Subspace Ansible: Difference between revisions

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** At one point, a Manticoran diplomat intentionally exploits this trope just to issue a calculated insult to a Solarian Admiral, by [[Leave the Camera Running|keeping his video feed on]] and using the lengthy comm delays to kick his feet up on a nearby piece of furniture and catch up on some casual reading.

* David Feintuch's ''[[Seafort Saga]]'': while FTL travel existed in the form of "N-Waves" propelling a ship, even human-level computer AI couldn't run a ship (robotics not being advanced in Feintuch's 'verse). Physical mail was carried by the ships traveling to extrasolar colonies, while ordinary radio was used in-system.

* [[H Beam Piper]]'s Terro-Human Future History. News and communications travel with FTL starships -- taking months to get to their destination, and months to get an answer back -- but no FTL radio exists. This has a major impact during the System States War, in his novel ''The Cosmic Computer'', where planning and controlling fleet and army movements has to be done for a theater of war thousands of light years across. In fact, the Terran Federation's "Manhattan Project" is to create a super-powerful computer capable of evaluating not only military but social and economic factors and effectively predict the enemy's future actions, so that the Terran generals can determine just where to send troops and ships.

* [[H. Beam Piper]]'s Terro-Human Future History. News and communications travel with FTL starships -- taking months to get to their destination, and months to get an answer back -- but no FTL radio exists. This has a major impact during the System States War, in his novel ''The Cosmic Computer'', where planning and controlling fleet and army movements has to be done for a theater of war thousands of light years across. In fact, the Terran Federation's "Manhattan Project" is to create a super-powerful computer capable of evaluating not only military but social and economic factors and effectively predict the enemy's future actions, so that the Terran generals can determine just where to send troops and ships.

** It can be said that Piper and other writers who have FTL travel but no FTL radio setups in their works often do so to justify why the protagonists must handle the issue at hand and can't just call back to base for help/relief/support from more qualified personnel.

** They come the closest in the Empire story "Ministry of Disturbance", where a scientist discovers a method of teleporting a particle. Unfortunately, the only story following "Ministry of Disturbance" took place several thousands of years after that one and on a backwater planet, so Piper never managed to explore the consequences of this new technology.