“Grid ghettoes” are systems without drive relays—the deaf Grids that cannot communicate directly with other Grids. Operating within the confines of a deaf Grid is the bane of gridpilots everywhere, but sometimes they must. In these far-flung systems, the only way of transmitting or receiving anything to or from another system—data, programs, or shadows—is through the storage banks of a driveship.

The situation is almost too depressing for a modern gridpilot to bear. First, he must pay a data merchant to take the data to its destination, either directly or by traveling to a system with a drive relay and then transmitting it to its ultimate destination. Either way, it’s likely to take weeks or months, since a system without a drive relay is likely to only harbor smaller driveships to act as couriers. Such small ships are unlikely to reach another settled system in a single starfall Once the transmission does reach its destination, any reply requires similar arrangements and time.

CCC oversight in Grid ghettoes is also often minimal, with local governments or corporations maintaining and administering Grid hardware and operation as they see fit. The result is that data access in these systems is slow, extraordinarily expensive, and often unreliable. It is not uncommon for communications in, to, and from deaf Grids to be intercepted, altered, misrouted, or simply lost completely.