Advanced alien insect long range communication
I'm looking to create a highly advanced insect communication network that could be broadcast on an interplanetary basis.
Now, my insects communicate through chemical signals and smells which they produce themselves through secretion, so obviously the vacuum of space presents a problem.
Assuming that the chemical signals are the only way to communicate efficiently, how would I overcome this limitation in communications to allow them to be an effective space-faring race?
Edited to add: My concern is not so much for distance as it is how the signals are translated into a format my insects can understand.
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1 answer
I think it is fair to assume these insects are haptic; meaning they have some sense of touch in their environment. Then the solution can be a code, like humans have, developed along the lines of morse code. Long before they engaged in space travel they had to engage in long distance communications over greater than their typical travel distance. Morse code over wire is an easy choice for that; and although we used audible signals, they could have used haptic signals in the same way (as we would have done, if naturally deaf). long-touch, short-touch is just as easy to send and receive with a magnetic on/off switch as dot / dash.
If they have a language, it is hard to imagine it does not have a "baby language" of a small set of words that could be numbered, and hard to imagine a race intelligent enough to become spacefaring would not stumble across binary encoding and an enumerated set of basic words, letters, or concepts.
Like with humans; some of them must learn the code: It isn't natural to either of us. But also like humans, presumably some learn it so well they can Morse in their dreams and it becomes second nature, or a second language they speak like a native.
So there is your communications system; it requires trained senders and receivers (which communicate with their clients through chemical processes, just as Morse senders heard/read a message to send, and Morse receivers spoke/wrote the messages received, i.e. they acted as Morse Translators).
Like other comm systems, it would evolve from their very early industrial stage and a primitive code (like Morse) into whatever level of sophistication it required; perhaps even becoming automated and eliminating operators. But perhaps not: If the organs or body parts needed to manufacture the chemicals or convey them is was too complex to do with machinery, then even though the communication is electronic you could (for your story purposes) still always require both live senders and live receivers. In fact it could be a plot element, if your communications providers were killed in accident or battle: A working transmitter and receiver, but nobody trained to use it...
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