The fastest way to move a person or smaller amounts of mass is via teleportation. Point to point teleportation is a common technology through most of the civilized galaxy and the Fringe. Teleportation technology relies on surrounding target matter with a complex field that couples the target object with a large amount of tachyons, turning it into a type of metamatter called ‘quasitachyonic matter’ that is able to travel millions of times faster than the speed of light like tachyons are. This effect lasts a very short time depending on the input energy, often well within a fraction of a fraction of a second when moving between relatively small distances.
To prevent a catastrophic re-materialization at the destination, two bosonic fields are applied. The first is sent prior to the target and creates a strong kinetic force ahead of the target to push matter at the destination out of the way. The second field is applied to the target and adjusts the target's momentum to match that predicted for nearby matter at the destination, which is rather important, as otherwise the target would arrive at a very different velocity from the surroundings leading to a catastrophically violent result.
While being transferred along the teleporter network, a person is completely unconscious. In almost every case this is barely noticeable, as most teleports take only microseconds to complete, but in long teleportations across the galaxy, some people have reported having strange but short ‘dreams’, the contents of which they can't explain: seeing black orbs drift across faint white spaces, groups of color drifting through space, etc.
Teleporters function using the Nexus, transferring teleported masses through different nodes until it reaches its destination teleporter. Teleporters, like the Nexus, use a standardized and complex protocol that determines how each teleporter should take part in the network. This protocol is completely decentralized, preventing any one person from being able to manipulate the network outside of third party ranking systems that public teleporters often use to catalog common locations such as hubs.
Because of how quasitachyonic mass is transferred, standard Nexus protocols for data transfer cannot be used, as packet loss or other problems stemming from data integrity can be lethal during teleportation. When these protocols and safety hardware have not been fully developed when the technology was still young, early attempts at teleportation could result in loss of organs or body parts, and in very rare circumstances the user was completely vaporized from existence. The teleportation protocol fixes this problem by focusing on data integrity and reliability, establishing a strict peer-to-peer connection with another teleporter node in the network. When someone teleports, their digitized body travels through multiple other teleporters that act as nodes, beaming through other nodes until they reach their destination. If a problem occurs along the way, such as a teleporter losing power, teleported objects exceeding the mass or volume thresholds of the destination teleporter, an object occupying the teleporter, etc., the teleported mass is simply beamed back along the network, back into their starting teleporter.
Teleporters must use the teleporter protocol, verified through hashed checksums, in order to even participate in the network. To teleport to another teleporter, a digital key or ‘code’ must be obtained by your teleporter software. Teleporter codes are a cryptographic key that can only be generated using the private key of another teleporter. A key can be generated with different information, such as if it has an expiration date or how many times it can be used before it becomes invalid. When a key is used, it is verified by the target teleporter. If the key is valid, the person then teleports to the target teleporter.
Teleporter codes are much like Discord invites; they can be generated to be one-use, or expire at a certain time. Apps exist which can link with teleporters in order to provide an interface to easily generate and manage teleporter codes, allowing people to easily send codes to other people so that they can use their personal teleporter.
Public teleporters such as those found in colonies will have a single, unlimited-use code that is published so that anyone can use it. These codes are often published into ‘catalogs’ of public teleporters that rank certain colonies based on how popular they are. Having a high ranking on these catalogs can be extremely valuable for colonies, as most public teleporter kiosks have public displays and interfaces that allow people to teleport to colonies in these catalogs. Having a high rank will attract more teleporter traffic to the colony, making it more popular to visitors.
The most popular teleporter catalog in the Fringe is the Greater Fringe Index (GFI), a public Nexus site and teleporter catalog that allows people to ‘like’ colonies, ranking colonies based on how many likes it has. The GFI also sometimes ‘features’ a colony, displaying it on the front page. It isn't known who actually runs the GFI or where it is hosted. Instances have been observed where colonies with low ranks on the catalog suddenly and mysteriously jump up in rank or even become featured, inciting rumors that the manager of the site accepts bribes from colonies in return for artificially boosting their ranking. A popular example of such occurring is with Baldr's Sanctum, which suddenly jumped from the near bottom of the catalog to the top.
Teleporters are extremely complex and advanced devices, fit with a large number of features, safety hardware required by the teleporter protocol, and more. Teleporters are usually very expensive and are typically imported from various companies in Civspace that have the means of manufacturing them. Teleporters also use up an extraordinary amount of power to teleport something, the amount of power required only increasing exponentially with mass. Teleporters in colonies require a considerable energy infrastructure to run properly, and teleporters and ships will often use up the entire ship's energy reserves with one teleport, requiring it to recharge. In addition, it takes an immense amount of energy to convert a quasitachyonic mass, meaning the amount of power a teleporter has access to determines its effective range. If a teleporter node in the teleporter network is outside of this range, the teleporter will not function. The teleporter protocol can calculate the range of a teleporter.
Because of the huge energy requirements for teleportation, teleportation is not commonly used for mass shipping of cargo, reserved almost exclusively to transporting people or making small deliveries. Teleporters will have a mass and volume threshold, determined automatically by the size of the teleporter's kiosk and how much power it can draw. If something attempts to teleport into it that is too large, the teleportation will be rejected and returned. This mass threshold can be changed with a key, but not above the teleporter's maximum, allowing for people to only allow smaller masses in; this feature is valuable for small deliveries made with teleporters, to ensure that people can only send in small packages and not people that may attempt to break into their ships or homes. Many online shops that have teleporter delivery will often require teleporter codes to have a small mass threshold, typically by law.
Due to the nature of some materials, certain substances cannot be teleported in larger amounts. These include volatile erchioids such as liquid or gaseous erchius fuel, and radioactive materials like solarium. If teleported in larger than small amounts, these materials will simply vanish while being teleported. This is primarily an OOC restriction to prevent people from teleporting fuel into their ships or teleporting nuclear weapons into a colony.