Speculation

I'm just wondering if your scenario is like our "assumed axioms" -- "assume a rigid steel bar that transfers energy immediately ..." Sure, if that were true, then the earth would "move" before the light reached it. But is our axiom true?

I don't think these "rods" I am postulating would be made out of anything we know (like steel) - if they were then clearly they would be seen by ordinary instruments in vacuo. I am wondering if they are mathematically rigid (ie. don't transmit energy through a lattice of particles, like in steel) but can oscillate as waves pass through them. As they are truly "rigid" they might have this apparently superluminal effect.

My concern with all this is our definition of the term now.

For instance, in science books for kids you might read:

"If a planet was orbiting a star 2,000 light years away from the Earth, if they took a telescope and looked at the Earth now they would see it as it was in the times of Jesus".

This is the common mistake. Now means now, ie. Mar 21 2007 for us. As we live in spacetime rather than just space, it is non-sensical to say if they looked back at the Earth now. Our now is not their now. As you travel away from the Earth in space you actual time travel also.

Which I suspect is what would happen to the end of the rigid rod if it exsited only in our 4D spacetime. The end of the rod near to the Sun would be in a different now, so information would not be passed at greater speed than that of light.

So if the rod exists it might exist in a higher dimension, this would give it the properties of making it a) invisible to us and b) able to transmit information faster than lightspeed (as we see in quantum entaglement).

I can't think of any experiment to find the rod though. I guess the same problem is with "string theory" - there aren't any experiments you can do to look at a string.

Still, this is purely conjecture in an attempt to explain forces and quantum entanglement: all matter in the Universe is connected together right now through invisible hyperdimensional non-compressing rods.

And your Moon Bomb started this train of thought !