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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
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| Fatline | ||
| A communications technology that provides immediate communication between star systems; faster-than-light communication. |
The fatline is an artifact served up to humanity by The Core, a group of artificial intelligences that have effectively divorced themselves from human control. The term derives from the common acronym for faster-than-light, FTL.
| Urgent fatline messages from Tau Ceti Center demanded that the ranking officer abord the orbiting HS Denieve settle the situation on Qom-Riyadh, free all hostages and depose the New Prophet ... without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons within the planet's atmosphere. |
| Technovelgy from Hyperion,
by Dan Simmons. Published by Doubleday in 1989 Additional resources -
|
I've included the reference here because I like the word and it's derivation; other earlier examples of faster-than-light communication include the cosmic teletype from Carl Jacobi's Cosmic Teletype (1957), ansible from Rocannon's World by Ursula LeGuin, ultrawave relay from the Foundation stories by Isaac Asimov and taprisiots from Whipping Star by Frank Herbert.
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
