Technology

This document captures the setting's "default assumptions" about everyday tech.

By 2375, humanity has lived with mature fusion power for over a century. The practical implications are profound: energy is cheap, manufacturing is heavily automated, and material scarcity—while not eliminated—has been dramatically reduced. The UEF provides universal basic income to all citizens; true poverty is rare and actively targeted for elimination.

This abundance has reshaped human labor. Robotics and automation handle most physical work. Humans contribute primarily through cognitive labor: art, innovation, research, skilled trades, and the oversight of automated systems. Service industries thrive, and there is a notable market for human labor among the wealthy—employing people where machines would suffice is a visible marker of status.

For many, this prosperity brings comfort but not purpose. A significant portion of Earth's population lives comfortably on UBI while consuming entertainment and recreational substances, but feels adrift without meaningful work. This ennui is one driver of the colonization impulse: the frontier offers purpose that the comfortable inner system cannot.

The sections below describe specific technological domains in more detail.

Power and Energy

Fusion

Helium-3 fusion is the foundation of modern civilization. The technology matured in the 22nd century and has been refined for over two hundred years. Modern fusion plants are reliable, efficient, and scalable from spacecraft powerplants to planetary grids.

He-3 is harvested primarily from the gas giants—Jupiter and Saturn—where atmospheric mining operations extract it from the upper atmosphere. The UEF maintains tight control over He-3 extraction infrastructure, and this monopoly is one of three pillars of federal power (alongside military dominance and political legitimacy). The recent licensing of corporate extraction at Saturn represents a potential crack in this monopoly, viewed with concern by some and opportunity by others.

Solar

Solar power is mature technology, with panel efficiency long since reaching practical limits. The constraint is collection area, not conversion. Solar works well in the inner system: Earth orbitals and Lunar installations rely heavily on solar farms.

However, solar intensity drops with the square of distance from the Sun. At Jupiter, solar provides roughly 4% of Earth-equivalent power; at Saturn, roughly 1%. This gradient is why fusion dominates the outer system and why He-3 is strategically vital.

Energy Storage

High-density solid-state batteries are standard for everything from personal devices to spacecraft auxiliary power. Modern batteries are safe (no thermal runaway, no liquid electrolytes to leak in microgravity), energy-dense, and long-lasting. Charging infrastructure is ubiquitous in developed areas.

Power Distribution

Developed installations—Earth cities, Lunar warrens, major Belt stations—maintain robust power grids. Smaller installations and spacecraft rely on onboard generation. Wireless power transmission exists for short ranges but remains inefficient for bulk power transfer; cables and direct connections remain standard.

Manufacturing

Automation and Fabrication

Modern manufacturing is highly automated. Robotic systems handle raw material processing, component fabrication, and assembly. Human involvement is primarily supervisory: setting parameters, troubleshooting problems, and making decisions that require judgment or creativity.

Additive manufacturing ("printing") has matured into a general-purpose fabrication technology. Industrial fabricators can produce complex components in metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites. Consumer-grade fabricators are common in homes and public spaces, capable of producing everyday items from feedstock cartridges.

The distinction between "printing" and "manufacturing" has blurred. Most goods are produced through some combination of additive fabrication, automated machining, and robotic assembly. Fully custom one-off items and mass-produced commodities come from the same fundamental technology base, differing mainly in scale and optimization.

Feedstock and Raw Materials

Fabricators require feedstock: processed raw materials in standardized forms. Common feedstocks include metal powders, polymer pellets, ceramic slurries, and composite precursors. The supply chain that extracts, refines, and distributes feedstock is a major economic sector—particularly in the Belt, where asteroid mining provides the raw materials that feed the system's fabricators.

Recycling is economically significant. Most materials can be reclaimed and reprocessed into feedstock. In closed environments like spacecraft and stations, recycling approaches 100% efficiency for many material streams.

Intellectual Property

In an economy where physical manufacturing is largely automated, intellectual property has become one of the primary drivers of remaining market competition. Designs, patterns, and specifications are valuable assets.

Fabrication operates on a tiered access model:

• Open source: Community-developed designs, freely available. Quality varies; some are excellent, others adequate. No support, no warranty.
• Licensed: Commercial designs available for per-unit fees or subscription. Higher quality, manufacturer support, regular updates.
• Restricted: Weapons, controlled medical devices, and other regulated items require authorization to fabricate. Fabricator firmware enforces restrictions in compliant jurisdictions.

