Up, but not Out? Discussing the lack of exploration fics.

[Threepony]

As was brought up, there's a lot of fics set within the solar system, but despite the fluff claiming the fen are moving out, there's relatively little fiction on actually seeing this move out. So, I figured an actual discussion on why that might be and what might be done to make the setting more friendly to that/make people want to set fics out there. 

For my own two (three) cents, I can see three major issues that are currently in the way:

One: Other than Mal, and (sort of) Dartz, everyone has stories that involve more small-scale issues close to home, or that would otherwise have no reason to go out. Jake has his characters dealing with a set of kids who are going through a second life after being horribly murdered and left to rot as undead animatronics; my story is going to deal with a character going through the hero's journey a second time and coming to the apex again trying to deal with solving the societal imbalances that are driving him through creating a new nation of ponies, blackjack, and harmony; the catgirls are doing sciency-stuff, but are more interested in their industry and trying to provide for their kind; so on and so forth. Nobody has a character arc that I know of that could be resolved by going Out, and there seems to be a distressing lack of new writers who might have such an arc planned.

Two: The sheer, cruel logistical equations. It's two days one way to Alpha Centauri. Out there, there's no hope of rescue, no hope of help should there be an issue. It became possible to have stories Up because it was easy to get up and space travel became possible for the layman. They could just wave their car and drive Up. But, basically it becomes impossible to really have any major story set beyond Jupiter orbit because of the distances involved. You're looking at really long distances that make it difficult at best for somebody to just go out and explore. It's a more hazardous proposition than trying to sail solo across the atlantic on a makeshift raft once you go far enough out in a car or other small-craft. And, to actually go to another star requires stupidly serious hardware. It restricts the pool of potential canidates because you need a character more and more connected to go further Out. Even Alpha Centauri is beyond the reach of the vast majority of the fen due to the involved distances and the fluff speeds and capabilities of fencraft, requiring a fairly major vessel in order to safely arrive there. And that's just the closest star. If you want to go further, you need a bigger and bigger vessel in order to safely make the trip, further increasing the backing required. Even to Delta Pavonis (I think, I can't look it up with the wiki still being derp. I really hope we had all that backed up somewhere)--the gate system--is a week long one-way trip. I think. How many ships are there in fenspace that could manage even that trip, let alone the return journey? It makes it pretty hard to tell stories out on the frontier.

Three: The fact is, the fen as currently depicted are a bunch of mad mexican jumping beans in a dump-truck full of empty beer cans. If the often-repeated demographic of 10 million people up is true, well... there's just not enough people to really force pressure to go Out. There's too many stories to tell in the solar system alone, and even then the Fen basically could multiply by a hundred-fold and not experience the normal pressures that would make them want to colonize outwards. There's no need for resources, not really any need for space with all the kupiter belt objects left unclaimed that could be turned into home bases, let alone Mars, Luna, or the Jupiter/Saturn systems. Uranus and Neptune are completely untouched, even. The Fen make a lot of noise, but they're basically outnumbered by most nations, and even a good chunk of the states of the USA.  And with the fluff having the danes being just uninterested in going Up for the most part even after a decade of Up existing and turning mundane, as said--there's not really the backing available or the real want to go out due to the sheer inconvience it poses to the masses. The feds and soviets would want to go out and look, but most other factions are too busy still trying to get their houses in order to really bother.

But that's just my opinion. Anyone else have any thoughts on the matters?

[RustedPantheress]

Yes, I have thoughts on this matter.
Sometimes, you don't need social pressures to go Out. Fen run on memes, and the exploration of the greater unknown galaxy is a huge memeplex amongst the Fen. But while most just settle for talking about it, there are those that take it to heart, and go do as the Fen do.You also have the "settling frontier" meme that can be traced back to the early Wild West of America: I like my space, my neighbors are too close, time to go find a different solar system. People don't always do things because there's pressure to do so - they do it because they can (most of the stated social issues that lead to people doing colonization across America weren't as bad as they made them out to be; but people love their justified excuses).

