Zaarin wrote: ↑Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:52 pm
How does one travel long distances?
Depends on where you're going. In Sanmra, the permanent portal network can take you to almost all enclaves, and even those that don't have permanent portals will have temporary ones opened regularly. It's much the same for Tuanmali. But traveling outside of a portal network means leaving enclaves and traveling overland the boring way. For example, let's say you're in Elten, the capital city of Sanmra, and you want to travel to New York City. There's no portal that takes you directly to New York City, as NYC is outside of Sanmra. What you have to do instead is use the portal network to travel to the closest Sanmran enclave, in Vermont, then travel "normally" the rest of the way, perhaps by bus and train.
Traveling between dalar nations can get tricky. None of them have portals that link directly to one another. As a result, when traveling from Sanmra to Tuanmali, the fastest method is to take portals down to the lone enclave Sanmra maintains in El Salvador, then exit it and nip across town to enter the lone enclave Tuanmali maintains in El Salvador, from which you can enter the Tuanmali portal network. But traveling from Sanmran enclaves (Central Asia/North America) to Lorhani ones (located in Europe) isn't nearly as straightforward--there simply are no enclaves near each other, which means you must travel by train, airplane, etc. through the human world to reach a Lorhani enclave. For example, a Sanmran traveler might travel to NYC as mentioned above, then catch a plane from there to a major European airport before taking a train to their final destination.
Making matters more complicated is that Lorhan doesn't have nearly as good of a permanent portal system as Tuanmali and Sanmra, and arranging for temporary portals between Lorhani enclaves can be such a nightmare that it's often easier to leave one enclave and catch a train to another one, rather than travel internally.
Ad-hoc portals outside of the portal network also exist. However, because all of the major dalar nations tightly regulate portal operation, these are generally "black market" portals not operated by any formal authority. My hypothetical Sanmran traveler who wants to get to Lorhan
could go the safe route by catching a plane to Europe from NYC... or they could take the faster and more expensive route by rolling up to the black market portals in New York City that can take you directly to Paris or Berlin. But you're running more of a risk, because the portals are operated by smugglers who don't pay attention to things like "minimum safety standards" and "passenger comfort". Using portals in portal networks is only slightly more strenuous for a traveler than stepping through a door... using the black market portals is a lot more painful.
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