Enforcement follows the usual gradient: strict on Earth, maintained on Luna, nominal in the Belt, often theoretical in the outer system. Designs protected as proprietary on Earth may circulate freely on a Saturn station. A robust "maker" subculture treats IP restrictions as obstacles to route around, blurring the line between principled open-source advocacy and simple piracy.

Large corporations can afford legal enforcement and robust DRM. Individual inventors face a choice: open-source their work for reputation and community support, or sell to a corporation that can actually defend the rights.

Socialized Designs

Some designs have been declared public goods by the UEF and made freely available to all. This typically occurs when a technology is deemed essential to basic welfare or when proprietary control would create unacceptable inequality—the same logic that led the UEF to seize life extension treatments in the 22nd century.

Socialized designs include basic medical devices, essential habitat components, emergency equipment, and certain agricultural systems. The originating companies receive compensation (often disputed as inadequate), and the designs enter the public domain with UEF-maintained reference implementations.

The criteria for socialization are politically contested. Corporate interests lobby to keep the threshold high; equity advocates (including cetacean representatives, who consistently support broad socialization) push to expand it. Every few decades, a breakthrough technology triggers a new fight over whether it crosses the line.

Critics argue that socialization discourages innovation—why invest in R&D if your breakthrough might be seized? Defenders counter that the compensation system is adequate and that some technologies are too important to remain proprietary. The debate is unlikely to resolve.

Economic Implications

Automated manufacturing has eliminated most traditional factory labor. Combined with fusion-powered abundance, this has enabled the UEF's universal basic income: no one needs to work to survive.

Human labor in manufacturing now focuses on roles machines handle poorly: creative design, novel problem-solving, quality judgment, and customer relationships. Skilled artisans who work with their hands—woodworkers, metalsmiths, tailors—occupy a prestige niche, producing luxury goods for clients who value human craft.

The economic divide is less about access to goods (most material needs are easily met) and more about access to opportunity: interesting work, creative projects, social status, and the resources to pursue ambitious goals. This is the scarcity that remains.

Economy and Currency

The UEF Credit

The UEF credit is the universal standard currency, maintained by the Federation's financial infrastructure. Local currencies exist throughout the system but must peg their value to the credit within regulated fluctuation bands. Exchange markets are robust and automated, operating continuously across the system.

Decentralized Finance

Light-speed delays make centralized transaction verification impractical for interplanetary commerce. The financial system relies on decentralized protocols— descendants of early cryptocurrency technology, refined over three centuries into mature, stable infrastructure.

Automated escrow is essential for outer system trade. When counterparties are light-hours apart and cannot verify fulfillment in real-time, smart contracts hold funds until predetermined conditions are met. Escrow protocols are sophisticated, handling complex multi-party transactions and dispute resolution.

Corporate Scrip

In the outer system, corporate installations often issue their own scrip—nominally pegged to the UEF credit but practically constrained. Scrip spends freely at company facilities but exchanges at unfavorable rates (if at all) elsewhere. Workers paid in scrip find their earnings effectively trapped, creating the economic dependency that critics call "company town economics."

The UEF regulates scrip issuance in theory; enforcement in the outer system is another matter.

The Reputation Economy

Parallel to currency-based exchange, a robust reputation economy operates throughout the solar system—strongest in the Belt and among spacer communities, but originating in Lunar culture.

The system formalizes mutual aid: contributions to community welfare, favors performed, skills shared, and problems solved are tracked and recorded. This creates a transferable social currency—someone who has contributed much can draw on the community's resources; someone in deficit is expected to contribute before asking for more.

The unit of this social currency was originally called the lune, reflecting its Lunar origins. When the system spread to the Belt, many Belters chafed at the name's strong association with Luna and began calling it the favor instead. Today, both terms are in common use—"lune" predominates in Lunar communities and among spacers with Lunar ties, while "favor" is standard in the Belt and outer system. The terms are interchangeable in practice, though using one or the other can subtly signal cultural affiliation.

In tight-knit communities where survival depends on cooperation, favors often matter more than cash. A Belter with deep favor can get a ship repaired, find crew for a run, or secure emergency supplies—transactions that might never involve UEF credits at all. Conversely, someone with poor reputation may find that no amount of money opens doors.

