Territorial Claim Unit

A Territorial Claim Unit (TCU) uses a faction module to route data to the Galactic Council of that universe about a factions ownership of a system.

## Description

TCUs provided that they maintain a connection to a Galactic Territorial Claim Node will grant the owner de-facto ownership of the system, and is free it enforce its will on that system in compliance with the Standard Galactic Protocol, whenever people will respect that claim is a different thing entirely.

## Details

The TCU works by establishing a data flow that will eventually get to a Galactic Territorial Claim Node (TCN), the Faction Module itself is the starting point of this connection, the Super Powerful Microprocessors and Network Systems will establish a route defined by the owning faction upon being activated, this route may go through as many nodes as the owning faction deems necessary as long as it reaches a TCN, the data flow will constantly update the data concerning the claim approximately every 4.67 seconds if an update is not received within 30 seconds, the TCN will fallback to setting the claim to "Contested" status, if it was set to anything else, either the owning faction or its enemies will benefit, thus the claim is marked as "Neutral Territory" and it will become possible for another faction to use a TCU on the contested system.

This does not necessarily mean the TCU has to be physically destroyed, all that needs to happen is for the data flow to be interrupted as a result. It is common (although illegal under the Standard Galactic Protocol) for factions to disrupt the data flow using cyber attacks, usually forcing the data to route into a dead end, preventing it from reaching the a TCN, although this is rarely successful and carries heavy fines if a faction is caught as quoted in Section 433.12 of the Standard Galactic Protocol:

* "Territorial Claim Units (TCUs) shall never be the victim of any form of damage other than physical destruction, any attempts to disrupt a TCUs functionality through any method other than physically destroying it it strictly forbidden, this includes, but not limited to, cyber attacks of any nature and electromagnetic pulse devices (EMP devices)"

In an attempt to prevent cyber attacks, most factions employ rapid changing encryption keys, updating the keycode approximately every 2.11 seconds.

Most factions will route their connection through their own network, then a perimeter network (usually a Demilitarised Zone), then to the Galactic Council Network leading to the TCN, however some networks route directly to the TCN and some employ addition nodes.

Most TCUs are manufactured by the Galactic Council to ensure compliance with protocols, some factions also produce these but are required to follow Galactic Standard Protocols, the key rules in the manufacturing of TCUs are (quoted from the Galactic Standard Laws:

* "All Territorial Claim Units (TCUs) must be unable to be placed within 1 system of another TCU, this prevents two factions from owning the same system, this must be achieved through a modulating jamming system that can only be activated if there is no other Territorial Claim Unit present in the system, this jammer must be full-spectrum and jam any other TCUs before they can make any connections"
* All Territorial Claim Units (TCUs) must require fingerprint scanning, some form of ID scanning, eyeball scan and voice recognition built into the access panel all of these methods must be completed successfully in order to access the TCU control panel, this prevents anyone with the intent of sabotage from bypassing Section 433.12

* "All TCUs must produces must be hand checked by a Galactic Standard Official and given a Galactic Standard Stamp of Approval before being shipped to be sold"

Pirates often produce illegal TCUs and use their own TCNs because Pirates are not legally allowed to use normal TCUs as they are not a recognised galactic power, usually routing connections through their own networks, rumors have it that Pirate TCUs can be used to jam radar signals, which would explain why pirate stations are hidden from the Galactic Maps until you are within their cannon range.