Imperial stargates

[rancke]

Idle speculation time: In a universe without any Rebellion, Imperial scientists invent a stargate. It's a huge ring floating in space that allows ships to jump between different stargates at any distance. Minimum size is so humongous that building one takes a significant fraction of Imperial revenue. Individual worlds just can't afford to finance one. After long deliberation, the decision is made to build one at a time at the rate of one every decade. The first one is built at Capital.

Where are the next ones going?


Hans

 

[Quint]

How does the control mechanism work?

If it is relatively secure, then I expect that someplace solidly behind the claw for reasons of strategic movement.

I would also suggest that the first two would be built simultaneously otherwise there is ten years of lost revenue/use until there is a terminus.

Personally, given the "new technology" I wouldn't expect it to be built at Capitol (what happens if it blows up...) I expect that they would be located in otherwise undeveloped, multi-gas giant systems - that pretty quickly get a naval base pretty quickly. That right there accounts for at least some of the massive cost - lots of bootstrapped development, lots of importing highly skilled workers, lots of materials, etc.

This is the sort of project that can spawn a whole new megacorporation.

D.

 

[aramis]

Individual worlds just can't afford to finance one. After long deliberation, the decision is made to build one at a time at the rate of one every decade. The first one is built at Capital.

Where are the next ones going?

I expect that #3 - 7 are the domain capitals other than Sylea - but since one is worthless, the first two have to be roughly simultaneous, and for reasons of reach for development, 1 and 2 are Capital and Sylea. Next would be depots.
Then sector capitals more than a jump from their depots. Then central worlds in various clusters.

 

[Lycanorukke]

Definetly the Depots. You can send entire fleets between depots at a moments notice - mothballed ships, reserves, supplies etc can be sent through, essentially providing a limitless supply chain. Repairs can be done at any depot in the imperium, orders are instant, and crew can be drawn from anywhere. Domain capitals can be served by the express couriers from the depots until its their turn.

Also security - the last thing you want is a an invasion force to capture the world with a gate, and then send its fleets direct to Capital orbit (and jam the gate open so you cant send your fleets).

 

[LeperColony]

It would be helpful to know a little more about these gates.

For instance, is it possible to close your gate to one destination but not to others? So that if Gate A is captured, you can close Gate B to A but not to C?

Are these gates secret? If so, you might want to build them in uninhabited systems, kind of like the covert refueling stations in the Rift.

If they aren't secret then the discussion is no longer purely military. There would be enormous economic value in the gates, and that would tend to make a purely military location, like a Depot, somewhat less appealing.

Finally, could you put a jump engine on a gate itself? If I understand correctly, jump gates don't require any ability to move in N-space, so even a very large structure could theoretically jump.

 

[Lycanorukke]

It would be helpful to know a little more about these gates.

A good point.

I had assumed they were like the 'gates' from the Stargate series. Perhaps they are more like the 'mass relays' from Mass effect, or a really big version of the Ancient portal system.

And fuel requirements limit placement options, as does maxiumum 'open' time, how many ships at once, duplex travel, who selects the destination, etc

 

[AndreaV]

Gate one goes at Capital and gate two goes somewhere near the Solomani Rim. That's where the major serious threat to the Imperium comes from. Three probably the depot in Deneb, four, probably Depot in Vland, then Depot in Ley. That covers strategic mobility to the likely external threats. From then it's Domain capitals, sector capitals etc.

 

[rancke]

It would be helpful to know a little more about these gates.

There is no more. I don't have plans for an adventure or a campaign or anything. As I said in the OP, it's just idle speculation. An idea that struck me yesterday that I thought might make for some interesting musing. The essential premise is that these things are potentially very useful, but also very expensive. So expensive that even the Imperium would have to prioritize. What would those priorities be?

That's all.


Hans

 

[robject]

Hans' Stargates

I'd assume they'd expand the sphere of influence of the fleets. That might mean pairing a Depot with a remote but strategically important system. In some cases that might mean pairing up Depots, as well, or an important world.

My first thought was that this would be like the interstate highway system that we've got here in the USA, but it's more limited than that, isn't it?


Rob's Stargates

I had these, too, for a Rebellion-era game taking place some time in 1116-7. If I recall, the ones the players had access to were within 40 parsecs of each other, somewhere around Craig and Dulinor's territory. They allowed the players to flee from Dulinor's territory and bypass some of the more dangerous battlefields, shortly before the gates were shut down.

I think I had assumed that distance was part of the design consideration. In other words, they were jump gates.

In retrospect, I bet they were "hop" gates.