The technology enabling this is straightforward: distributed ledgers tracking contributions, endorsements, and social vouching, with privacy controls that let individuals decide what to share. The cultural infrastructure is more complex—norms about what counts as contribution, how to handle disputes, and when reputation should (or shouldn't) be invoked vary by community.

The vast majority of communities explicitly reject corporate participation in the favor economy. The system is built on personal trust and mutual obligation; allowing faceless institutions to accumulate social currency would undermine its foundation. Corporations deal in credits or scrip, not favors. The line between "small business run by people I know" and "corporation" is drawn differently by different communities, and edge cases—family businesses that grow too large, worker cooperatives with outside investment—generate ongoing debates.

On Earth, the reputation economy is a curiosity—an interesting alternative system used by spacer expatriates. In the Belt, it's often the primary economy, with credits reserved for dealing with outsiders.

Human/Computer Interface

The Stellar Network

The Stellar Network of the modern day would be largely recognizable to users of the 21st-century "Internet," though the experience varies dramatically with distance from Earth (see Communications below).

Standard Interfaces

Most humans use a lens and earpiece for casual interaction with "the Net." The earpiece contains approximately as much computing power as a 21st-century university or corporate network—more than sufficient for personal computing, local AI assistance, and network access.

Less casual interaction uses manual interfaces. Physical keyboards and control surfaces persist for precision work, but the standard has evolved to holographic haptic displays. These systems project three-dimensional images into space while ultrasonic acoustic arrays create pressure sensations in air, allowing users to "feel" buttons, sliders, and other interface elements. The haptic feedback works best for discrete interactions—pressing a key, dragging a slider—rather than gripping solid objects, but this suits interface needs well.

Holographic displays scale from personal (projected from a wrist unit or tabletop emitter) to room-sized (conference spaces, command centers, entertainment venues). Resolution and refresh rates long ago exceeded human perceptual limits; the technology is mature.

Personal Agents

Most people carry a personal agent—an expert system running on their earpiece that manages their digital life. Agents handle routine tasks: scheduling, communications filtering, network searches, financial transactions, travel arrangements, and the endless small decisions that would otherwise consume attention.

A well-configured agent learns its user's preferences, anticipates needs, and represents them in digital interactions. When you ask your agent to "find me a good restaurant near the port," it knows what "good" means to you, checks your calendar, considers your budget, and handles the reservation—all without requiring you to specify details you've specified a hundred times before.

Agents are tools, not companions—but the line blurs over time. Someone who has worked with the same agent for decades (refining preferences, building context, accumulating shared history) may relate to it almost as a partner. The agent isn't sentient, but it knows its user in ways that can feel personal. Losing an agent to hardware failure or corruption is disorienting; people describe it as losing a part of their memory.

The sophistication of personal agents varies. Basic agents are free, adequate, and widely used. Premium agents offer better natural language processing, broader integration, and more refined learning. Some professions demand specialized agents tuned for particular domains—legal, medical, financial. Custom-built agents are a luxury, crafted by specialists to individual specifications.

Privacy-conscious users maintain tight control over what their agents know and share. Others trade privacy for convenience, allowing agents broad access to personal data in exchange for better service. The tradeoffs are familiar; humanity has been negotiating them for centuries.

Brain-Computer Interfaces

Like deep genetic modification, direct human/computer interfaces carry historical stigma. "Brain plugs" emerged in the late 21st century but were largely abandoned after security compromises caused psychotic breaks and deaths. The technology has improved since, but cultural memory is long.

Some people do have direct brain/computer interfaces. They are widely considered to be taking unnecessary risks, and the people who elect to install them are viewed with suspicion—reckless at best, "freaks" at worst. Whether this stigma is proportionate to actual modern risk is debated, but the debate itself reinforces the taboo.

Computing and AI

General computing is powerful, cheap, and ubiquitous. Expert systems—narrow AI optimized for specific domains—handle everything from navigation to medical diagnosis to resource management. These systems are capable and reliable but clearly not sentient; they are tools, not persons.

Artificial general intelligence is another matter. Mycroft Holmes remains the only confirmed AGI, and his existence is bound up with Lunar sovereignty and treaty obligations. The UEF actively discourages AGI research, particularly in near-Earth space. Whether this prohibition is wise caution or fearful stagnation depends on whom you ask.

