Some thoughts about what impacts should be from the new Drift lanes, which provide a maximum 7 day travel time from certain linked points.
General military implications: This makes it easier/more reliable to wage a war against a point at the other end from a logistical point of view. You know how long it will take for your forces/resupply to arrive. On the other hand, it makes it much easier to defend the choke point - the lanes themselves are quite narrow for tactical combat, making line and array weapons able to blast forces that have to be clumped up, and you can station fleets and defensive weapons at the exit point as well. Probably the best way to take it (as with wormholes in the Miles Vorkosigan books) is from both ends at once - a fleet arrives via normal Drift travel to attack from local space while a second is pushing through the lane so that the defender has to split his forces. Tough to coordinate the timing, though.
General political implications: Internal system politics will change due to one planet having a Drift lane that elevates it (or puts it risk) compared to system neighbors. They're still 1d6(+2) days away from the lane, but that's still faster than a direct trip to a Vast destination, and the same average but with less variance of a Near Space destination. This gives them a stake in the military, diplomatic, and economic decisions of their neighbor with the lane, who may not be party of a unified alliance or government.
For Drift Lane series, like Prosperiola, bookend systems are going to have strong reasons to form alliances against systems caught between them. Depending on whether the map or book is correct the Veskarium is between either Verces and Marixah or Marixah and Great Shadar- those pairs should have at least tacit understandings of what they'd do if a Vesk-3 fleet headed through the lane to attack the other. A show of force or counterattack could make the attacker return home to defend his planet caught in a Drift Lane pincer.
General economic implications: Synergestic economies are going to arise between linked pairs who have lower transport costs for interstellar shipping of compponent parts. An industrial system in the Vast who has used up their local resources but now has a drift lane to a system with lots of raw materials is going to start importing a highly disproportionate amount of materials rom that lane rather than old supplier shipping through the vast. (This depends on how much shipping costs make up material costs to the end user.)
Specific implications:
1. Xibion/Triaxus link: Greater trade links, and neither seems a threat to the other. Xibion might benefit from having the Skyfire Legion a short call away if they needed them.
2. Verces and Vesk-3: Verces shipbuilding gets a big advantage in selling to the Vesk. They also beef up their defenses and get some extra Steward ships assigned.
3. Marixah: Caught between two tough neighbors, they're in trouble if the Vesk and Great Shadar decide to divide and conquer. A quite alliance with the Pact Worlds against the Vesk (through the Verces lane) seems called for.
4. Pabaq/Triumph/Swarm Space: A demonstration of what happens when a drift lane introduces a threat and how people respond.
5. The Veskarium: They have three drift lane nexus that need defending which risks splitting their forces. Conquerer's Forge is linked to the prison planet of Daegox-4 (low threat but high vulnerability/important Veskarium asset). Vesk-4 links to the Kehtaria flashpoint with the Azlanti and 14 stable days from both a core Azlanti planet and Embri. This is faster for the Veskarium going to the Azlanti planet than regular Drift travel, slower to Embri and for either of those visiting Vesk-4. Seems moderate threat. Vesk-3 is double linked to either Marixah/Great Shadar or Verces/Marixah. The coordinated pincer attack makes this a considerably vulnerability regardless of who the neighbors are and how much you trust them.
6. Azlanti: So far there's not TOO much to get excited about. They have eight core system and I'm sure lots of them have Drift Lanes, but the only one we know of isn't the home system and connects to a minor colony with Veskarium influence/contact now. The Vesk have a guaranteed 14 day trip (if they seize Kehtaria en route) to Oyoya, and Oyoya is a variable but average 17.5 days from resupply from the other Azlanti systems. Probably this system gets some reinforcement. Probably the Azlanti don't take Embri seriously and don't know about its secret masters, so they aren't reinforcing enough.
Changes/clarifications to how lanes with multiple destinations work from Thurston Hillman:
I've talked to the team about how we interpret some of Drift Lanes and will clarify more going forward.
Mostly the vagueness of what "one end" of the Drift Lane to another actually means. The intent is that the entirety of the lane takes 7 days to traverse, because each lane is not just the systems we mention (man pass through a bunch of unnamed/unexplored system). There isn't really a differentiation of nodes along a Drift Lane, just that one can use the entirety of a Drift Lane from one end to another. In fact, some lanes on the map specifically don't have an end point because there's some "hidden areas" we've not yet explored.
So 7 days in a Drift Lane is from Starting Point to Ending Point with the idea that you might pop out earlier in the process for points along the way. So for Prosperiola the fact that Verces is a start point and Great Shadar is the end point is where it would take 7 days. Hopping out in Vesk-3 or Marixah would be lessened time (GM's / narrative discretion).
There is a line in Drift Lanes that talks about not taking an exit ramp, but we're interpreting that as using a Drift Lane to hit somewhere like Gideron while on the Prosperiola track and not going off early to reach Marixah (which is clearly mentioned as being on the lane).
We feel this is the strongest way to use Drift Lanes in the setting. It means the map is still awkwardly incorrect (with Vesk 3/Marixah's order being wrong) but that actual impact on timing should amount to a few extra hours or a day and nothing more. Given the impact, we reserve the right in the future to just errata the order to match the map.
That makes the drift lane series much more interesting.
1. Conquerer's Path is Vesk-4 to Kehtaria to Oyoya (Azlanti core eight system) to Embroi, so 7 days from Vesk-4 to Embroi and less between intermediate destinations.
2. Propseriola is max seven days between Verces and Great Shadar and less to Marixah and Vesk-3.
3. Pabaq is only seven days from a terminus in swarm space, with Triumph/Bastion in between, presumably as a logistical hub supporting a blocking fleet that hangs out in the lane.
3. Marixah: Caught between two tough neighbors, they're in trouble if the Vesk and Great Shadar decide to divide and conquer. A quite alliance with the Pact Worlds against the Vesk (through the Verces lane) seems called for.
A troubling complication for the Marixah Republic here is that any defense pact they sign with the Pact Worlds could very well also drag their ally into the Republic's hot war with the Gideron Authority, which the Pact Worlds hasn't wanted to touch, so far.