Superluminal communications

A project page on superluminal communications.

Overview
Most faster-than-light communicators known today use wavespace, a colloquial term for a set of slipspace layers optimal for signal transmission. While humanity has had the theoretical basis for wavespace for over two centuries, it was only through research into Covenant slipspace technology during the war that enabled the UNSC to build the first functional FTL communicators.

Rules and limitations
Wavespace has several limits endemic to its nature.

UNSC, late to post-war

 * Interstellar wavespace signals are focused EM bursts sent through wavespace, though "focused" is relative as the target area is as wide as a solar system. Still, they are not easily intercepted unless one knows exactly where and what to look for.
 * Wavespace relays (both transmitters and receivers) must be configured to a fairly specific distance and destination, which in practice limits them to point-to-point transmissions between individual relays; meaning a relay cannot receive messages from outside the region it is attuned to, unless it is specifically reconfigured to do so.
 * Relays constantly drift out of focus; in the early years, they must be manually reconfigured, before reliable auto-correction mechanisms are developed.
 * Relays should be installed in gravitationally stable locations, such as Lagrange points, to minimize interference; gravity wells can easily scatter transmissions or warp them off target.
 * Most ships do not have interstellar-capable communicators. As time goes on, more and more Navy ships have short-range communicators installed, which enable virtually real-time communication in-system. Still, for interstellar communication, most ships must link to a local comm relay, if one is available.

COM launchers
The slipspace COM launcher is a secure military system that launches a self-guided probe through slipspace at a specified destination.

The advent of wavespace
It should be emphasized that the impact of the superluminal communicator would be huge. The notion of fast (if still not real-time) communication with other star systems, or even real-time communication within a star system would be if not alien, at least a speculative fancy at best to most people even in the 26th century. And it will revolutionize how people and societies conceptualize themselves in the overall framework of the human sphere, a new information revolution akin to the telephone or the internet on Earth.

Though prototypes of FTL communicators existed throughout the 2540s, the first designs were large, energy-inefficient and cumbersome. The first practical wavecasters were installed on Navy starships and select remaining Inner Colony systems and early-warning listening posts circa 2550-2552. For that time, and for several years onward, they remained in strict FLEETCOM priority use only. It was only in the 2560s that the technology first panned out in commercial use.

Ideas & specifics

 * The Covenant's imperial wavecaster network had a kind of "signal fire" system based around a handful of very simple encrypted and pre-programmed messages understood only by the High Council. The messages would pass through every domain's grand wavecaster without said domains' authorities being fully aware of their contents. This was a security measure to ensure delicate information did not end up in the wrong hands or was not tampered on the war, e.g. in the event a wavecaster became compromised.