Ansible

The discovery of Trans-Newtonian elements by a UN research team in late 2024 had profound applications for industry, trade, and technology. In general, devices based on TNE materials or circuitry operated with greater effectiveness than their pre-TN analogues. Perhaps the greatest initial advancements were in the realm of communications devices.

The First Ansible

Among the first practical implementations was the invention of the uridium ansible in August of 2026, by Dr. Aaron Telward, working with an international team at the Argonne National Laboratory in Iowa, United States. The first device was approximately three meters on a side, using 150 kg of uridium in a series of internal antennas.

Using the device, a superluminal message was transmitted from the Argonne Laboratory to a detector situated in one of the tunnels of the Tevatron at Fermi National Laboratory, a distance of 27,776 meters. A photon sent along this path would take approximately 92.65 microseconds (9.265e-5 s). The ansible was able to send a message that was received in less than a nanosecond. This represented an increase in transmission speed of nearly five orders of magnitude.

With communications at this speed, a signal sent from Pluto would reach Earth in less time than a radio signal from the Moon.

Principle of Operation

Uridium, of all the Trans-Newtonian elements, has an atomic structure most sensitive to non-TN electromagnetic and gravitational radiation, due to the large number of free TN electron-analagoues (t-electrons). When stimulated by EM or gravitational radiation, a net torque is induced in the t-electron cloud. When the radiative field is removed, the torque is released in the form of a wave through the fluidic space of the Trans-Newtonian dimensions. This wave propagates at a speed much faster than photons through a vacuum.

A uridium transmitter consists of a slab of pure uridium, with a matrix of pits etched into it. At the bottom of each pit is a cross of gold atoms. A field is created and passed through the gold cross that causes the cross to torque slightly. By manipulating the level of torque in each gold cross element, an analog pattern can be represented. The twisted field is transferred to the uridium substrate by pulsing an electric current through the gold cross. When the field is removed, the antenna sends out a Trans-Newtonian pulse through fluidic space, oriented along the axis of the transmitter.

The receiver works in the same fashion, except in reverse. As the wave pulse is received, a torqued electric field is generated in the uridium, which causes the gold crosses to torque as well. By measuring the level of torque in the cross, the field pattern can be reconstructed.

Practical Implementations

The first obvious advancement is to combine the transmitter and receiver into one device, known as an ansible. This is achieved by placing the uridium slabs at right angles to each other and rotating the assembly at a known speed. By using a known phase angle as a handshake parameter, communications can be established between two ansibles within a small number of revolutions (the handshake time is determined by the size of the ansibles).

The resolution (and thus bandwidth) of an ansible is determined by the frequency of field switching in the matrix, while transmission power / receiving sensitivity are determined by the number of pits. The effective range is . The range is linear with regard to the number of pits, i.e. doubling the number of pits while holding the areal density constant doubles the range (this effectively means doubling the area of the sensor). However, the range follows the square root of the resolution (determined by field switching frequency), i.e. quadrupling the frequency only doubles the effective range.

Advantages

Aside from the obvious advantage of faster than light communications, there are several other features of ansibles that makes them more attractive than subluminal communications methods.

The matrix nature of an ansible communications pulse means that sophisticated encryption methods can be used. In fact, these encryption methods can be baked directly into the hardware itself (by, for example, moving every pit away from the regular spacing in a known, documented way), removing the necessity for complex encrpytion/decryption software in the signal analysis portion of the device.

The matrix nature of the pulse also means that the bandwidth of an ansible is much higher than a similarly-powered EM radiation communications device. A single large ansible can serve as the single communications link for an entire off-world colony.

Limitations

The uridium ansible is a very important aspect of modern communications, but there are limitations to what it can accomplish.

First, the resolution and frequency of an ansible is fixed at design time. They cannot be dynamically "tuned" to new frequencies, meaning that if an encrypted device is captured, existing fielded units cannot be retuned to remove the vulnerability.

Second, ansibles designed to communicate over interplanetary-scale distances are still rather bulky, especially high-bandwidth designs, and they operate at extremely high power levels. This increases their installation and operation costs and thus deployment rates. Personal ansibles would require significant cost reductions and miniaturization to become widespread.

Third, uridium is a strategic mineral with relatively low total availability. Most of the solar reserves are earmarked by UN and Federation military use, leaving civilian ansible production to compete with other civilian-sector uses of uridium for the relatively limited remainder. This also serves to drive up costs.

Additionally, while the bandwidth of an ansible is extremely high compared to a conventional transmitter, it is not infinite. Combined with their cost of construction, installation, and operation, this can limit their ability to service a large colony, which may require supplementing the data connection with conventional communications methods (or more ansibles).

Finally, the properties of fluidic space are somewhat sensitive to the local mass distribution. The high propagation speed of uridium ansible pulses through TN fluidic space is due to the presence of the sun's mass concentration (it can be thought of as the sun's mass "thickening" the TN fluid). Beyond the region where the sun's mass dominates, the propagation speed drops dramatically as the TN fluid "thins out." This makes ansible communications over interstellar distances impractical, as the effective transmission speed drops to close to that of light.

Current Status

It is known that the Eurasian Federation discovered the principles of the uridium ansible relatively soon after the UN, as ansible communications have been detected between Federation outposts in the solar system.

Every UN-occupied body in the solar system contains at least one standard (software encrypted) ansible for everyday communications, as well as one or more hardware-encrypted ansibles for secure communications. The civilain ansibles are operated by Earth-based telecom firms (Telward Superlight being the predominant entity).

The Future

There are several avenues for development in ansible technology. Improved uridium refining techniques will allow the antenna slabs to be more pure, and therefore more sensitive. More controlled manufacturing techniques will provide more regular pit depth and spacing, which will reduce the signal/noise ratio and allow for increased bandwidth. Research into both of these areas is ongoing within the civilian sector.