ThinksMarkedly wrote:Joat42 wrote:Technically it's entirely correct using the term "sublight" since no lightspeed signal actually travels at lightspeed due to the fact that it doesn't travel through a perfect vacuum.
That's far more pedantic than my relay idea!Of course, the above is just an esoteric nitpick and the use of the word in the way it was done was kind of strange. Sublight in SciFi is usually related to engines or movement, not communication which is usually classified as being at lightspeed or FTL.
The most likely in-universe explanation is that the speaker simply mis-spoke. As you say, sublight is more often used to talk about movement of ships, so it might be in actual use aboard ship. Misusing to mean a light-speed signal (compared to an FTL gravitic signal) is entirely possible.
I don't have Governor handy at the moment, but I believe RFC used "sublight" to refer to light speed comms there, also.