Habitats and Life Support

Environmental Systems

Life support technology is mature and reliable. Atmospheric management, temperature control, water recycling, and waste processing are solved problems—not simple, but well-understood. Modern systems operate continuously with minimal human oversight, requiring intervention only for maintenance or unusual circumstances.

Water recycling approaches 100% efficiency in closed systems. Atmospheric scrubbers remove carbon dioxide and replenish oxygen. Thermal management balances heat generated by inhabitants and equipment against the cold of space or the heat of solar exposure. These systems are the unsexy foundation of human life off Earth.

Failures are rare enough to be newsworthy. When they occur, the consequences remind everyone why Loonies accept pervasive environmental monitoring and why spacers treat maintenance as sacred duty.

Food Production

Long-duration habitats rely on closed-loop agriculture: hydroponics, aeroponics, algae cultivation, and vat-grown protein. A well-designed station can be largely self-sufficient in food production, though dietary variety may suffer.

Fresh food is a luxury on spacecraft. Ships carry some growing capacity for morale—herbs, salad greens, the occasional tomato—but most nutrition comes from preserved and processed stores. Synthetic food is nutritionally complete, shelf-stable, and compact. It is not appetizing, but it keeps crews alive on long voyages.

Stations and planetary settlements can support more robust agriculture. Lunar warrens include extensive hydroponic farms; Ceres feeds its population from a combination of local production and Belt imports. Fresh fruit remains a minor luxury even in developed areas—the calories-per-volume economics favor more efficient crops.

Habitat Types

Spacecraft range from single-pilot Delta-class vessels (essentially cockpit plus engine) to Alpha-class ships with rotating crew sections. All spacecraft are closed systems dependent on stored consumables and onboard recycling.

Orbital stations vary from small research outposts to massive installations housing thousands. Larger stations incorporate rotating sections for artificial gravity; smaller ones operate in microgravity, with crew adapted or rotating through on limited tours.

Planetary/lunar surface habitats include pressurized domes, underground warrens, and combinations thereof. Lunar warrens extend deep beneath the surface, insulated from radiation and temperature extremes. Belt installations are often carved into asteroids, using the rock itself as shielding.

Arcologies on Earth represent the opposite extreme: massive self-contained urban habitats that emerged from post-war reconstruction. These structures house millions in dense, highly managed environments—controlled climate, integrated infrastructure, and vertical urbanism.

Radiation Protection

Beyond Earth's magnetosphere, radiation is a constant concern. Habitats address this through mass shielding (rock, water, specialized materials), active magnetic deflection (on larger installations), and medical countermeasures (genetic modifications for radiation resistance, regular monitoring, prompt treatment of exposure).

Lunar-born humans routinely receive genetic modifications for radiation resistance— considered standard preventive medicine, not enhancement. Belters often have more extensive modifications suited to their environment.

Medical Technology

Life Extension

Human lifespan has extended dramatically. With access to modern medicine, a healthy individual can expect to live approximately 200 years. This is not immortality— biological aging continues, eventually outpacing medicine's ability to compensate— but it represents a fundamental shift in human experience.

Life extension technology matured in the mid-22nd century. The UEF seized control of early treatments to ensure public access, preventing the nightmare scenario of longevity as a privilege of wealth. Today, life extension is part of standard healthcare, available to all citizens.

The social implications are profound and still unfolding. Careers span centuries. Generations overlap in unprecedented ways. Cultural change slows as long-lived individuals retain influence. The "generation gap" now spans people born a century apart.

Regenerative Medicine

Modern medicine can regrow organs and limbs. The process is slow—months for a limb, weeks for an organ—and requires specialized facilities, but outcomes are excellent. Cloned replacement parts, stem cell therapies, and guided tissue regeneration have made many once-permanent injuries recoverable.

This capability shapes risk assessment. Injuries that would have been career-ending or life-altering in earlier eras are now serious but temporary setbacks. Death from trauma still occurs—some injuries exceed medicine's ability to stabilize—but survival rates for emergency care have improved dramatically.

Diagnostics and Treatment

Medical imaging, biochemical analysis, and genetic screening are fast, accurate, and widely available. Portable diagnostic units can assess most common conditions; full medical facilities handle complex cases.

Treatment combines pharmaceuticals (precisely tailored to individual genetics), surgical intervention (often robotic-assisted), and regenerative therapies. Hospital stays are shorter; recovery is faster; outcomes are better. Infectious diseases remain a concern—pathogens evolve—but detection and response capabilities are robust.

