A Gateway deployed in a forest

Gateways are built structures that can be used in pairs to create a stable wormhole for transporting people and objects. They were developed by the Dominion relatively early in their history as a spacefaring power, and used to great effect in planetary invasions. When the Dominion invaded a planet, they would first send down heavily-armoured ships with gateways - to which orbiting troop transports could connect to disgorge huge numbers of troops in a short space of time. Since the reverse-engineering of the technology in 3434PT, shortly after the end of the First Tulaki Invasion, gateway technology has become commonplace on board spacefaring vessels. A gateway on board an orbiting ship can connect to another on a planet below and allow for the transfer of supplies and personnel without using shuttles.

Modern gateways are hexagonal in shape, with the majority of their control machinery concentrated at the vertices. A gateway must be connected to a very stable power source as fluctuations in power supply can easily lead to failure to synchronize. Additionally, a gateway must be anchored in place relative to local atmosphere and surroundings - when a moving gateway is activated, conditions on the plane of operation change too rapidly to allow it to synchronize. Although a gateway does require a significant energy to activate, compared to ferrying objects into or out of a planet's gravity well, and the necessity of vehicles to do so, the cost is fairly trivial.

Gateways must be activated with a key of entangled particles before they can be used, and take about 1 minute to synchronize. Once the control panel identified button is pressed, the power-up sequence begins, which is indicated by red lights. While the red lights are showing, entering the physical plane encompassed by the Gateway has no effect.

When activated, a gateway goes through a several staged phases which are all key for the successful transfer of matter.

Conformity Generator at the apex of a Gateway

• Firstly, the originating gateway uses the key provided to find the destination gateway. Each key contains a series of particles in quantum entanglement with others on the destination gateway. This entanglement is copied and used by the originating gateway to create a real-time connection between originating and destination gateways.
• Next, the Conformity Generators built into the gateway vertices begin to alter the conditions between them. The goal of the Generators is to create common space-time conditions within the plane of the two gateways, a process which can take some time.
• Once the conditions at each gateway homogenise enough, they “snap” into a state of quantum entanglement, effectively an “overlap” between the two gateways. This zone of space does not replicate its twin - it literally is the same place, but maintaining two positions relative to the rest of space-time. Once this stage is reached, the gateway is effectively “active”.
• A unidirectional waveform shunt in both gateways prevents objects entering the overlap zone from the destination side, and forces objects leaving the zone to collapse their quantum waveform on the destination side.
• As time passes, the overlap zone begins to destabilise. This instability is exponential, and typically results in the zone rapidly de-cohering after a certain point, after which the gateways power down. Objects in the overlap zone at this point can collapse back into normal space-time at either gateway.

The Gateway is a prop that is used by characters to enter and exit the In-character main game area for the duration of time-in. Characters that wish to go to the OOC camping field must do so via the Gateway, and return by the same means. In-character, the Gateway represents a method of getting to the orbiting slow-FTL starships that brought the characters to the event. It is also used to transport elsewhere on the local planet and to the orbiting Spacer Collective Jump Ship, which can be hired.

You cannot use the gateway to leave the site until the lights turn green on it, and only while they are green. This requires pressing the button on one side of the gateway, and waiting for the 1-minute charge sequence to elapse. Returning from the OOC does not require activating the gateway. When you have passed completely though an active gateway with green lights showing, you are Out of Character - place your hand in the air to indicate that you are out of character until you have left the in-character area.

Once the Gateway has been activated, it remains active for 1 minute - characters that go through the Gateway in this period end up in the same place as the activating character. Under most circumstances this will not be an issue, but during a hostile encounter it may require the intervention of the ref team in order to phys-rep the other side. If you chase another character through an active Gateway in a PvP situation, then all parties must remain together and find a Ref immediately. Gateways do not allow the passage of projectiles or energy weapon blasts.

If the gateway is not working, please inform the Game Team as soon as possible.