Pads

First drawings of a Pad, 1994

The almost ubiquitous Alliance technology. "All roads lead to the Pad. Unless they lead to an airlock and a cold and lonely death."

History

Invented by Tam-illee. Developed in 102 BA, just over a hundred years (101) after the Well drive, which was the technology on which the Pads were based. Pad technology made the Medimage platform possible; since they're based on the same technology, technicians can service both as long as they're aware of the differences between them.

Economics

Pads are expensive; because of that they are in widespread use in the Alliance Core, on old and developed worlds, and almost unheard of on colonies or on the fringes. (On particularly rich worlds, large institutions like universities will have on-campus pad hubs). Likewise, only government ships (Fleet mostly) and ships with wealthy owners will have them; other ships rely on shuttle transfers, or direct docking. Some jobs, mostly on Core planets, are sufficiently high-paying/prestigious that they give or lend employees who live in distant locations a Pad for their household, to remove the commute.

Public Pad stations will ask users their destination (and are rarely manned, except by a few oversight/managers/technicians). Users are charged transfer fees; these are significant enough to encourage walking. Transfer fees are waived for emergency response teams/personnel, and during major disasters/emergencies, Pads are reserved for the use of emergency personnel only. Padding from orbit is more expensive than intraplanetary-surface Padding; increased distance increases the fee, though most planets standardize the fees into ranges ("interplanetary, intercontinental, intra-metropolitan, etc"). "On Core worlds, public Pad travel was common enough that there was almost invariably a line for use followed by a crowd on exiting, waiting to pass through the automated security check."

Shipping

Some companies refuse to ship via Pad because they claim it affects the product, particularly foodstuffs, as with the chocolate Vasiht'h used to make Jahir's drink when they first met at the university.

Technology

Quantum tunnel, a technology made possible by the Well Drive's invention. In a Pad-to-Pad transfer, one Pad is given a set of coordinates of another Pad to form a 'connection'. Once this connection is established, both Pads send signals to one another to verify both are in working order, tests administered to each other as an extra safeguard against problems. If both pass this verification test, then an artificial wormhole is created, tunneling between Pad A and Pad B. The person utilizing the Pad walks over it and finds himself in short order walking over the second Pad in his new destination. In the initial days of the Pad's development, energy weapons of any kind (palmers, holoblades, etc) didn't make it through the quantum tunnel without damage. You couldn't bring a Pad through a Pad tunnel either, at that time; now, it is possible, as long as the Pad you are transporting isn't powered. Pads can be folded or rolled, depending on their design.

They can be used to send people and material to a location that does not have a receiving Pad, but you have to have a Pad to go from the location.

Range is planetary, and orbital. According to original notes, Pads are only certified for orbital distances or smaller (about 200 km). Hypothetically pads can be chained between stations. Shorter distances are less energy-intensive and safer, making hubs economical.

Destinations can be reached via coordinate or stated landmark/destination. Pads are typically assigned names in their code if they're meant to be permanent installations ("Ontine Courtyard Pad", "Seersana University Art District Pad", etc).

Security and Safety

Pads can be blocked by shields (which can be created by a portable shield generator, or generated by ship or building) or by a sensor scrambler. Violent atmospheric conditions can render the use of Pads unsafe; they are programmed to prevent transfer during these conditions unless overridden. "Before the Pad’s installation, Sediryl hadn’t had any idea that cordons could be established that forced incoming transmissions to route to specific nodes. That meant the likelihood of someone Padding an entire army into any of their strongholds was minuscule."

Pads can be locked from use based on biosignatures, as Liolesa did with her hidden library Pad, prior to the palace coup that lifted the Veil.

Pads keep records of their transits (and the people using them), but these records can be hacked/forged (as with anything).

Pads are designed to prevent transfers to locations with too much movement or too many people; doing so can cause injury or death. For this reason, most on-planet Pads are programmed to do only Pad-to-Pad transfers.

Sanitation

Pads can also be used for sanitation and disinfection; stepping over one set to that setting will remove foreign particles and any dangerous microbes/pathogens listed in the Pad's internal file system (which is updated regularly by hitting the u-banks, unless this setting is disabled). For sapients of unusual body shape or size, Pad bathing can be more effective than anything other than full-body immersion, particularly since in many places, shower cubes are designed for an average biped.

Pads can also be used to dry people or items, and can be a common feature of pools or coasts in wealthy/high-tech areas. While rare, there are Pads intended only for cleaning/drying. These abbreviated Pads are technically still capable of Pad transit over distances, but they lack the power, safety and security features, and size to do more than their sanitation functions.

Design and Visuals

Pads can be configured with varying levels of feedback, but staring at someone directly as they pass through a Pad-to-Pad tunnel causes a momentary flash, in which the person is seen as a silhouette. When people appear via a Pad-to-non-Pad transition, looking directly at where they are can be nausea-inducing in some individuals.

Pads have diagnostic/status lights: one for power; one to indicate the status of the tunnel - waiting, searching, stable (blue), unstable. The light flashing indicates incoming traffic. . A third light is used for security alerts--an orange light there indicates the Pad is locked for security reasons. Pads, unless changed, can be addressed by vocal commands.

Pads ship with aural feedback as well, though this can be disabled or configured to suit the user. Arpeggios (rising for incoming and falling for departing) are common, as are series of chimes. "Alliance Pads signaled their various states with chimes and sweet-toned arpeggios." Also: "A chime sounded through the ship—the warning that the Pad was connecting to another, authorized Pad."

Sizes

• Pads come in single-person versions, multi-person, and cargo-sized.

Terminology

• Fleet calls the compartments with pads in them 'pad rooms'; they are usually 'pad stations' if on a large/static asset like a base or space station.
• Small, single-person Pad locations (usually in booths or gazebo-like structures) are referred to as Pad kiosks.
• Pad hub stations are usually planetary establishments.
• Large enough Pad hubs are usually referred to as a Pad nexus.
• Using a Pad is usually referred as 'crossing over' a Pad, or 'stepping over' a Pad.

Other Species

The Chatcaava have some equivalent of Pads, though it is unclear whether it has similar properties to the Alliance version. They are a matte black in color, and flatter than the Alliance variety. "Chatcaavan [Pads] did not share a common protocol, but the ones on the Twelveworld Lord’s ship had been configured as warnings, not indicators. The buzz made her jaw ache, but it passed with a wash of green light."

Pads are used as part of space battles for Chatcaava. Chatcaava will Pad to a crippled ship, with Pads, rather than launching fighters which are primarily used to disable enemy vessels to enable boarding. "Chatcaavan fighters were single-occupant craft, and on their carriers their pilots entered through a hatch in the belly. But such fighters were intended to harry their prey to the point of dropped shields, and then to commit their pilots to boarding actions staged via the single-person Pads in each vessel."