Jumpgate

Jumpgates are ancient spaceborne structures used for instantaneous travel between locations. Scientists of all Commonwealth races have failed to explain how they work, however Terran science is capable of reproducing them, as can the Sohnen, their creators' servants.

The Jumpgates were made by a conglomerate of elder races known as the Ancients. They separate the network in "Sectors" to alter the development of sentient races in the galaxy, and to isolate potential threats to life, like the Kha'ak, who are unable to distinguish the Community of Planets' species from each other, and the Won, who are so certain hey are the only sentient species in the universe that if they encountered a different civilization to their own, they would completely destroy it, and themselves in the process. They never expected that a species as primitive as Humans would develop their own Jumpgates, which gave them a massive surprise when a man-made Gate connected to one of their own gates in the sector that would be known as Brennan's Triumph. In their terror, they isolated the Terrans in their own sector, until the Terraformers destroyed most of their civilization. Shortly after Sol was disconnected and the Argon Federation's creation, they reconfigured the gates once more to isolate the Xenon, creating the group of systems known as the X Universe. After the Argons ravaged Sol with a TF fleet, and the iscovery that the Xenon had spread far more than they expected, the Ancients shut down the entire network at the end of 778 NT/2948 EY. Ever since, they've been reconnecting some systems, and disconnecting others.

Ancient Jumpgates are made of a mineral known by humans as Platinum and by the Teladi as Nividium. They also require a crystalline "seed" to create an Einstein-Rossum Tunnel (also known as a wormhole) for the first time. The Jumpgate also flattens the wormhole, so that it looks like a whirpool instead of the normal spherical shape it would take.

See Also

Sector travel