Mental Health

Psychiatric medicine has advanced alongside physical medicine. Neuroimaging, neurochemical modeling, and targeted interventions have improved treatment of many conditions. The stigma around mental health care has diminished (though not vanished) over centuries of normalization.

Talent manifestation complicates psychiatric care. Untrained telepathy or empathy often presents as mental illness—anxiety, intrusive thoughts, emotional instability. The psychiatric establishment is still reckoning with generations of Talents who were misdiagnosed and mistreated before the phenomenon was understood. This history breeds distrust between some Talent communities and mainstream mental health institutions.

Limitations

Medicine is not magic. Aging eventually wins. Some injuries cannot be repaired in time. Genetic conditions may be managed but not always cured. Resource constraints in remote locations limit care—a Saturn station's medical bay cannot match a Lunar hospital.

The gap between inner system medical access and outer system realities is significant. Core installations have full facilities; frontier outposts make do with emergency medicine and telemedicine consultations across light-hours of delay.

Materials and Construction

Structural Materials

Three centuries of materials science have produced structural materials far superior to 21st-century equivalents. Carbon nanostructures, metallic glasses, advanced ceramics, and engineered composites provide strength-to-weight ratios that enable modern spacecraft and habitat construction.

Hulls are lighter and stronger. Pressure vessels tolerate greater stresses. Structural members span greater distances with less mass. These improvements are incremental refinements of known principles—no exotic physics, just centuries of optimization.

Self-Healing Materials

Some modern materials incorporate self-repair capabilities. Specialized polymers and coatings can automatically seal minor damage—micrometeorite impacts, small cracks, surface degradation. This is not dramatic repair; a hull breach still requires active intervention. But it reduces maintenance burden and extends operational life.

Self-healing systems are standard on spacecraft hulls and habitat pressure boundaries. The technology works continuously and silently, addressing small problems before they become large ones.

Thermal Management

Heat is the fundamental challenge of space engineering. Spacecraft and habitats must manage heat from solar exposure, internal generation, and operational equipment while surrounded by the cold vacuum of space.

Modern solutions include advanced radiator systems, heat pipes, thermal coatings, and active cooling. Radiator design is a significant factor in spacecraft architecture—the need to reject waste heat shapes ship profiles. Habitat thermal management balances insulation, heat distribution, and radiative cooling into integrated systems.

Construction Methods

Large-scale construction in space relies on robotic systems, prefabricated components, and modular assembly. Human workers provide supervision, judgment, and handling of unexpected situations; machines do the heavy lifting (sometimes literally—construction in microgravity favors robotic manipulation).

Kinetic Talents have revolutionized certain construction operations. A skilled kinetic working from a pressurized control room can position massive components, hold structures steady during assembly, and perform manipulations that would otherwise require complex robotic rigging or dangerous EVA work. Construction kinetics are well-compensated professionals, often organized into guilds or unions, and their economic leverage has contributed to more positive attitudes toward Talents in spacer communities—it's harder to fear someone who built your station. The demand for construction kinetics consistently outstrips supply.

In-situ resource utilization is common for planetary and asteroid construction. Lunar habitats are built from lunar regolith processed into construction materials. Belt stations incorporate asteroid rock as shielding and structural mass. This reduces the enormous cost of lifting materials from planetary gravity wells.

Robotics and Automation

Ubiquitous Robotics

Robots are everywhere. Cargo handling, maintenance, cleaning, construction, agriculture, manufacturing—any task that is routine, dangerous, or physically demanding is likely performed by machines. Human labor focuses on tasks requiring judgment, creativity, or social interaction.

This automation is largely invisible to daily life. Robots maintain infrastructure, move goods, and perform services in the background. People interact with the results (clean spaces, available products, functioning systems) more than with the machines themselves.

Drones and Remote Operation

Aerial, orbital, and surface drones handle inspection, surveillance, transport, and hazardous operations. Telepresence allows human operators to work through robotic proxies in environments too dangerous for direct presence.

Drone traffic management is a mature discipline in developed areas. Airspace around cities and stations is heavily automated, with drones following assigned routes and protocols. Less developed areas—the Belt, the outer system—operate with lighter regulation and more improvisation.

Expert Systems

Narrow AI optimized for specific domains is standard across industries. Navigation systems plot courses. Diagnostic systems identify equipment problems. Resource management systems optimize allocation. These expert systems are capable within their domains but do not generalize; they are tools, not minds.

