

As the Allaneans settled down in front of the Uploadees, they explained their vision of the up-coming project. For starters, a system not unlike the DNS servers of old would be established on this GalacNet. Unlike ancient “IP adresses”, the new system would use adresses with 12 entries, looking like 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12. This would allow for 75,593,101,654,204,447,168,212,890,625 separate adresses to be used – enough even if one included the entire Galactic Empire into the fray. This would make sure that the system would not need to be drastically changed in the immediate future.

The Uploadees, Allanea's representatives explained, would provide the services of assigning adresses – in the way that the old ICANN had done so in the past. The rationale was simple – the Uploadees cared more about efficiency and system resources than they did about global politics, and would not likely deny services to any nation or user. And they would benefit vastly, too.

The major Kanuckistani contractors would be immediately contacted, for the purpose of hooking up the Home of Many – that tiny station that was the center of the Uploadee civilization – to a couple of 1500-pbps QE modems – just as an experiment, of course.. This, of course, was nothing as compared to the giant communication arrays the Allaneans wanted to build based on the quantum entanglement technology.