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How would the Internet work with interstellar distances? Even at Mars distances the latency to Earth makes it almost impossible for all but forums and email.

everdrive 1y ago
Which would be a welcome improvement. The speed of communication and content needs to slow down, and people need to return to longer form reading. People who lacked the patience and impulse control for this would actually drop off the platform, which would be a net improvement.
SoftTalker 1y ago
They can obviously communicate with Starfleet. "Subspace frequencies" or whatever they called it. Presumably personal and not just official communication would happen the same way. It's just not something that was top of mind when those shows were made. Long distance phone calls were still something you paid for at a substantial cost per minute. The idea that you'd be casually chatting with friends light-years away just didn't occur to anyone.
- olyjohn 1y ago
  Not always. Lots of episodes they are well out of range of communications with Starfleet. They have even mentioned not getting a response from Starfleet for weeks in a number of episodes.
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    Except in Voyager (where due to the nature of the premise they had to be _somewhat_ consistent) this was entirely plot-driven. It could be anything from "real-time comms halfway across the galaxy" to "we'll get a reply next week" to "no contact at all". Occasionally this even varied within the same episode.
jedberg 1y ago
Presumably the same way faster than light travel works. I suppose you would wrap the IP packet in a warp bubble. Or maybe the old adage of "a station wagon hurtling down the highway has more bandwidth than the biggest network links" would apply here -- send little storage modules at warp speed around the universe. But also, in the show, they have clearly solved this problem, given that they can be out in Beta quadrant and still have live conversations with Starfleet back in San Francisco.
shepherdjerred 1y ago
I'm so excited for forums and email to return

everdrive 1y ago

Which would be a welcome improvement. The speed of communication and content needs to slow down, and people need to return to longer form reading. People who lacked the patience and impulse control for this would actually drop off the platform, which would be a net improvement.

SoftTalker 1y ago

They can obviously communicate with Starfleet. "Subspace frequencies" or whatever they called it. Presumably personal and not just official communication would happen the same way. It's just not something that was top of mind when those shows were made. Long distance phone calls were still something you paid for at a substantial cost per minute. The idea that you'd be casually chatting with friends light-years away just didn't occur to anyone.

olyjohn 1y ago
Not always. Lots of episodes they are well out of range of communications with Starfleet. They have even mentioned not getting a response from Starfleet for weeks in a number of episodes.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Except in Voyager (where due to the nature of the premise they had to be _somewhat_ consistent) this was entirely plot-driven. It could be anything from "real-time comms halfway across the galaxy" to "we'll get a reply next week" to "no contact at all". Occasionally this even varied within the same episode.

jedberg 1y ago

Presumably the same way faster than light travel works. I suppose you would wrap the IP packet in a warp bubble. Or maybe the old adage of "a station wagon hurtling down the highway has more bandwidth than the biggest network links" would apply here -- send little storage modules at warp speed around the universe. But also, in the show, they have clearly solved this problem, given that they can be out in Beta quadrant and still have live conversations with Starfleet back in San Francisco.

shepherdjerred 1y ago

I'm so excited for forums and email to return