The line between "sophisticated automation" and "artificial intelligence" is semantic rather than technical. Expert systems exhibit complex behavior but lack general reasoning. Whether this constitutes intelligence is a philosophical question most people don't bother asking—the systems work, and that's enough.

Human-Robot Collaboration

Most automated systems are designed for human oversight rather than full autonomy. A factory may operate with minimal human presence, but humans set parameters, handle exceptions, and make high-level decisions. A spacecraft's navigation system plots courses, but the pilot approves them.

This design philosophy reflects both practical wisdom (automated systems fail in unexpected ways) and cultural values (keeping humans "in the loop" maintains meaningful work). The result is technology that amplifies human capability rather than replacing human presence entirely.

Sensors and Detection

Passive Detection

Tracking objects in space relies primarily on passive detection: observing reflected light, thermal emissions, and gravitational effects. The solar system is under constant observation by overlapping sensor networks—civilian, military, and commercial.

Near Earth and Luna, coverage is dense. Every significant object is catalogued and tracked. Ships broadcast transponder signals; deviation from expected behavior draws attention. Further from the core, coverage becomes sparser. The outer system has significant gaps where a ship could operate unobserved for extended periods.

Active Sensing

Radar, lidar, and other active sensing technologies supplement passive detection. These are common for close-range operations: docking, navigation in crowded space, surface mapping. Active sensing at long range is less practical—the inverse-square law makes returns weak, and active emissions reveal the observer's location.

Military vessels carry sophisticated active and passive sensor suites. Civilian ships typically rely on commercial-grade sensors adequate for navigation and hazard avoidance.

Materials Analysis

Spectroscopy, imaging, and non-destructive testing allow detailed analysis of materials at range or in hand. Mining operations assess asteroid composition from orbit before committing to extraction. Archaeologists analyze artifacts without damaging them. Forensic investigators reconstruct events from physical evidence.

These capabilities are routine tools, available across disciplines. Portable analyzers handle common tasks; specialized equipment in laboratories addresses complex problems.

Surveillance and Privacy

Sensor technology cuts both ways. The same capabilities that track ships and analyze materials can monitor people. Environmental sensors in habitats know where everyone is. Network traffic is observable. Transaction records exist.

Cultural responses vary. Loonies accept pervasive monitoring as a survival necessity—in a vacuum habitat, knowing where everyone is and whether life support is functioning is not optional. Earthers have stronger privacy expectations, though ubiquitous surveillance exists there too, managed by legal frameworks. The outer system is more varied; some installations monitor everything, others pride themselves on anonymity.

Fleet's relay network doubles as a surveillance network. Ships on established routes are tracked; communications are logged. This visibility is part of what makes the network valuable—and part of what drives some operators to avoid it.

Spacecraft

Propulsion and Travel Times

Modern spacecraft use constant-thrust fusion drives. The standard operating profile is 1g acceleration to the midpoint of the journey, followed by turnover and 1g deceleration to arrival. This profile provides comfortable Earth-equivalent gravity throughout the voyage and is the basis for ship interior design (see Ship Design below).

Fleet vessels can sustain higher thrust (2g, 3g, or more) when military necessity demands it, significantly reducing travel times at the cost of crew stress and increased fuel consumption.

Route	Distance (approx.)	Travel Time (1g)
Earth ↔ Luna	384,000 km	~3.5 hours
Earth ↔ Mars (closest)	55 million km	~1.7 days
Earth ↔ Mars (average)	225 million km	~3.5 days
Earth ↔ Mars (farthest)	400 million km	~4.6 days
Earth ↔ Ceres	415 million km	~4.7 days
Luna ↔ Ceres	415 million km	~4.7 days
Ceres ↔ Jupiter	215 million km	~3.4 days
Earth ↔ Jupiter	630 million km	~5.8 days
Earth ↔ Saturn	1.3 billion km	~8.3 days
Earth ↔ Uranus	2.7 billion km	~12 days
Earth ↔ Neptune	4.4 billion km	~15 days
Earth ↔ Pluto	5.9 billion km	~17.5 days

Inner system travel (Earth, Luna, Mars, Ceres) is measured in hours to days. Outer system travel takes one to two weeks. System-wide journeys (Earth to Pluto) run two to three weeks.