 

[leo knight]

A friend of mine had these in his universe. He based them on the old "Buck Rogers" TV series, even using that starburst effect on the map. His were just a shortcut from one to the other, like the secret passage in Clue, and required a gate on each end.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Other factors:

A.Transmit range between gates.
Is there a limitation as to the distance which gates must be placed to be effective? Even if instantaneous, their utility would be determined by their placement.

B.Scalability
If the gates can be scaled down and become less expensive, imagine that. Say if they are less expensive because they are smaller, they could replace the X-Boat network, all you need is to make them small enough to handle a 10 ton shuttle or whatever ship is required to provide similar service. Control of the Imperium would become more direct as communication between key systems is now less than a week
A.Transmit information from source mainworld at light speed to the xBoat orbiting or stationed by the gate.
B.Go thru the gate
C.Transmit information at light speed from xBoat to system mainworld at destination system.
Systems off the network still have to wait for a jump ship for information, but those by the gates become of more importance for information, communcation, command and control, etc.

 

[LeperColony]

There is no more. I don't have plans for an adventure or a campaign or anything. As I said in the OP, it's just idle speculation. An idea that struck me yesterday that I thought might make for some interesting musing. The essential premise is that these things are potentially very useful, but also very expensive. So expensive that even the Imperium would have to prioritize. What would those priorities be?

That's all.


Hans

Then my answer is that if secrecy isn't a concern, then one of the primary benefits would be economic.

The Imperium is already militarily strong enough to deter potential aggressors, so while obviously strategic issues would be prevalent, I don't tend to see the gates as a solely, or even primarily, military asset.

 

[Vladika]

I can see a few serious problems in allowing jump gates.

1) It, sooner or later, would destroy the setting. No more communication at the speed of "old" jump (J1-J6)

2) How long before a government eliminates jump drives in private ships?

A) Total control of commerce
B) You are going to pay whatever it costs to jump
C) No more piracy, for sure this time
D) Small package trading (smuggling) becomes tough to accomplish
E) Major corporations can pay, lobby for high "per ship" costs, thus eliminating the little guy (WalMart in Space?)
F) Skipping just isn't an option
G) You're on the run and they ARE waiting for you when you come out of jump one day
H) Gate using Navies are pretty much unbeatable
​

It will take time, as those Gates are so costly, but...

 

[Theophilus]

Spoiler alert

Actually, this thread reminds me of the Lost Fleet series, by Jack Campbell. Two waring empires had both "jump drive" and Jump Gate technology. Although not jump drive in the traveller sense, it allowed system to system travel in a relatively short time, but travel time across the empire took months. They had also developed Jump gate travel which allowed quick travel between systems with gates, usually major systems, peripheral systems lost economic importance since ships no longer passed through.

Each Empires gate required a "key" to operate, which was a closely guarded secret, one empire allowed the enemy to get a key, so they could trap them deep in the core at their capital, where they were met by overwhelming force.

What they didn't know was the gates were developed from alien technology, and were actually giant bombs, that would devastate a system, placed to destroy mankind and protect the aliens.

If you haven't read any of these books I would highly recommend them as 'source' material for ideas.

 

[LeperColony]

I can see a few serious problems in allowing jump gates.

1) It, sooner or later, would destroy the setting. No more communication at the speed of "old" jump (J1-J6)

2) How long before a government eliminates jump drives in private ships?

A) Total control of commerce
B) You are going to pay whatever it costs to jump
C) No more piracy, for sure this time
D) Small package trading (smuggling) becomes tough to accomplish
E) Major corporations can pay, lobby for high "per ship" costs, thus eliminating the little guy (WalMart in Space?)
F) Skipping just isn't an option
G) You're on the run and they ARE waiting for you when you come out of jump one day
H) Gate using Navies are pretty much unbeatable
​

It will take time, as those Gates are so costly, but...

They are so expensive the Imperium can only afford one every decade. For 11,000 worlds, that's 110,000 years (although I think we can safely assume that construction speed would increase over time), so I think the setting is still for the most part pretty safe.

What it really does is change things on a macro scale without too much interfering with the micro.

Imperial defensive strategies might change, with the ability to rapidly deploy fleets to a few key areas. Commerce would experience a great boom in the systems with the gates, and with those in a nearby jump radius.

But there would still be the vast majority of the galaxy serviced by traditional jump drives, and there would still be a need for jump drives even in areas near the gate, to disseminate information, people and goods that gated through.

 

[madmike]

Sounds exactly like the Hypergate system in the "Lost Fleet" series by Jack Campbell.

Both the Alliance and the Syndicated Worlds used hypergates, positioned at important worlds. To access the gate you needed a "key". Without the key, you went nowhere.

Ships still had jump drives though, but spending weeks in jumpspace to get to a neighbouring system when you could jump clear across your domains in one transit always wins out.

