Farcaster

A farcaster is an instantaneous transportation device in the fictional Hyperion universe. Farcasters allow two points separated by a vast distance to be brought together at a Farcaster Portal. The Farcaster network connects hundreds of planets of the Hegemony of Man into their WorldWeb. The Farcaster network allowed transport between connected worlds without any time discrepancy, unlike Hawking drive (FTL - faster than light) transport provided by spaceships of the Hegemony era. The Farcaster was developed by the Artificial Intelligences (AIs) of the TechnoCore and given to humanity sometime after the Hegira.

It was the destruction of the Farcaster network at the order of Hegemony CEO Meina Gladstone in 2852 which precipitated the Fall.

The roughly 250 worlds which are connected by Farcaster are known collectively as the WorldWeb. Each world had thousands if not millions of Farcaster connections with every other planet in the Web; all connected through singularity spheres located in orbit of the world they serviced, though truly there is only one connection to The Void Which Binds. The actual number of portals is irrelevant as all are the same portal. At the height of the Hegemony it was common for the extremely wealthy to construct houses on multiple worlds, with separate rooms connected by Farcaster. It was also common for planets to rely so heavily on the Farcasters and the ease of trade allowed through them that they produced little or no natural foodstuffs of their own. In this sense the Farcaster can be likened to the blood vessels of the human body, essential for life.

Planets colonized by the Hegemony, but not inducted into the Farcaster network, are not considered members of the Worldweb. Trade and Hegemony support are available to planets outside the Worldweb, but interstellar travel between worlds can take months of ship time, equivalent to years or decades of observer time. As such, being connected to the WorldWeb was a major goal for many planetary governments.

Before planetside Farcaster portals can be installed (often in large 'concourses', but also on a private scale, in some cases used as 'doors' between rooms in expensive, multi-planetary homes), an orbiting singularity sphere the size of a small moon must be constructed. This process in itself can take years; getting to the point of singularity sphere construction can take even longer.

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