Tachyon gate

Tachyon gates convert a ship to tachyonic matter, which travels many times faster than the speed of light. Before the ship is converted and transmitted, the t-gate scans the ship to acquire its mass and configuration. This information is transmitted to the receiving gate before the ship is, this allows the receiving gate to reassemble the ship and its contents in the proper configuration.

Travelling a thousand light-years takes less than 5 minutes. After the ship (which is at this point, just a group of tachyons) is captured by the receiving gate, it converts the tachyonic matter back into baryonic matter according to the configuration sent by the transmitting gate. To the passengers, the journey takes around a minute.

The corridor between gates must be kept relatively clear of matter, the main issues are planets and stars. So some gates can only connect to others, and all gates have a maximum range of 4000 light-years. Gates must physically align to the appropriate partner gate before transit can occur, this is coordinated through the tachyon gate subspace communications network. The tachyon gates are the basis for the galactic FTL communications network.

Tachyon gates were built by the theodarans, who are the only race to truly understand how they work, they are also the only ones with the ability to unlock and lock tachyon gates. This has prevented many wars, as most races do not want to risk destroying the theodarans in case something happens to the tachyon gates.

All tachyon gates are located within a strong gravity well, but through the use of gravity manipulation technology, a small area around the gate is kept free of any gravitational pull, allowing the gate to remain in the same spot, and this also keeps ships from falling into the gravity well. The reason for gates being in a gravity well is they convert gravitons into an energy source.

Most tachyon gates are located in uninhabited systems, and as such, must be automated. All a ship needs to do to use one of these automated gates, is hail it and transmit their destination; the gate does the rest.

The government of inhabited systems usually prefers to be in control of their local gate, and as such, they occupy the gate's control tower. This allows them to choose who enters and exits the system. There is an emergency override code that can be sent to any gate to force it to activate, but this code is only known by theodarans.