VoidBridges

The VoidBridges are jump bridges built and maintained by the Solomani Preserve.

• They are numbered in the order they were constructed in. VoidBridge 1 is an essential link that enables the Cheaters' Route; the rest effectively fuse the Solomani Preserve into a single main.

Description (Specifications)

The VoidBridges are calibration points not in the vicinity of any stellar body. It is almost impossible to jump to them without knowing their precise coordinates. This is one of the primary security features of the Cheaters' Route.

The physical infrastructure is a series of 10 ton drones of varying types. Some mine for ore or ice, some refine into raw materials or fuel, some repair and construct more drones, some survey for new planetoids, some haul (very slowly, taking months or years) good finds to near the calibration point, and so on. The swarm as a whole is self-manufacturing (from the original seeds built and dropped off the Surfing Lighthouse), and theoretically capable of exponential self-replication (far slower than the common perception: they take a few months to double in size, while most of the popular depictions would require doubling times of minutes or seconds) though in practice their numbers are capped, typically in the hundreds of millions, to provide enough resources for the Solomani Preserve to use and sell without crashing the market too much (selling excess resources being one of the Preserve's main revenue sources).

History & Background (Dossier)

The VoidBridge drones were originally developed and programmed by the crew of the Surfing Lighthouse from -1685 to -1682 (some conceptual design work had been done during the 5 years before, as the ship accompanied the colony fleet that would found Havensmith). For the first nine centuries of their existence, they saw only occasional use from scouts tracing the path of the Surfing Lighthouse - with the exception of VoidBridge 1, which saw increasing use supporting the Cheaters' Route.

Starting in -777, with the beginning of the Hatching, the Preserve began updating the VoidBridges with further designs and technology, as it expanded out to fill the artificial main that they created. They remained fuel & resource supply spots - again with the (eventual) exception of VoidBridge 1, which in 1134 was turned into a fortress (as well as a fuel & resource supply spot, but only for ships confirmed not to be Virus).

World Starport

There is no starport fitting the standard designation available at the VoidBridges. One might consider them to be D class, with standard parts available for ships to conduct their own maintenance and repairs, but refined fuel available.

World Technology Level

The drones that constitute the VoidBridges were originally TL-12 in their construction, but their industrial capacity is mostly reserved for their own maintenance. Over time, upgraded design files were introduced, generally updating each of the VoidBridges within a century of Havensmith achieving a new technology level. When the Empress Wave came along, they were able to continue to manufacture some high tech parts even as industrial capacity for the rest of the Solomani Preserve fell. As of 1105 they are the only place in the Preserve where TL-15 parts remain available, though they can only supply spare parts for maintenance, not construct ships greater than 10 tons (and generally not set up to build anything other than ships and parts, though for instance there is a corporation that imports materials from VoidBridges 3 and 4 to Bath for manufacture into battle dress and weapons).

World Government

With no one to govern, the VoidBridges are effectively anarchies.

World Law Level

With no government, the Law Level is effectively 0: anything and everything is permitted.

That said, the VoidBridges are technically property of the Solomani Preserve. If necessary (especially at VoidBridges 1 and 2), Preserve enforcers will be on hand to make sure no one steals far more fuel or parts than they need (except as allowed by the Preserve, typically to sell on behalf of the Preserve), to prevent anyone from staying around longer than needed (again, except as allowed by the Preserve), and to prevent piracy.

World Military

None, unless enforcers are present (see above). If so, these are typically one or a few 1,000 ton naval vessels.

In 1134, in reaction to warnings about Virus, VoidBridge 1 was turned into a fortress, which consisted of adding two types of things to the drone swarm:

• Communication drones equipped with canaries were deployed, designed to self-destruct if the canaries triggered upon communication with a ship that had recently jumped in; standard procedure was to have only these drones communicate at first (everyone else in the area ignoring all communications until a canary sent the "all clear"), and destroy the ship if the drone blew up.
• To ensure rapid destruction of identified Virus ships, space stations were constructed with the first Spinal Weapons Mounts the Preserve built for its own use (what few had been built before, had gone to help the Yaskoydri Technocracy secure its coreward border). These were deliberately limited to space stations that could not move much let alone jump, thus confined to the VoidBridges where they were constructed, to prevent the temptation to use these weapons elsewhere - whether in Preserve space or against someone else. Plans were drawn up to fortify other VoidBridges (mainly 2 and 3) if necessary, but as of the authoring of the Galaxiad, these have only been deployed at VoidBridge 1.

