[Forerunner Technology]
Index
4. Gateway: Network Extent
Humanity has learned that the Forerunners, whose Gateway network we use, were humanoids from Old Terra's pre-Homo sapiens history. It is now known that the network is temporal, as well as spatial and that the Forerunners had interstellar travel other than the Gateways, something Homo sapiens gave up on researching once the Gateways and how they worked were discovered. Whether these were slow generation or cryogenic ships, or if they used a variation on the Gateways wormhole technology, we have no way of knowing. However, it is known that the Forerunners would only bother setting up Gateways in star systems that met certain criteria. First of all there needed to be at least one stellar body within the star system that was suitable for building a Gateway on. Second there needed to be something within that star system the Forerunners needed, whether it was resources or a world that was either habitable (Old Terra like within a certain degree of variance), or could be terra formed (Old Terra like within a slightly larger degree of variance) with minimal expenditure in relationship to the possible gain of resources within the system. Otherwise they would have no reason to build a Gateway there and would just move on to the next system.
As a result, the Forerunner Gateway network started within the Sol system and spread outward in a systematic sphere of exploration. Now the Forerunners also needed to manage the resources and people of their Empire. Most Gateways were set up to link other Gateways within a group of star systems and all systems within that group would have a Gateway linking to the hub of that group. Hub systems would link with other hubs as well as their own entire cluster. An exception could be made for rare or high demand resources, where a link could be made directly between sources and where that resource was needed most, or could be easily distributed to where it was needed most. As a result some Gateways only link to a few other Gateways while others link to hundreds; some are found isolated and others are part of a cluster of Gateways.
By the early 34th century humanity still had not found the limits of the gateway network nor any of the space craft the Forerunners used to travel between the stars and build or place the gateways with. But the nature of the Gateway network has shaped the major and lesser factions and human history since its discovery.
Other Discoveries
Two other important discoveries were learned in the early years of the 34th century. First, the Gorax swarm, for a period of about a year, isolated Novum Dolorum and any attempts to gate to that world during this period resulted in being sent to random alternate destinations for the sending Gateway. The current theory is that some form of electromagnetic or radiation disruption was used, similar to a localized ongoing nuclear blast, forcing the Novum Dolorum Gateways to shut down and Gateways forced to activate with Novum Dolorum as a destination, to find an alternate "safe" destination. Second, It was been discovered that with a Chroniode it is possible not only to travel from one Gateway to another, but also to any point the target gateways timeline of existence and by extension alternate timelines or parallel universes.
(By Sean Wadey - 356597)
