Early 1990's novel in which a ship is chased through space while people in the galaxy comment on the pursuit using an Internet-like forum

Question

I'm searching for the title of a science fiction novel in which a ship is chased through space while other people in the galaxy watch and comment on the pursuit using an internet-like forum.

Answer 1

Given the timeframe, I'm thinking that instead of "Internet-like forum" what you're imagining is Usenet. The most prominent "Usenet-in-space" novel is A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) by Vernor Vinge.

The Net, sometimes referred to as "The Net of a Million Lies" plays an important part of the plot, as various entities shared warnings and knowledge about the Blight as it takes place. There is a pursuit of the Out of Band II as it tries to get to the Tines' world to enact a Countermeasure.

Large portions of the book are formatted as posts in a way that would be familiar to a Usenet reader of the early 1990s.

There's a lot more detail on the novel's Wikipedia page.

An example of one of the Net posts, discussing the fleet pursuing the OOB II (approximately as formatted in my paperback edition:

Crypto: []
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Hanse
 [No references prior to the fall of
 Relay. No probable source. This is
 someone being very cautious.]  
Subject: Alliance for the Defense
 fraudulent?  
Distribution:  
  Threat of the Blight,  
  War Trackers Interest Group,  
  Homo Sapiens Interest Group  
Date: 5.80 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei  
Key phrases: Fools' errand, unnecessary
 genocide  
Text of message:  
 Earlier I speculated that there had
been no destruction at Sjandra Kei.
Apologies. That was based on a catalog
identification error. I agree with the
messages (13123 as of a few seconds ago)
assuring me that the habitations of
Sjandra Kei suffered collisional damage
within the last six days.
 So apparently the "Alliance for the
Defense" has taken the military action
they claimed earlier. And apparently,
they are powerful enough to destroy
small civilizations in the Middle
Beyond. The question still remains:
"Why?" I have already posted arguments
showing it unlikely that Homo sapiens is
especially controllable by the Blight
(though they were stupid enough to
create that entity). Even the Alliance's
own reports admit that less than half of
Sjandra Kei's sophonts were of that
race.
 Now a large part of the Alliance fleet
is chasing into the Bottom of the Beyond
after a single ship. What conceivable
damage can the Alliance do to the Blight
down there? The Blight is a great threat,
perhaps the most novel and threatening
in well-recorded history. Nevertheless,
Alliance behavior appears destructive
and pointless. Now that the Alliance has
revealed some of its sponsoring
organizations (see messages [id
numbers]), I think we know its real
motives. I see connections between the
Alliance and the old Aprahant Hegemony.
A thousand years ago, that group
had a similar jihad, grabbing real
estate left vacant by recent
Transcendences. Stopping the Hegemony
was an exciting bit of action in that
part of the galaxy. I think these people
are back, taking advantage of the
general panic attending the Blight
(which is admittedly a much greater
threat).
 My advice: Beware of the Alliance and
its claims of heroic efforts 

Answer 2

Iain M Banks, Excession. Two enormous ships turn most of their mass into engine in order to travel across the galaxy very quickly. There are lots of text communications between ships which are formatted in an email / BBS / forum style.

An example (from Reddit) of what the conversations look like:

[type of broadcast, ENCRYPTION MODE, extra info, @n.date&time]

xCCC Originator Mind [extra info]

oCCC Recipient Mind [extra info]

Message from originator

∞

Response response from recipient

∞

Response from originator

∞

Etc...