And thanks for giving me a character idea who can have a good exploration arc: a lone nutter of a hermit with a bunch of barely sapient AIs and a ship that can manufacture nav/comm buoys. They don't care that they're all alone - that's why they're here, looking at the various views of the universe.

Or another possibility: a Buddhist group that believes that Nirvana can be achieved by meditating on the states of reality. In exchange for a monastery ship (with the above manufacturing capability), they just have to survey systems and leave nav buoys around.

But one thing remains: most of the stories of the Fen are not large, grand scale, space opera adventures. They're people, focusing on the relationships they have with each other and themselves. And we find our pleasures in the small details, devilish people we are. We can look at a big picture and go "that's a cool idea", but what sells us are the things that many advertisers use to sell things to us: what do people, people that we can identify with, do and think about this situation they're living in?

[Threepony]

Well, I was trying to say that exploring beyond the solar system is less like the Wild West, and more like trying to camp out on the Antarctic Ice Cap.

[RustedPantheress]

Which is true: in the wild west, there were already people living there, and penguins are not so good at building bars or stocking them.

What I was trying to say was that it doesn't matter the problems, there will be people who do these things because they can. And actual pressure doesn't matter if there is apparent pressure. Look at America going to the moon - there was no actual pressure to go there, but there was the apparent pressure of there being a need to go.

Sure, Fenspace is really big ("we're the greatest, largest country, off this planet earth! (as long as they keep Quebec)"), but people have a hard time grasping that (including the Fen). They look at the space around the planets, then the asteroid belt, and all that empty space is ignored. It doesn't really matter that the solar system can support a huge number in space - there's already a number up there, we can't ignore their claim, and we don't want to deal with them anyway. Most interstellar colonies are going to be Danes going "For the glory of our people, we shall leave this planet! Goodbye, NAFTA!". As well, there's always people looking to the horizon - and space is the biggest horizon out there. They'll do it because it's in their nature, and they're going to be the ones leading the way for colonization wave after colonization wave.

But basically every problem is surmountable by effort - mostly making the equipment cheap enough. But it's mostly time - and we haven't gotten a good enough grasp on the future of Fenspace to really tell where things will go from here.

[HRogge]

There is also the point that stories about exploration are only different from other stories if they find something "special"... and its not really fun trying to do this over and over again without some "greater plot in the background".

[Threepony]

There is also the point that stories about exploration are only different from other stories if they find something "special"... and its not really fun trying to do this over and over again without some "greater plot in the background".

Well, why not shorts about the various worlds found? Yavin-style moons around hot Neptunes, strange crypto-creatures that don't fit the patterns of Earth's evolutionary paths, super-earths around red dwarfs billowing with volcanism from their super-massive core. Plenty of weird new ideas. 

That was actually going to be my suggestion, setting up a round-robin of Federation/Starfleet expeditions just going around and finding all the weird planets around our own. No need for an over-arching story other than 'Feddies doing what they do best, SCIENCE!'

[robkelk]

We've had this discussion before ...

When we finished off the Boskone War, we had a long discussion about what we would do for Season 2. I proposed "The Great Age of Exploration" - and rather quickly got shot down. Nobody else offered anything, so I suggested "The Great Age of Exploration" again, modifying the idea to include exploration of the human condition, the Whole Fenspace Catalog, and the planets in the inner Solar System. That was accepted. Then nobody did anything with it other than create some background notes (myself included, I'll grant).

So ...

Write the stories that you want to write, as long as you don't step on anyone else's toes. Since nobody else is exploring interstellar space in any big way, you won't be stepping on anyone else's toes if your characters go on a proverbial Five-Year Mission.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

Some thoughts on CI and physical exploration...

**************

Cathy: so are there other questions you would like to ask?

Maico Tange: Yes, there is a question that I think a lot of people had… while Catgirl Industries spawned a number of different places in the ten years since you started them, why is there no exploration branch?

