Category:Gates

The gates are set up using small connector satellites - when not in use they contract, when in use they expand to the size they need to be and form the gate between them, making an instant transferance from one area to another, or close by it. Due to traffic and a desire to keep things from getting confused, gates operate on an simple open/close form. A ship passes through one gate and that gate is open so no other ship can pass through it, then it cycles through the gates at the location it's heading to. Sometimes it'll end up near the planet it's heading to, sometimes quite a ways off depending on how heavily the gates are being used, how far they're spaced, and how many of them there are. The current space gate for Earth (there's only one) is hidden on the other side of the sun from the Earth so it can't be picked up as that rather massive burst of energy would cause real worries.

The gates draw much of their energy from the ships passing through, and can temporarily drain smaller ships to a blackout state.

There are some long term individual sized gates that directly connect Earth and Cyantia. Many of these were set up in the past to gate over creatures for hunting. The locations of many of these remain unknown and occasionally one person or another will accidentally go through one. This is how most of the humans on Cyantia in the past arrived.