What happened to the systems that were not graced with a Hypergate? They became even more backwaters or simply withered and eventually died.

Ahh, now the big one. A hypergate, without a failsafe mechanism could be destroyed, potentially liberating enough energy to make the system's star go nova.

 

[inexorabletash]

Agreed re: Depots

Also security - the last thing you want is a an invasion force to capture the world with a gate, and then send its fleets direct to Capital orbit (and jam the gate open so you cant send your fleets).

If the construction cost is that extreme, then it's a tempting target not just for use but for destruction, since the economic impact on the Imperium of a lost gate would be quite high.

If one gate is captured, they're potentially all compromised or at risk of destruction for the purposes of denial. I'm reminded of the "iris" from the "Stargate SG-1" show; there may be some "knocking" protocol required so anything emerging from the gate isn't immediately obliterated.

I'd put #2 in Deneb somewhere, since the SM is too risky.

I'd argue about locating #1 at Capital, but that's part of the stated problem. Perhaps within the system, but in the far outer system (a J-0 trip) for defense purposes.

A few more thoughts:

If turning this into a game scenario and not just a metagame question, another obvious source of locations would be the existing Research Stations which are, of course, Up To Something.

You could justify part of the time/expense if the gates can only communicate if they're "entangled", which must be done in physical proximity. You can construct a second gate near the first and "entangle" them, but then need to transport this massive object by a series of jumps (for fun, limit it to J-1 because physics) to the destination system. The third gate could be constructed near either the first or second, but can then only route you to that one. To have three interlinked gates would require hauling the #3 from its construction site near #1 to #2 then to its destination (probably impractical, and you'd really just route everything through #1).

Making you haul portals across space a sublight speed it tackled in Stross's Singularity Sky, IIRC.

 

[Carlobrand]

One at the naval depot in Core sector, then one at the naval depot in Vega sector, then one at the naval depot in Corridor sector, and so forth.

Something this costly and time-consuming to build isn't going to be built to satisfy the merchants. It's a strategic asset, best based in a heavily defended system, and best built to connect the most far-flung and vulnerable of sectors to naval resources at the core of the empire. Once you've got two of these things built, you leave the hostiles in that region with the prospect of facing the combined might of two naval depots - then three, then four, ... You pretty well eliminate the one strategic weakness that was allowing the Imperium's distant opponents to have any sort of chance in war. They have no choice but to start doing their own research toward a gate (assuming their spy networks realize the Imperium has one - spying for something you don't know even exists is a tricky thing). The effort may flatly be beyond them if it's something that takes the Imperium's resources 10 years to fund, which means one day some Emperor will decide to eliminate a few loose ends, and that'll be it for those hostiles. Fortunately, that's a couple centuries in the future.

 

[BlackBat242]

A good point.

I had assumed they were like the 'gates' from the Stargate series. Perhaps they are more like the 'mass relays' from Mass effect, or a really big version of the Ancient portal system.

And fuel requirements limit placement options, as does maxiumum 'open' time, how many ships at once, duplex travel, who selects the destination, etc

A friend of mine had these in his universe. He based them on the old "Buck Rogers" TV series, even using that starburst effect on the map. His were just a shortcut from one to the other, like the secret passage in Clue, and required a gate on each end.

As in:

Travel between the stars was accomplished with the use of stargates; which are artificially created portals in space (similar in appearance to wormholes), but referred to as "warp" travel on at least one occasion by Wilma Deering. Stargates appear as a diamond-shaped quartet of brilliant lights that shimmered when a vessel was making transit. Some people find the transit through a stargate to be physically unpleasant (transit resembling a "spinning" of the spacecraft). Buck is portrayed as disliking them in Part One of the episode "Planet of the Slave Girls" and mentions his discomfort again in Part Two of the episode "The Plot to Kill a City."

 

[Chuck Anumia]

My Thoughts for the 10 star gate locations

1. Deneb (F) 1613
2. Solomani Rim (G) 1911
3. Ley (F) 1420
4. Corridor (F) 1511
5. Llelish (D) 2702
6. Old Expanses (F) 1213
7. Anteres (K) 2021
8. Diaspora (G) 2018
9. Vland (L) 2728
10. Delphi (M) 0832

And:
Depots all have between 3 and 6 Starports located in their system.

DPS
Depot Prime Starport
(Sector Fleet operations)

DCTS
Depot Commercial Traffic Starport
(Port of Call for civilians and off duty sailors and housing for visiting Nobels)

DBS
Depot Beta Starport
(Mothballed Fleet Depot)

DSF
Depot Security Fleet
(System Defense Fleet)

ISS
Imperial Scout Service
(Scouts Out!)

INA-TB
Imperial Naval Academy Training Base
(All levels of Naval Training available)