Cathy: oh, I think we are exploring a lot of things… I hope you have read the writeup on reputation based societies the Labs published last week? Or do you mean extrasolar exploration?

Maico Tange: I mean moving out and looking for new places out there in the galaxy.

Cathy: I think there always have been a small fraction within Catgirl Industries interested in exploration of space, but we are also a very social group that likes the usual comfort. Most of us don't want to spend a year in a tin can with only a dozen people to talk to.

Maico Tange: so you say Catgirl Industries will not be joining the groups of explorers out there?

Cathy: thats not what I meant. If you look closely at the large scale things we built, most of them are mobile and could be self-sufficient if we would try harder. Jenga has been a mobile space station since 2017 and even the Normandy has been designed for long range independent flight.

Maico Tange: but?

Cathy: but it took time to get the self-sufficient part really done. If a part of Catgirl Industries move out to start exploring the universe, we will not send a single spaceship out there… we will split of a part of our space stations, add a more redundant drive system and move out with a group of at least a hundred catgirls. And it will still take a few years of growth to get enough explorers interested.

Maico Tange: so you expect an expedition in the near future?

Cathy: I would say I expect it within the next decade. We need something that is robust enough to survive the long journey, that has the capability to repair and rebuilt everything inside and that has additional room for children. We have a few plans on the drawing boards, but I would not expect any prototyping before 2030. But we are trying to lure in the ESA for a small joined project at the moment.

Maico Tange: what kind of joined project?

Cathy: we want to built a pair of autonomous ships and sent them out on opposing vectors… one galactic North, one galactic South. The plan is to stop every six month for a few weeks and take a full sky survey, sending back the images to Jenga. If we can build ships that last a decade, we could get pictures of our galaxy from a distance of 5000 lightyears up and down. Think about it as the full star atlas for our galaxy and a good direct range estimation for the galaxies in the local group.

Maico Tange: Any plans when to start a project like this? Why not involve the Convention and get some sponsoring?

Cathy: maybe 2030, we don't know… as for the convention, lots of projects with one of the big groups get watered down, delayed or totally changed in committees. And we like the challenge to do it ourselves.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

ISP connection to the forums was playing silly buggers last night, so I didn’t try and post. Most of this has been at least touched upon already, but I needed to get it out of my head.

The main reason the Fen haven’t gone a-traipsing across the Galaxy is most of the characters have settled down into their lives in the Solar System. They have their own lives now (which was why most of them went up).

To get them moving, there would have to be a Need. Or moving would have to be easier. Probably both.

Let’s start with Needs shall we?

1) Adventure:
This is the original driving force for eth Fen, and it’ll still be there now things have settled down in the Solar System. There WILL be people who want to be the First on a planet, to go places because they’re there.
Then there are the Mysteries, of which we have a metric crap tonne of to choose from.

2) Unintended Consequences
Think about what the Fen have achieved in the post Boskone War period, and what having the Whole Fenspace Catalog publicly available will do. Workable, reasonably cheap Fusion power has solved the possible energy crisis on Earth, as well as knocked any number of climate issues on the head. Huge medical advancements have taken longstanding assumptions of health and tossed them in the shredder. All the life support technology in use by the Fen can help keep all those little villages clean and healthy. Recycling technology can clean up the planet. Growth mediums to vat grow meat and vegetables will cut land use by farms drastically.
We’re not talking population explosion; we’re talking population NOVA.
We don’t have anywhere to PUT these future people at the moment, and building all those homes and infrastructure will take time. Space habitats won’t cut it due to the extras needed (atmosphere, gravity, space safety systems) slowing them down. Then there are all the people who’d be complaining about losing all that land just to build homes.
But look! All those empty planets that you don’t need to terraform (too much). Wouldn’t they be easier targets?
And that’s just one possibility.

