((No wormholes sadly, although the species connection implants use tachyons, sooo he could try and find a KX9 a few systems out to research. He can't connect to a normal wireless device with them, but he can connect to other KX9 within the local subsector of space and have a psuedorealtime chat. [theoretically tachyons can pass through the planet with minimal if any interference, as well as being superluminal due to various weirdass quantum physics things. Quantum physics are weird.]))
((I mean sorta ping a waterborne ship or someone's device off the coast and connect to the drones through it. Although I thought of a better way that allows the introduction of an NPC if you want~))
Nerin mentally groans at the lack of available devices and sends out a ping to KX9 in this system and nearby systems. Anyone able to do a quick datasearch on these "icecubes"? I'm curious and I lack access to a datanet. Nerin forwards known data and a general feeling of annoyace and curiosity in the ping.
((If we want to bring tachyons into this, it depends on how fast they travel. We'd probably have to establish a technobabble means of emitting, guiding, and receiving them.
But for now, we'll just say that tachyons can travel through wormholes and travel at a superluminal but finite speed, so if there is a KX9 on the opposite side on say, Milan, then they will be able to respond, albeit delayed))
((Yes, you can relay your connection off a boat, that's actually what I expected you to do.
There are, however, more things than just boats that you can ping signals off. If your signal can bounce off a surface intact, you don't need to take control of the source to re-emit the signal. Perhaps a boat isn't a smooth enough surface, but a spaceship...))
Nerin: [6/6] You receive a host of replies to your ping over the course of the next few minutes. Sensing most of the incoming tachyons from the direction of the worldgate, you expect some losses due to the steep curvature of space around the mouth of the worldgate.
Sadly, due to the way a worldgate works (the wormhole is maintained at an absolute minimum width of several proton radii until a ship needs to pass through it--this saves tremendous amounts of energy) most of the responses tend to be garbled by interference. In addition, you hear each message multiple times as the responses echo through multiple wormholes, taking a different amount of time along each path. These two reasons are why tachyonic communication isn't mainstream, although it is manageable when the number of users is small.
Fortunately, there are not many KX9's out there in the world, let alone in nearby systems. You receive two intelligible responses, both from the von Karling system (a much more developed and populous system):
"Acknowledged. This is Rex. I see... are you are referring to the novelties sold in Askarian bars? They are an item sold by Ron Picard's Emporium of Secrets. Harmless stuff according to NetKnowledge, though the formula is still a trade secret."As the next message arrives, Valrak and yourself are overtaken with stress and anxiety. The next thought is brief and incomplete, as if the sender wasn't consciously aware of his thoughts being relayed back.
"Ice cubes? Askarian? Venoa microbes. Focus..."Venoa is a remote planet orbiting von Hapsburg. It is a ammonia-saturated world with an anomalous ice cap near the poles. Climate models indicate that the ice cap should be much significantly smaller than it is. As it stands, a third of the northern hemisphere is covered in ice, while the rest of the planet is temperate--by the standards of an ammonia-rich world. Numerous research stations exist on the planet, although most are privately owned and record their data on local flashdisks, unavailable to public scrutiny. The life there, in particular, is mind-boggling, having remarkably fast metabolisms for a frigid world.