World Economy

None by conventional terms. The drones gather rogue bodies from across the parsec and process them, maintaining themselves and growing as necessary to serve visitors. Even as of the Galaxiad, more than three millennia after starting, each VoidBridge's parsec is less than 1% depleted.

Trade Data

None in the traditional sense. Fuel is provided gratis to anyone coming by, and standard parts as needed for maintenance, though those passing through must provide their own food. There are no imports, save for occasional revisions to designs provided by the Solomani Preserve. Aside from supply to passing ships, there are the usual exports from asteroid colonies - fuel, ore, raw materials, crystals (gem and otherwise), and radioactives - but these are only available to Preserve government ships, to be sold elsewhere with the profits helping fund the Preserve. (As a result, these classes of goods are very cheap throughout the Preserve.)

There are occasional calls to privatize this trade, but at most this has resulted in corporate vessels under license from the Preserve doing the collections. While what limited AI they possess informs the drones that their purpose is to be exploited, the swarms regard as sabotage any serious attempt to completely repurpose them away from their core function of refueling any passing ship in need of fuel, and "repair" this "damage" in a fashion that can be hard to distinguish from combat.

World Demographics

No permanent sophont population.

World Culture

Largely none, though now and then, artists have left murals on or made statues from "slag" completely-mined-out asteroids, to inspire or amuse others passing by. The drones have been programmed to arrange and preserve these works of art.

They are also popular locations to archive historical records, which has helped the Solomani Preserve maintain its history. Perhaps the most notable example is the logs transcribed in -1682 by the crew of the Surfing Lighthouse at VoidBridge 2, one week after their final report to Havensmith. These logs contained a copy of their report, and their request that the Solomani Preserve not visit Bridgeholm until the rest of the systems the Surfing Lighthouse had surveyed were colonized. These logs were in pristine condition in 0 when they were consulted by a historian researching Bridgeholm, who discovered that popular memory had shifted, mistakenly believing that Bridgeholm was never to be visited. As of 0, the "colonize the rest of the surveyed systems" condition had been met for over 300 years. This discovery, and the resulting expedition to Bridgeholm, would start the next era of the Solomani Preserve.

World Language/s

Anglic. VoidBridge 1 in particular maintains this to impress on Vargr visitors from rimward that they need to learn the local language before proceeding to Havensmith.

UWP Listing

As the VoidBridges are deep-space facilities, the UWP is ill-suited to describing them. Standard practice is to give structures like this the Anomaly trade code, even though it is known exactly what they are and who made them.

Worlds & Sectors (Astrography)

This astrographic feature is located in the following areas:
Charted Space:

• Zhiaqrqiats Sector
  • Old Perch Subsector
  • Second Wing Subsector
  • Stasis Tail Subsector
  • Warding Beak Subsector

World Listing: 1105

While this astrographic feature does not contain any true systems or worlds, individual VoidBridges can be thought of as something akin to a world-system. The VoidBridges are:

• VoidBridge 1 (world)
• VoidBridge 2 (world)
• VoidBridge 3 (world)
• VoidBridge 4 (world)
• VoidBridge 5 (world)
• VoidBridge 6 (world)
• VoidBridge 7 (world)
• VoidBridge 8 (world)
• VoidBridge 9 (world)
• VoidBridge A (world)
• VoidBridge B (world)
• VoidBridge C (world)

References & Contributors (Sources)

This article is missing content for one or more detailed sections. Additional details are required to complete the article. You can help the Traveller Wiki by expanding it.

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: User: Atymes
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science