3) Resources
There are plenty of resources not found in the Solar System in practical amounts, or at all. Alien technologies are also a resource, but the Gate metals are probably the ones everyone wants.
In Candle in the Dark, Elerium could be used to make Battletech-style Jump Drives of insane utility (33 ly every 33 mins, and fits in a standard Space Shuttle’s payload bay), replacing germanium. What could the other Gate metal Skuldium do? After all, the Gates were likely built on site, so these elements must exist in relative abundance nearby.

4) External Events
When M Fnord detailed the Soviet’s lives and changes to 2024, he signed off with ‘Then the Fire Nation attacked’. What if it DID? Depending on the capabilities of an attacking force, many may try to run from a Solar System at war.
Solar weather may threaten Earth and Fenspace. We can only protect so much, why not go elsewhere?
A cloud of Dark Matter has been found approaching the Solar System. The gravitational effects will disrupt space travel for decades. We have some time to get people out-system before we’re practically cut off.
All of the above events are purely theoretical.

OK, that’s Needs. What about making travel easier?
How about Hades Station releasing a new drive system that could make all Wave-based ships travel at 0.2C in-system? Or the Feds/Soviets releasing a new drive that can move far more than the 500C of normal interstellar travel? Or someone else getting a drive system from the WFC working that beats what is commonly available? Limit Break or not?

Or we could try moving one of the Gates to Sol…

These are all just suggestions.

[ECSNorway]

Some stuff has been going on in the background and just not getting noted, because not a lot of people are writing stories -at all- right now, at least as far as I can tell.

My own creative energy has been going into the CITD timeline, as well as my own 'fic (see other forum).

That said, the Annwyn colony -does- exist in the main Fenspace timeline, and encouraging colonization is one of the big purposes behind Greenwood making the Island-3 habs available - even one of them, with a spacedrive slapped on, is a suitable colony vessel for several hundred people, and a much more comfortable way to travel than "a tin can". On the other hand, they're still a pretty big investment, so there aren't a -whole- lot of them, and it does take a fair bit of work for a group that doesn't have a wealthy backer to get hold of one.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[robkelk]

Some stuff has been going on in the background and just not getting noted, because not a lot of people are writing stories -at all- right now, at least as far as I can tell.

My own creative energy has been going into the CITD timeline, as well as my own 'fic (see other forum).

That said, the Annwyn colony -does- exist in the main Fenspace timeline, and encouraging colonization is one of the big purposes behind Greenwood making the Island-3 habs available - even one of them, with a spacedrive slapped on, is a suitable colony vessel for several hundred people, and a much more comfortable way to travel than "a tin can". On the other hand, they're still a pretty big investment, so there aren't a -whole- lot of them, and it does take a fair bit of work for a group that doesn't have a wealthy backer to get hold of one.

And even many of the wealthy backers don't take this route - StellviaCorp only bought http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=Eyrie]one Island-3.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

To get them moving, there would have to be a Need. Or moving would have to be easier. Probably both.

Yes... but lets not forget about the "writer perspective"... you need a plot to talk about.

2) Unintended Consequences
Think about what the Fen have achieved in the post Boskone War period, and what having the Whole Fenspace Catalog publicly available will do. Workable, reasonably cheap Fusion power has solved the possible energy crisis on Earth, as well as knocked any number of climate issues on the head. Huge medical advancements have taken longstanding assumptions of health and tossed them in the shredder. All the life support technology in use by the Fen can help keep all those little villages clean and healthy. Recycling technology can clean up the planet. Growth mediums to vat grow meat and vegetables will cut land use by farms drastically.
We’re not talking population explosion; we’re talking population NOVA.
We don’t have anywhere to PUT these future people at the moment, and building all those homes and infrastructure will take time. Space habitats won’t cut it due to the extras needed (atmosphere, gravity, space safety systems) slowing them down. Then there are all the people who’d be complaining about losing all that land just to build homes.
But look! All those empty planets that you don’t need to terraform (too much). Wouldn’t they be easier targets?
And that’s just one possibility.

