User:Vivaporius/Sandbox/League of Civilized Worlds/III: Difference between revisions

All League systems are connected to one another via a network of wormhole gates, or voidgates. All gates within the League were developed initially by the Mikaeans, and later improved upon by the Hilam and ''TBD'' during the early League era. Each gate is constructed by a self-sustaining pod of drones launched from a neighboring system occupied by the League of Civilized Worlds. These pods are launched at near-light speed, moving approximately 99% the speed of light for the bulk of the journey. So as to maximize the number of habitable worlds available to the League at any given time, and to cut back on the exorbitant cost of producing these gates, the federal government launches these pods in timed periods of expansion, usually lasting for a period of fifty years before the next period of expansion begins. The last such expansion phase was approximately thirty-seven years prior to the modern day. Travel through the gates is instantaneous, as the same technology used for the utilization of TPNs in the League areis also used for the gate system, albeit on a vastlyfar greater scale. GatesVoidgates are connected to one another on a strictly 1-to-1 basis. While connections can be altered to a different location, the link can only be made to another deactivated gate, and never to powered one. As of the present day, League scientists are not yet aware if there is an upper-limit to the number of gates a system can host, or if such a limit even exists. However, existing federal law regulating the use of voidgates prohibits the connection of more than one gate to another.

According to federal law, all member systems of the League of Civilized Worlds are required to place their wormhole gates in regions of local space accessible to all major population centers within that system. Normally, in systems where most of the celestial bodies have been colonized, the wormhole gate will be located near the "center" of the system's primary population centers. For instance, in the TBD system, wormhole gates are located between TBD and TBD, each of which has more than five billion permanent inhabitants. Alternatively, all wormhole gates will be placed in a location deemed to be sufficiently distant enough from the system's stellar bodies to ensure no harm to the traffic entering and exiting the gate, as well as ensuring the physical integrity of the gate itself. This is not to mention avoiding any potential danger to upsetting the gravitational orbits of celestial bodies in the system while the gate itself is active. Depending on the star in question, the gate may be located at the edge of a system's habitable zone, or a particular number of astronomical units (AU) from the star itself. This setup is the most common one within the League, as it ensures all colonies have equal access to the gates, as well as placing them within a reasonable enough distance from the star that it doesn't take more than a week to travel from the inhabited world to the gate. Overall, transit times of more than a week to and from a gate to a populated world are rare, and usually avoided as a state policy.