60 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
There are two categories of transportation that are of interest to the galactic
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traveller: interstellar transport, and planetary transport.
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Planetary transport vary greatly from one world to the next, be it the grand
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railways of Ȝħarqalin-Wiirèe, getting you most places on the main continent
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under a day, the relentless aeronautic industry of Telùs-Sol, or the high speed
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drone taxis which zip in all directions accross and between the Lissiya’s
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arboreal cities. The best way to know how to get around a planet is to ask the
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locals
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Interstellar travel on the other hand is — at least within the members Galactic
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Cooperation Treaty Organisation — much more codified. Space lanes are cleared
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of most everything by the organisations to allow for supraluminic travel
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without risking the structural integrity of the ships[¹](#note1). Thus space
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travel follows the routes of those cleared lanes, as travelling outside the
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lanes is an activity only reasonable to those who are either thrill-seekers,
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stupid, owners insanely overkill EM shielding, trying to evade the law, or any
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combination of the above.
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From this you essentially have five options when arriving at the spaceport.
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The option most common among the majority of travellers is to hitch a ride on
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one of many a crago vessel (most have a handful of cabins spare in the crew
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quarters), in exchange for a relatively modest sum or some work on the ship
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during the transit if you have relevant skills. It’s not fast, it’s not the
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most comfortable, but it will get you around for a minimal price.
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If you are travelling a common route, a more comfortable — if a bit more
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expensive — option is to book a slot in one of the regular line ships that
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ferry passengers around.
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Going up sharply in price, if your origin or destination is hard to reach or if
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you want the most speed and/or comfort, you can also charter a ship for your
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trip.
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If however you are on the tightest of budgets and even a hitching on a cargo
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ship is too expensive, some freight companies offer stasis travel. Basically
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you get into a stasis box, they turn on the box, handle you in your stasis box
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like normal cargo and they turn off the box when you arrive, subjectively it’s
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instant, objectively, it’s as fast as the freight company is, which is
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typically "not fast", also quite nerve wrecking: if you get lost in shipping,
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well the energy core in the stasis boxes are typically good for a millenia or
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two, after which you may wake up to a radically different galaxy. If you don’t
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wake up in the vaccum of space.
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Lastly, if you are on are travelling between planets of the United Peoples’
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Federation or some of their closest allies, you’ll have the opportunity to use
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a jump array. For a frankly insultingly low price, you get put into a perfectly
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tuned wormhole and appear on the other side instantly for you (you are
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transported within a stasis field, because directly exposing organics to a
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wormhole has... undesirable effects[²](#note2)) and a couple of seconds for the
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rest of the Universe
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<p id="note1" style="font-size:.8em;font-style:italic">¹ Also the static charge, hitting a large cloud of gas faster than
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a couple kilolights is one good way to zap everyone aboard with the electric
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charge released by the ionisation.</p>
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<p id="note2" style="font-size:.8em;font-style:italic">² Candidate for "Understatement of the standard galactic orbit"</p>
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