Interstellar Gate
An Interstellar Gate or just Gate for short is a artificial structure built by humanity long before the Silence, at a peak of technological advancement. When two gates connect, they form a permenant wormhole between them. These gates are now alien technology to the current denizens of the galaxy. At best, humanity's brightest are only able to maintain the existing gates, and activating new ones is an intensive and expensive process. At worst, gates can still shut down without so much as a guess as to why by humanity's top thinkers.
The Gates themselves allow ships to travel thousands of astronomical lightyears much faster than ever possible. It is theorized that these gates manipulate "cosmic filaments" that were left behind during the big bang, which allow them to form relatively stable wormholes along these filaments that connect one gate to another. These gates tap into that filament using tech in combination with the rare element known as Isotope-10. While humanity can use the gates, any attempt to make gates of their own has failed. Pilots do this using Jump Drive technology.
Construction of new gates following the silence is prohbitively expensive, and since the Silence new gates have only been built by the Union of Socialist Systems, though there are rumors of the Colonial Earth Empire testing out potential gate based tech recently.
A New Era
Gates were first discovered by a combination of the "Enclave", newly developed Demon Construct technology that was combined into essentially a quantum mechanics think tank, and a group of mining engineers who had discovered Isotope-10. They built the first gate at the edge of the gravity well generated by the sun in the Sol System. This, in conjunction with the invention of the first Jump Drive, allowed humanity to expand beyond their own solar system. For hundreds of years following humanity built and activated as many gates as they could during the Age of Exploration, dangerously charting new space at great risk to themselves. They allowed humanity to spread father than every before, to planets far away thanks to the use of Navbox tech. This all changed during the Age of Silence, when the gates fell dark. Some say this was tied to the conflict of the Colonial Earth Empire and the Union of Socialist Systems. Others, state that it is directly related to the Mechanicus Jihad. The gates began to open themselves back up years later, with much of the original data lost, and rapidly changed in the years that existed between. Jumping from one gate to another requires no use of a Jump Drive, and simply exists as an astral "tunnel" between the two. Your average ship must simply enter the gate through one side and will emerge (after some travel) through the corresponding gate on the other side. It is simple, safe, and extremely cost effective. Connected gates have come to form the known Golden Roads, which se the heaviest amount of interstellar travel. Gate jumps are not made equally, and some gate jumps are harder to plot than others. A good navigator or astro-AI can mean the difference between arriving at your destination or being lost to an inter-jump accident. A good jump drive also helps avoid this, and taking shorter jumps can minimize the risk. Navbox tech has also made jumps much safer. The Navboxes also allow jump drives to now latch onto the gate of their destination, without the need of using the gate on their side. This means a ship must either jump to a gate, or from a gate. This means that fortifying gates can allow systems to be protected and well monitored, so long as they have scouting bases located in all the adjacent systems.A Gated Community
Gates are astronomical in size, and not even the largest capital ships can rival their size. This is due to the massive amount of energy that needs to be captured to form a gate. Despite their similar function, no two gates are completely alike, and some are radically different than one another. All across the galaxy, gates have became a port-town type entity, with many transient populations calling the super-structures home. Some, like High Sanctuary contain entire cities. Others only contain its custodian Demon Construct and a network of drones to maintain the gate.
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