Jump Conduits
A creation of the Anciene Republik at TL 19 (K), jump conduits allow many parsecs to be traversed just as a normal jump drive would be used for a jump of one to six parsecs. Conduits were developed as a collaboration between human scientists and alien scientists from the world Elda, a planet not far (100 -parsecs) from Earth in the Saggitarius-Carina Arm of the galaxy. The Eldarans have a penchant for multi-dimensional mathematics, and the humans had a knack for translating such work into applications. The first Eldaran-Human cooperation was the jump conduit, with a maximum range of 1296 parsecs. These initial tests took place more than 10,000 years after humanity began colonizing interstellar space. No conduit has been built since in over 50,000 years, however.
In general, the method for creating a conduit is well remembered. One
uses two jump-1 drives (mounted on a frame equal in size to a 100-ton
ship is all that is required, but really, any size will do), and,
accounting for variances in general relativity, simultaneously
activating the jump circuitry at two locations. About a week later, the
conduit is created. Depending upon the distance between the endpoints of
the jump conduit, a ship with sufficient jump drive is required to
successfully enter and traverse the conduit. A jump-1 ship can use
conduits of six parsecs or less in length, and this relationship
increases by factors of six (jump-2 can use a conduit up to thirty-six
parsecs in length, called Jump-6 2 , and so on). In theory, a conduit
could nearly cross the galaxy from an edge on a straight line through
the center, to the opposite edge (46,656 parsecs).
Fuel requirements are the normal consumption for the jump used (for the
size of the conduit). If the conduit used is between six and thirty-six
parsecs in length, a jump-2 drive and fuel for a normal jump of two
parsecs is all that is required for traversal of the conduit. For
reasons not well understood, no conduits were made that only require a jump-1 drive to navigate. This
may explain why there are no (known) jump-6 or jump-66 conduits.
However, some have suggested that these conduits may have been
classified. The explanation that is given for the lack of these longer
ranges, or even those in the Jump-6' to jump-6' conduit range, is that
the longer the range, the shorter the amount of time that they will
function without required maintenance.
This is the best the Eldarans can tell us today, but no human has been
born during the time of the latter Anciene Republik with enough insight into jump
mechanics to be able to fully recreate the technology. One attempt came
close—but, resulted in the creation of a pair of quantum singularities
at each endpoint (a deadly end-result).
An entire subculture of governmentalists has arisen charging that the
Anciene Republik is actually run, and coordinated by, some secret and unknown
agency using still-functioning, jump-61 and jump-66 conduits. An
extremist branch of these people believe that the secret to the longest
jump conduits was lost with the last Emperor. They maintain that the
Imperial family's genetic code was imprinted with the solution. No
concrete proof has ever been given by any of these people, yet they
continue to believe their conspiracy theories.
On the factual side of the matter, one Eldaran research paper published
over 60,000 years ago contends that a jump-66 conduit would only be stable
long enough for a ship(s) to make a jump mere minutes after the
formation of the conduit. Another Eldaran paper with a different
research approach, holds that Jump-61 conduits are impossible due to the
timing issues for simultaneity of firing the jump drives at the
endpoints. It is possible that both papers are correct, or that neither
one is right.
Information travels at the speed of jump. However, the jump conduits of the Anciene Republik, in many instances, are still functioning allowing as many as 48 parsecs, in rare cases further, to be traversed in a single week (one jump). The jump conduit "net" once covered much of the galaxy. The longer range conduits had formed the backbone of that net, and now that they are gone, the conduits are only of use in their proximate locations.