On 11Apr2019 1119, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) wrote:
> The J6 'Fleet Courier' is, AFAIK, first mentioned in the CT supp
> 'Fighting Ships...' that detailed various Imperial Navy ships found
> in the 'Marches.Later a special J6 courier route (shortcut) across
> the 'Great Rift' is shown on some star maps.I believe it was also
> mentioned that the gov/mil got the news about Dulinor's Doozie well
> ahead of everyone else. IMO, there 3I would have an extremely well
> developed J6 courier network, replacing, in the last century, J5
> network (TL-max was 14 during SolRimWar) that preceded it.
The J-4 network was judged 'fast enough' for normal use, and the IN had
its J-6 couriers for stuff that the IN (and nobles with influence with
the IN, of course) could use. The Imperial family had those disguised
J-6 ships. This is canon
I have no doubt that the various mega-corps had their own fleets of J-6
ships, probably disguised to look like some more common low-jump
courier. I also have no doubt that the Scouts had their own J-6
couriers. Likewise the Solomani spies, though theirs would more likely
to a couple of high-jump ships with wilderness refueling capability that
would be available to a few agents for sending *very* high priority
information back to the Confederation.
None of these entities would find it terribly useful to create a large,
obvious, and really expensive full-scale network of J-6 ships, let alone
one that everyone could use. Thus when things went tits-up, those who
were connected got advance warning (very considerably in advance if they
were far from the event itself).
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Well, we know that the IN did actually have a large & well developed network & also, probably, as you mentioned, the ISS.
Esp since, after the 'Civil Wars', when the IN eventually eliminated the Domain-level commands.
This meant that the sectors, eventually, were directly under the Central Naval Command at Capital.
There would be considerable incentive to cut down on msg-lag.
As I recall, the TL-max for the 3I was 13 at the end of the 'Civil Wars' so the X-boat system was 'cutting edge'.
When higher-rated j-drives became avail it'd be little surprise to see the IN, for example but not exclusively, taking advantage of it.
In fact, I'll be that long before the X-boat system was conceived the IN & various other orgs had found good reason to establish their own 'exclusive' networks.
And, the 3I actually did finally decide that the X-boat network needed to be upgraded.
But then the problems began with drop tanks.
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