I think solving "population growth" problems on Earth with space-tech would NEVER work... Earths population is growing too fast. Just to keep the current population constant, you would need to make 100.000+ people leave Earth... per day.

So yes, technology will have solved quite a few issues (and will clean up a few more over the next century), but a lot of Earths problems have to be solved there.

3) Resources
There are plenty of resources not found in the Solar System in practical amounts, or at all. Alien technologies are also a resource, but the Gate metals are probably the ones everyone wants.
In Candle in the Dark, Elerium could be used to make Battletech-style Jump Drives of insane utility (33 ly every 33 mins, and fits in a standard Space Shuttle’s payload bay), replacing germanium. What could the other Gate metal Skuldium do? After all, the Gates were likely built on site, so these elements must exist in relative abundance nearby.

And most necessary resources (practically all of them ^^) are available in insane amounts in the Solar System.

4) External Events
When M Fnord detailed the Soviet’s lives and changes to 2024, he signed off with ‘Then the Fire Nation attacked’. What if it DID? Depending on the capabilities of an attacking force, many may try to run from a Solar System at war.

Yes... an external "threat" would make a lot of people move, but do we want to change Fenspace and the Sol System into a warzone in the late 2020 or early 2030s?

Solar weather may threaten Earth and Fenspace. We can only protect so much, why not go elsewhere?

Fenspace yes... to move the population of Earth "off world" sounds beyond insane. At least within less than a few centuries.

A cloud of Dark Matter has been found approaching the Solar System. The gravitational effects will disrupt space travel for decades. We have some time to get people out-system before we’re practically cut off.

What would we gain (story wise) from this scenario?

[Threepony]

One thing I was thinking about is reverse-engineering the very basic principles of the gates and building tiny short-range versions that could go maybe 7-1/2 ly. A bit of salvaging Mal's idea without breaking the setting.

Maybe two way, but dedicated linked gates requiring gate stations and expeditions in order to extend out the network to allow longer ranged trips.

[HRogge]

One thing I was thinking about is reverse-engineering the very basic principles of the gates and building tiny short-range versions that could go maybe 7-1/2 ly. A bit of salvaging Mal's idea without breaking the setting.

Maybe two way, but dedicated linked gates requiring gate stations and expeditions in order to extend out the network to allow longer ranged trips.

What kind of stories would this enable...

except for "gatebuilding" ones?

[Threepony]

One thing I was thinking about is reverse-engineering the very basic principles of the gates and building tiny short-range versions that could go maybe 7-1/2 ly. A bit of salvaging Mal's idea without breaking the setting.

Maybe two way, but dedicated linked gates requiring gate stations and expeditions in order to extend out the network to allow longer ranged trips.

What kind of stories would this enable...

except for "gatebuilding" ones?

Makes it possible for most of the setting authors to have a wilderness roadtrip. Instead of having an all-out starship, theoretically an RV could fly out to Pluto and gate through to Alpha Centauri and on to a catalogued world, only to accidentally get lost camping. Or some dane country deciding to bum-rush colonize an M-class planet now that it's not insane to reach. Basic lowering of the threshhold in order to get extra-solar, without making it too easy. We could think up a few restrictions, if need be.

[HRogge]

Makes it possible for most of the setting authors to have a wilderness roadtrip. Instead of having an all-out starship, theoretically an RV could fly out to Pluto and gate through to Alpha Centauri and on to a catalogued world, only to accidentally get lost camping.

Fun fact:
getting to Pluto with a Fen car (10% lightspeed) takes ~ 2 days... flight to Alpha Centauri would be another three days, and getting to Alpha Centauri itself would be another two days. So better place these gate inside the limit, otherwise they don't help that much.

Fun fact 2:
the gate the Fen found ARE within the limit.

Fun fact 3:
lets assume a gate at L5 of Earth. As soon as you construct a gate at Alpha Centauri, its not really "the wilderness" anymore because you can get there quicker there than getting to Mars or Saturn. Expect a Mc Donalds there soon!

