The Concord Gate

Hovering far above the Navy Municipal Pier off the coast of Chicago, the Concord Jump Gate was constructed under the supervision of the Hidalgo Project, with its opening celebration held on the nation’s centennial anniversary. Originally penned as the Jefferson Gate(in honor of both the Founding Father and then President T. Jefferson Coolidge), the name was changed almost immediately to give homage to the famous battle at Concord, Massachusetts at the start of the revolution. The return gate was constructed in 1880, in turn dubbed Lexington. While initially small compared to modern gate projects, Concord was the arbiter of a new age in human exploration, sending explorers to new stars.

The first generation gate was faulty; the discoveries made at Hidalgo were two parts genius and one part guesswork after all. Thousands of engineers maintained the orbiting ring at all hours, with workplace accidents in the hundreds in the first year alone. Rather than send the men home at the day’s end, they instead needed to remain aboard for longer shifts, thus necessitating various amenities such as lodging, food, and basic entertainment in off hours. This led to the creation of Aalmer’s Station, an incorporated neighborhood of Chicago with its own Zip Code, and the first permanent settlement in the aether. While originally just a home to the workers, by 1938 the population of the station and its future iterations would number over 80,000. This growth of course could have never happened if the Concord Gate had stayed its initial size.

The initial designers could not foresee the sheer demand for aether travel once they realized what was waiting for them on the other side of the gate. The Caeleum industry had the capacity to make the American economy dwarf that of the rest of the world, but the current infrastructure would hamstring any effort to capitalize on this advantage. In the first 50 years of its operation, Concord would undergo expansions and retrofits three times, ballooning from 1 kilometer in diameter to 10. It also received a later addition of a cargo ladder, improving logistics via the city. Each additional construction was costly, as it required the ring to be shut down while the additions were made, leaving the Concordian economy frozen for months at a time. To this end however, the gate today is the largest completed model, and the older rings are still in full view as part of the docking superstructure.