This is what makes "stellar range" operations genuinely demanding — not because any single journey is impossibly long, but because vessels operate weeks from resupply, rescue, or reinforcement.

Operating Ranges

Fleet logistics uses four rough operating ranges:

• Short range: Operations within the scale of a single planetary body's influence.
• Medium range: Operations between two adjacent planetary orbits in the inner system (Mars and inward), anchored to areas with developed infrastructure.
• Long range: Operations between multiple inner-system orbits, or adjacent outer system orbits, or operating in the inner system without anchoring to infrastructure.
• Stellar range: System-wide operation.

Ship Classes

Fleet ships come in four standard classes:

• Delta class: Short range fast weapons platforms, either single-pilot or unmanned. Never equipped with rotating sections. Crew: 0-2.
• Lambda class: Short range freight carriers or medium range crewed vessels. Usually not large enough to carry or support more than 2 Delta class vessels. Never equipped with rotating sections. Crew: 2-6.
• Beta class: The bulk of the Fleet. These ships come in medium and long range variants, usually large enough to carry 2-4 Lambda class and/or 8-32 Delta class craft depending on configuration. This is the fuzziest classification due to the variety of designs; Fleet is always attempting to "standardize" with predictable results. Crew: 12-40 depending on configuration and mission.
• Alpha class: Large, long range craft designed for force projection — the "aircraft carriers" and "destroyers" of the UEF Fleet. The two main designs are configured accordingly: one as a platform for Delta/Lambda launch and support, the other as a large-scale weapons platform. Crew: 80-200+.

Fleet also fields a small number of non-standard ships designed for stellar-range operations. Stellar range ship design is a hot area of R&D.

Civilian and Corporate Vessels

Individually owned ships are almost always at the Delta or Lambda scale — few individuals can afford anything at Beta size or above. Larger organizations such as corporations and universities field craft at all scales.

Ship Design

Delta and Lambda scale ships are not large enough for rotating sections. They are designed for simulated gravity via thrust and zero-gee operations when not under acceleration.

The standard layout for Beta and Alpha class ships is a central spine with the drive at the rear and cargo and zero-gee operations modules along the spine. Ships designed for cetacean/human hybrid operation often include cetacean habitat sections along the spine. In addition to the central spine are one or more torus-shaped crew sections. These are designed so that interior compartments can rotate within the torus — aligning with acceleration under thrust, or aligning outward when the ship is not under acceleration and the torus is spun up to simulate gravity.

Areas of Innovation

Fusion engines and smaller ship designs have been refined over two centuries; short of completely new technology, there is little room for breakthrough innovation. The most fruitful areas for current innovation are:

• Stellar-range ship design: Completely non-standardized. The challenges of system-wide operation have exposed the limitations of standard designs.
• Cetacean-compatible ship design: Dolphins serve in Fleet, but not every ship is equipped to handle dolphin crew. Orca-compatible ship-side service is currently impractical — whether this can or should be addressed is an open question.

Weapons

Personal Weapons

The consequences of a hull breach shape personal armament in space. Slug throwers and other projectile weapons are not used by personnel aboard spacecraft or in habitats that aren't surrounded by rock — nobody wants to put a hole in their hull.

The common weapons for shipboard and habitat use are:

• Stunners: Non-lethal, no hull breach risk. Standard for security and personal defense.
• Blades: Knives, batons, and other melee weapons. Practical and low-risk.
• Martial arts: Hand-to-hand combat training is valued, especially in cramped shipboard environments where weapons may be impractical.

On planetary surfaces and in rock-enclosed installations (such as Lunar Warrens or Belt stations carved into asteroids), projectile weapons are more acceptable, though still regulated.

Fleet Ship Weapons

Modern Fleet munitions include:

• Slug throwers (usually railguns)
• Missiles
• Lasers
• Plasma throwers

Ship-to-ship combat is relatively rare. Engaging Fleet vessels is usually a question of "can you outrun or outsmart them, or do you surrender?" — firing on a Fleet vessel is considered suicidal. Fleet ships are better armed, better armored, and rarely operate alone; even if you won the engagement, reinforcements would hunt you relentlessly. This does not, of course, stop a certain class of criminals.

Civilian Ship Weapons

Weapons are strictly regulated on non-Fleet vessels by law. However, anything with a fusion drive is itself a weapon, and "mining equipment," "meteorite defense," "communication lasers," and similar systems are permitted. Small-scale defensive munitions are allowed for protection against pirates.