(edit)
question:
how do you plan to get lost on a planet with a spaceship of your own? You can just lift up and within seconds your navigational computer tells you where you are after looking at a few stars.

(edit 2)
why not have "lost in wilderness" stories on Mars? If your car with your only radio breaks down, you are suddenly weeks or months away from the next civilized place.

[robkelk]

Here's a question: Do the gates work on the ground, inside an atmosphere?

If they do, and if they can be replicated and if we can build a road through them ... never mind Stellvia, we've got ourselves a real stella via!
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

Here's a question: Do the gates work on the ground, inside an atmosphere?

If they do, and if they can be replicated and if we can build a road through them ... never mind Stellvia, we've got ourselves a real stella via!

Opening a large wormhole inside an atmosphere sounds scary. *G*

[Rajvik]

They do ot on stargate sg1 all the time and honestly this is the scale you're talking about going down to
 

[Bob Schroeck]

And tell me that the Stargate fans aren't already plotting on how to do this.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

And tell me that the Stargate fans aren't already plotting on how to do this.

I would, but I can't keep a straight face for that long.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[M Fnord]

One: Other than Mal, and (sort of) Dartz, everyone has stories that involve more small-scale issues close to home, or that would otherwise have no reason to go out.

This was 100% intentional. The hassles involved with interstellar travel were baked into the setting way back at the beginning, specifically to keep things close to home for as long as possible. It's also entirely my own damn fault, too. I'm not sure if that qualifies as irony or karma.

There's three major issues with the setting-as-constructed keeping interstellar travel from being a thing in Fenspace beyond what it already is. One is hardwired but cheatable, one is changeable but it potentially alters things in ways we don't want and the last one is easily alterable but it'd require dictatorial bullshit or actual work on the Collective's part--probably both--to make it functional.

The first issue is that handwavium-based FTL, the common stuff that everybody uses in constant-speed drives, has a hard limit of 500 times lightspeed. That allows the nearest stars (everything out to about 10-15 light years) to be just doable by randos in a camper-van(*), but anything more would require a fair bit of logistics. That was a deliberate gimping: at the time I was worried that cheap and fast FTL would make the setting too diffuse at the beginning. The Whole Fenspace Catalog gives us some room to cheat, since it explicitly has a bunch of different FTL schemes that might work for faster expansion, but that runs into the second issue.

The second issue is the whole "the 'Danelaw isn't interested" thing. This is one of the foundations of the whole edifice, and the general cultural indifference helps keep Fenspace its own thing instead of a wholly-owned subsidiary of USA, Inc. or whatever. Still, it has its limitations and probably the biggest one is without the massive population/economy sink of the terrestrial nations doing anything substantial on an interstellar basis is a couple orders of magnitude harder. But then that brings up the issue of more Earth involvement and how that affects Fenspace, and it's hard to not see how that would mess with the setting in a negative fashion.

The third issue is, simply, time. We're still very early in the Fenspace timeline, handwavium is barely a generation old at the current stop point and things are still very much in flux. Back at the beginning, this was a semi-conscious choice to let us use current memes, create SI avatars of the appropriate age and other stupid fanfic tricks. On the other hand, living in the late 00s-early 10s "now" means that a lot of things just aren't accessible to the Fenspace of that period. Of all of these, this is probably the easiest one to "fix" while at the same time being the hardest. I would happily work on Fenspace 2112, I've already got some half-baked ideas about what's changed & what hasn't. But, moving the timeline forward can't just be me, no matter how Fun Tyrannical I am, it has to be a group effort and I'm not 50% convinced that there's any real interest in doing that.

Which is the final sticking point, I think. The current active writers (save yours truly) seem to be perfectly content with the status quo, and honestly the quality of work continues to be pretty good, so there's no impetus to change. Unless and until that shifts, I expect interstellar ops in Fenspace will continue to be a dead letter.

