Ansible

Ursula K. Le Guin first used the word ansible in her 1966 novel ''Rocannon's World. Additionally, Robert A. Heinlein, in his 1958 novel Time for the Stars,'' employed instantaneous telepathic communication between identical twin pairs over interstellar distances, and like Le Guin, provided a technical explanation based on a non-Einsteinian principle of simultaneity. == In Le Guin's works ==

In her subsequent works, Le Guin continued to develop the concept of the ansible: • In The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Le Guin writes that the ansible "doesn't involve radio waves, or any form of energy. The principle it works on, the constant of simultaneity, is analogous in some ways to gravity ... One point has to be fixed, on a planet of certain mass, but the other end is portable." • In The Word for World Is Forest (1972), Le Guin explains that in order for communication to work with any pair of ansibles, at least one "must be on a large-mass body, the other can be anywhere in the cosmos". • In The Dispossessed (1974), Le Guin tells of the development of the theory leading up to the ansible. Any ansible may be used to communicate through any other, by setting its coordinates to those of the receiving ansible. They have a limited bandwidth, allowing at most a few hundred characters of text to be communicated in any transaction of a dialog session, and are attached to a keyboard and small display to perform text messaging. == Use by later authors ==

Since Le Guin's conception of the ansible, the name of the device has been borrowed by numerous authors. While Le Guin's ansible was said to communicate "instantaneously", • Joe M. McDermott, in the 2017 novel The Fortress at the End of Time. • Thomas Happ, in the 2021 Metroidvania Axiom Verge 2, uses the term for superluminal - and transdimensional - communication terminals. • David Wellington, in the 2024 novel Revenant-X. • Elizabeth Moon, in the 1995 novel Winning Colors. and the novel Vatta's War • Jason Jones, in the 1995 computer game Marathon 2: Durandal. • L. A. Graf, in the 1996 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel ''Time's Enemy''. • Neal Asher, in his Polity series of novels including Gridlinked (2001), in which the runcible, named in homage to the ansible, is an interstellar wormhole generator/teleporter. • Dan Simmons, in the 2003 novel Ilium. • Becky Chambers, in her Wayfarer novels, including the 2014 novel The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and 2016 novel A Closed and Common Orbit. • Ross McCullough, in his novel The Body of this Death: Letters from the Last Archbishop of Lancaster in 2026. Other depictions of FTL communication Many authors have depicted FTL communication devices in their fictional works without necessarily using the term "ansible". • Christopher Rowley, in his 1986 novel Starhammer, describes the Deep Link, an instantaneous interstellar communicator. Most commonly used for messaging, it is capable of voice and video conversations as well, although the latter only at great expense. • The New Jedi Order, 1999, featured enemies, the Yuuzhan Vong, use organic communication devices known as villips, which can transmit over infinite distances thanks to telepathic connections formed while being harvested in groups. • Philip Pullman, in the 2000 novel The Amber Spyglass, part of the His Dark Materials trilogy • Liu Cixin, in the 2008 trilogy ''Remembrance of Earth's Past'' • Kim Stanley Robinson, in the 2012 novel 2312 • L. J. Cohen in the 2014 novel Derelict • Neon Yang, in the 2017 novella Waiting on a Bright Moon ==See also==