FTL communications are acheived by three methods in the Gamma universe

Quantum Morse

The first method was developed for communication with the Galileo, Earth's first FTL starship. A few other factions that developed primitive FTL technology used the same method, but it requires a lot of set-up, and can only be used to talk between one ship and a base station.

Quantum Morse takes a panel of atoms, which are quantum entangled with another panel of atoms, these were orginally split and captured by two different panels , but quantum entanglement means that both "halves", wherever they are in the universe, will have the same properties, including charge. The "measurement problem" of quantum physics, where atoms seem to "know" they are observed, neccesitates the use of millions of split atoms, so a more general charge can be observed, instead of a specific one.

Once this mechanism is set up, one panel is mounted in the starship, and the other is kept at the base. An extremely compex setup of isolating equipment is needed to maintain a panel of atoms in thier "split" state, making this communication setup one of the most expensive parts of the ship. Even given all the other exotic, high-energy components in the drive and sensitive scientific equipment in the laboratories.

Communication works simply by switching the charge of one panel back and forth, and observing the charge in the other. Though this is a "digital" signal, the observations are by neccessity slow and sometimes unclear, as the overall charge may not be measured as definitely positive or negative, due to the measurement problem, and the communication computer needs to make a decision. It can also do this based on the context of a message already received - even in the future, there is predictive text! For this reason, Quantum Morse is used for just what it says - sending Morse code. All of the other detailed scientific observations the ship collects are stored and physically returned on drives and disks when the ship comes home. Only general interpretations of the data (EG habitability of worlds, new resources) are transmitted over Quantum Morse.

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