(*) There's also a certain allowance for ego there too, as Ptichka and the Soviets were explicitly interstellar from the moment we added FTL to the mix.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Cobalt Greywalker]

Which was why I suggested moving a Gate. Although that might break the link to the network.

I have been thinking about introducing a new FTL method from the WFC, something that enables a character to take a month off to do a bit of travelling/exploration/discovery and come back. However, it can’t be too easy or the setting as it stands unravels.

I’ve considered all the FTL methods I know…and my brain ignores me to keep popping up Nova Praxis Jump Gates.

Jump Gates are point-to-point folded space type systems, and they can go up to 2 light-years per jump.
There are three types in the NP setting:
Jump Drives – The ship opens a jump gate which envelops it and shifts everything up to 2ly.
Jump Gates – The ship has a ring structure to stabilise the gate, holding it open for an hour before acting like a jump drive. Good for a mothership and a fleet.
Jump Rings – Huge stationary structures linked to other rings in range. Acts like a Jump Gate without moving afterwards.
The blub has ship drives being able to jump every four hours, so 12ly per day. The Rings only at once every 8 hours.

Downsides? The main one is that you can’t use them in gravity wells. (OK, you can but they destabilise after a while. One of the original gates allowed you to walk from Italy to Mars, up until the gate destabilised and most of the Mars end tried fitting in the room at the Italy side). Second is they’re resource hogs (maintenance and power, they use anti-matter reactors). For ships there is the fact they’re not too accurate. The MINIMUM drift in the source is 2 AU, which is fairly bad as it takes the local ships ~10 days to cover an AU. That makes them useless for in-system travel. Rings are better there (point-to-point remember?), but fen-drives are far faster than Nova Praxis ones.

So, you’d need a BIG ship to have a jump drive, and a Jump Ring network needs investment to build and maintain (like a railway).

But given the ‘meh’, it’s probably not worth it.

[HRogge]

I have to say I like the current limitations quite a bit... just adding a scale factor doesn't solve things.

As M. said, the closer stars are easily reachable by someone planning a long camping trip. Having stations at the edge (or outside) the Limit also help, because they are good waypoints on your way out.

The speed limits also help to keep the scenario a bit diverse... if suddenly FTL is possible within the Solar System, there is no such thing as a "police will come in a few hours, you are on your own" settings left. You fire up your "I NEED HELP NOW! MAYDAY" screamer and help could be minutes away. Things go from "Wild West/civilized cities vs. vast outback" to "just around the corner".

But I think we should talk more about "what plots we want and are not possible" at the moment... its easy to "invent" new tech... and its easy to completely break our current setting with it.

[Threepony]

The second issue is the whole "the 'Danelaw isn't interested" thing. This is one of the foundations of the whole edifice, and the general cultural indifference helps keep Fenspace its own thing instead of a wholly-owned subsidiary of USA, Inc. or whatever. Still, it has its limitations and probably the biggest one is without the massive population/economy sink of the terrestrial nations doing anything substantial on an interstellar basis is a couple orders of magnitude harder. But then that brings up the issue of more Earth involvement and how that affects Fenspace, and it's hard to not see how that would mess with the setting in a negative fashion.

Which is the final sticking point, I think. The current active writers (save yours truly) seem to be perfectly content with the status quo, and honestly the quality of work continues to be pretty good, so there's no impetus to change. Unless and until that shifts, I expect interstellar ops in Fenspace will continue to be a dead letter.

Well, I'm planning on messing with this point and upsetting the status quo after a fashion. I need to work on it today after I get my normal ponyfic done to get started on a revised opening (wasn't liking where the first was going), but yeah... the guy isn't going to like most of fenspace just leaving earth and the danes to their own business when they've got the tech to help improve lives all over the place, or barring that offer better economic opportunities to convince a pretty massive swell of danes from all over (including third world/undeveloped countries) to immigrate Up. Maybe pushing the population up to 15 to 20 million by 2021, with trying to make an immigration wave self-sustaining after that.