Library Data:Express Boat

Library Data Milieu 1116 

Rapid communication ships which are designed to make optimum use of jump technology in communicating information within the Imperium. Because the Imperium is so large, ordinary communication must depend on ships traveling along established trade routes, making Regina nearly four years out from the Imperial Core given routine jump lengths and layovers.

The express boat (abbreviated Xboat) system, established originally in 624 and expanded to cover the entire Imperium by 718, cuts this communication time by more than 75%. Selected locations along major trade routes are established as sites for Library Data:Xboat stations which are orbital facilities that service and refuel the Xboats on their communications runs.

As an Xboat arrives in a system, it beams its recorded data to the Xboat station, which then retransmits it to an Xboat standing by for a jump outsystem. Time between jumps is almost always less than four hours and has been recorded at less than seven minutes, making the speed of communication nearly the speed of jump (since Xboats carry jump-4 drives, this is basically four parsecs per week). In practice, this speed is reduced by the fact that trade routes do not follow straight lines and that not all jumps are made at jump-4. Nonetheless, the system achieves approximately jump-2.6 per week.

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 Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

Other References

• Marc Miller. The Kinunir (Game Designers Workshop, 1979), 39.
• John Harshman, Marc Miller, Loren Wiseman. Library Data (A-M) (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 26-27.
• Marc Miller. The Spinward Marches (Game Designers Workshop, 1979), 3.
• Marc Miller. Twilight's Peak (Game Designers Workshop, 1980), 44.
• Gregory P. Lee. Lee's Guide to Interstellar Adventure (Gamelords, 1982), 46-48.
• Marc Miller. The Traveller Book (Game Designers Workshop, 1982), 153.
• Marc Miller. Imperial Encyclopedia (Game Designers Workshop, 1987), 24.
• Colin Dunn. Library Data (Mongoose Publishing, 2011), 20.