Stargate

Introduction

Stellar gates, sometimes called stargates, use massive amounts of solar power to warp spacetime in order to literally reduce the distance beteen two such gates. Currently, seven exist inside the Solar System, each reaching nearby major star systems, and two more fully active pairs reside in the Sirian system, connecting Sirius to Procyon and Alpha Centauri. Eighteen additional pairs are currently under construction, and will eventually link humanity to ten additional star systems. Of those around Sol, these giant megastructures reside some distance outside Neptune's orbit, providing (relatively) rapid transportation to nearby stars.

The massive energy required for these hundred-thousand kilometer behemoths makes it nearly impossible to use them around a red dwarf star, as even with the aid of mobius patterns, these seven gates require well over half of the sun's energy.

List of Gate Pairs

The seven gates inside the Solar System lead to the following star systems:

• Alpha Centauri (4.36) - The first gate constructed, activated in 2212 by the Centaurus Mission. It is sometimes called the Centaurus Gate. Alpha Centauri is host to the first gate not linked to the Solar System, connecting the system directly to Sirius.
  • Alpha Centauri has one further gate under construction to Epsilon Indi.
• Sirius (8.58) - The second gate constructed, fully active in 2216 through the Sirius Mission. Sirius has both fully active gates not linked to Sol - to Procyon, activated in 2219, and Alpha Centauri, activated in 2221.
  • Other gates are under construction to reach Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti, and Omicron Eridani. A number of further gates are planned.
• Epsilon Eridani (10.32) - Activated in 2218, by the Eridani Mission.
  • This system has four further gates under construction. These plan to reach 82 Eridani, Omicron Eridani, Procyon, and another to Sirius.
• Procyon (11.40) - Host to the Procyon Concord, this gate was actually completed and fully active in 2216, before Epsilon Eridani's was. It currently has only one additional gate active, giving the system direct access to Sirius.
  • Additional gates are under construction to Omicron Eridani, Groombridge 1618, and Epsilon Eridani.
• 61 Cygni (11.40) - Activated in 2220, by the Cygnus Mission.
  • Gates under construction in 61 Cygni will lead to Altair, Alsafi, Eta Cassiopei, and 70 Ophiuchi.
• Epsilon Indi (11.82) - Fully on-line in 2221, by the Indi Mission.
  • This system has three further gates under construction, to Alpha Centauri, Gliese 783, and Delta Pavonis. Materials are also in place for the construction of a gate to Tau Ceti, but barring a significant increase in gate efficiency, its completion will not come any time soon - the other four gates will drain nearly all of this star's light.
• Tau Ceti (11.88) - On-line in 2221, by the Ceti Mission.
  • Additional gate under construction will link this system to Epsilon Eridani, Omicron Eridani, and Sirius. Additional materials are set aside for a potential gate to Epsilon Indi but this will require a breakthrough in research.

Three further gate pairs are currently under development:

• 36 Ophiuchi will be linked through Gliese 783
• Gliese 570 will be linked through 36 Ophiuchi

Structure

Each of these will remain the seven largest megastructures created by human hands for some time, at least in terms of raw dimensions. When initially constructed, they are massive, silvery rings over a hundred thousand kilometers in diameter, seeming featureless from afar. The intense quantities of starlight directed at them visibly flouresces the interplanetary medium, looking like twelve great - if dim - pillars of light reaching them from the host Dyson swarm. This is considered a safety feature - anything wandering into the pillars is going to experience several yottawatts of light focused on a point about a single square meter in area.

When activation begins, a bubble of darkness reaches out from behind the gate, rushing towards its companion at the speed of light. The length and terminal properties of this artificial void are very specifically controlled, usually to allow one host star to compensate for the lack of energy production in its partner.

The amount of energy required increases dramatically with distance - gates linking more than two parsecs are generally considered infeasible. This limits the rate of human expansion, though carriers alleviate this burden.

Once fully active, from the outside, it is as if a great darkness passes between the gates, with a notable Einstein line surrounding it - a silhouette of those stars the line would normally hide visible in a concentrated form on either side, clearly marking the dangerous event horizon to travellers.

Viewing from the inside of an activated ring is quite the opposite - several light years of starlight is focussed into several kilometers, causing the edge of the interior to glow brilliantly. Since matter still crosses the event horizon from the outside, the edge is filled with rarified gas - largely hydrogen and helium, acting as a faint atmosphere. This exits the ring on either side in a phenomenon called gate wind.

Safely crossing the edge of this wormhole is not typically possible. By design, crossing the horizon from the outside compresses dimensions by a factor of ten trillion to one - even from interstellar gas, this causes a detectable neutron flux as protons are fused with their electrons. Any sort of macroscopic structure is crushed under the force of the fabric of space itself. Crossing in the other direction is somewhat more difficult - atoms resist such violent tearing more than they do compression,