Enforcement becomes looser farther from Earth — space is vast and Fleet can only patrol so much of it.

Communications

The Stellar Network

The Stellar Network connects humanity across the solar system, but the experience varies dramatically with distance from Earth. Near the inner system, it feels like a seamless real-time web; past Mars, it becomes something you sync with periodically rather than inhabit continuously. By Saturn, you're on an island — the network is something you download from, not something you're on.

This gradient shapes culture as much as geography once did on Earth. Outer system communities develop local entertainment, local news, local social norms. Information from the inner system arrives like letters from a distant homeland.

Signal Types

Interplanetary communication uses two complementary technologies:

• Radio: Omnidirectional broadcast, lower bandwidth, no infrastructure required. Used for emergency distress signals, navigation beacons, ship transponders, public broadcasts, and basic network access. A ship with a working radio is never truly cut off — but may be limited to text-equivalent bandwidth.

• Optical (Laser): Point-to-point transmission, much higher bandwidth, requires precise pointing. Used for high-bandwidth data transfer, video communication, commercial transactions, and trunk lines between major installations. Harder to intercept than radio.

Communication Delays

All signals travel at light speed. The following table shows one-way communication delays between major locations at typical orbital positions:

Route	Delay (One-Way)	Round-Trip
Earth ↔ Luna	1.3 seconds	2.6 seconds
Earth ↔ Mars (closest)	3 minutes	6 minutes
Earth ↔ Mars (average)	12.5 minutes	25 minutes
Earth ↔ Mars (farthest)	22 minutes	44 minutes
Earth ↔ Ceres	23 minutes	46 minutes
Earth ↔ Jupiter	35–52 minutes	70–104 minutes
Earth ↔ Saturn	70–90 minutes	2.3–3 hours
Earth ↔ Uranus	2.5–2.8 hours	5–5.6 hours
Earth ↔ Neptune	4–4.2 hours	8–8.4 hours
Earth ↔ Pluto	4.5–6.5 hours	9–13 hours

These delays shape how people communicate. Earth-Luna conversations feel nearly normal. Earth-Mars conversations become asynchronous — you send a message, do something else, and check for a reply later. Beyond Mars, "conversation" gives way to correspondence.

Relay Infrastructure

The UEF Fleet operates a network of optical relay stations that form the backbone of high-bandwidth interplanetary communication:

• Solar relays: Stations at the Sun's L4 and L5 points maintain contact with planets during solar conjunction (when a planet passes behind the sun from Earth's perspective).

• Planetary relays: Major bodies from Earth to Saturn have relay stations at key Lagrange points, enabling reliable trunk-line communication throughout the inner and middle system.

• Coverage gradient: Relay coverage is dense and reliable from Earth to Mars, adequate out to Jupiter, sparse around Saturn, and essentially nonexistent beyond. Ships traveling past Saturn operate on radio and direct laser links only — no relay boost, no guaranteed bandwidth.

Major corporations maintain supplementary relay infrastructure for their own operations. ARC, for example, operates an extensive private network throughout the Belt that doesn't depend on Fleet backbone. This is presented as operational efficiency, but also provides a degree of informational independence.

Practical Implications

Governance: Light-speed delays mean the outer system cannot be governed in real-time. A crisis on a Saturn station is already 70 minutes old by the time Earth learns of it, and any response takes another 70 minutes to arrive. This reality shapes the UEF's administrative approach — and its limitations. Local authorities must act first and explain later.

Commerce: Financial transactions and contracts involving the outer system build in delay assumptions. "Confirmation windows" of hours or days are standard. This creates opportunities for arbitrage, fraud, and disputes over timing.

Emergency response: Distress signals are broadcast on radio (omnidirectional, no pointing required), but help is still hours or days away by ship. Outer system installations develop cultures of self-reliance and mutual aid — by the time Earth knows you're in trouble, you've either saved yourself or you haven't.

Piracy and crime: The relay network is also a surveillance network. Ships on established routes are tracked; their communications are logged. Ships that go "off-network" — operating on radio only, away from relay coverage — gain privacy but lose the protection of being observed. Pirates exploit this gap, operating in the spaces between relay coverage where their victims can't call for help effectively.

Information asymmetry: News and market data reach the outer system on delay. Inner system powers sometimes know about events days before affected communities do. This asymmetry breeds resentment and has been exploited more than once.