OmniNet

For the out-of-story database, please see OmniNet (database).

The OmniNet is a network of computers throughout most of the Web of Worlds, providing free access to information in many countries. Some nations, such as the Esper Union and Scandian League limit access to files, however. It was created by Rudra Tairen, as part of the reformed OmniSent. The OmniNet is one of the major technological breakthroughs that defines and shapes the modern era.

History

The OmniNet is the ultimate brainchild of the OmniSent's founder, Rudra Tairen -- whose mission for much of her life was free information for everyone across the Web of Worlds. To know the full history of the OmniNet, one must first examine the broader history of communications technology in the Web.

The Great War

More than any other event in Web history, the Great War spurred rapid advances in technology across the four Old Core dimensions. Owing to the conflict of the time, much of the technology developed had immediate military applications -- including technological advances in communications. During this era, radio and other wireless communications technologies were devised for the first time. The OmniSent -- in its nascent form as a resistance movement against the Dark Wrath -- was among the first organizations to effectively employ radio communications in intelligence gathering. Information gathered by OmniSent spies was relayed by radio broadcast to groups like the Grand Army and the Ticonderan Freedom Fighters, who were they able to employ the intelligence to great effect against the armies of the Dark Gods. Later, both the TFF and the Celpo would employ radio in much the same way that the OmniSent pioneered; the rapidity with which the Celpo was able to discover and transmit espionage data proved to be one of the key factors in the unravelling of the Dark Wrath war machine.

Post-Great War

After the collapse of Grimstone Castle and the defeat of the Dark Gods, the OmniSent's mission underwent a transformation. Rudra Tairen, among others, believed that there was as great a risk of authoritarian control and suppression of the people from the newly-victorious Grand Army as there ever was from the inherently evil Dark Wrath. To that end, she sought to empower her organization as a check against the seemingly absolute power of the Grand Army and its House of Lords, spying on all forces equally, believing that to reveal the secrets of men and women in power was the only way to keep all parties honest and thereby preserve peace.

Of course, revealing herself and her aims to those she was spying on ultimately resulted in the OmniSent Crisis, and the removal of Rudra from control over the OmniSent for a time. In her place rose Roland Boderick, who reshaped the OmniSent yet again, returning it to its roots as a covert military resistance force. Once more, military aims saw leaps in communications technology: magitek devices which coupled Esperian and Gatian technology with Arythian magic produced advanced communications devices that enabled OmniSent cells within the same dimension to communicate with each other instantaneously, even after the Grand Army and its member states began cracking down on the OmniSent's infocenters.

Rudra's Return

After the battle of Atlantis, Rudra reappeared and resumed control of the OmniSent. It was around this time that Gatian personal computing technology had really begun to spread across the Web, and most nations had some form of computer networking system in place -- and both Mana and Gate had pioneered world-wide computer network systems.

A true Web-wide network was a dream yet unrealized, complicated by factors of distance and portal mechanics that were difficult to overcome. Physical cable was tried by media corporations like Tuna Newsmedia and Bahamut WEB -- in order to facilitate Web-wide television broadcast as well as computer networking -- but in the early days of this experiment, the cable and pipes that ran through sea-portals were often prone to collisions with seaships passing through.

Satellite relays were tried next, the idea being that you could beam a conventional broadcast signal from a satellite in one dimension, through a space-strand portal to a waiting satellite in another dimension. However, the time delay of this method was exacerbated both by the distance between the strand-portals (always beyond the 9th orbital) and populated worlds (typically the 3rd or 4th orbital), and the curious nature of "strandtime" (that is, time as it is perceived by individuals making the transit over a space-strand). Ultimately, satellite relays proved to not be very cost effective.

The true revolution, and the birth of the OmniNet, came when Rudra and her technicians devised the SRS - strand relay system. Again resulting from a combination of magic and technology, an SRS is a broadcast wave that integrates with the mana strands of time (which counteracts broadcast delay and preserves broadcast speed), motion (which allows the wave to travel rapidly between two or more points) and thought (which allows the wave to store an impressive amount of information as it moves). The SRS waves, being partly magical, survive the trip through the portals with much greater integrity than a standard broadcast wave would, require no physical infrastructure passing through the portals, and almost never cause an obstruction to normal portal traffic.

To facilitate the OmniNet, SRS waves are broadcast to ocean buoys deployed near (but not obstructing) sea portals. They move between the sea portals to a destination buoy, which then relays them to onshore broadcast towers, which connect into hardline computer networks.

For the first few years after its inception, the OmniNet was a thing found exclusively in the Core worlds of the Web. But that all changed once Rudra tackled the abandoned satellite relay idea, plugging it into the OmniSent's proprietary SRS wave technology. Through leasing space and equipment on Grand Army Sentinel Stations, the OmniSent broadcasts SRS waves through strand-portals and out into space through relays in OmniSent signal buoys -- providing OmniNet access both to the Fringe worlds and to itinerant travellers through most parts of Web space.