Vendrasi Hyper Bridge
While most of these incredible constructs were destroyed by their makers before the end of the great war, a handful still persist across the galaxy that either The Scourge were stopped from destroying or had little enough damage that they could be repaired (an exceedingly rare occurrence). After many years of research and dissection for which several previous Bridges had to be sacrificed, humanity was finally able to replicate the technology in the form of Star Bridges. While still absolutely invaluable for logistics, travel, and transportation, these human replicas do not come close to the utility or sheer technological prowess demonstrated in the Vendrasi constructs. For example, while Star Bridges make a journey that would normally take hundreds if not thousands of years at sub-FTL speeds last only a few days, Vendrasi Hyper Bridges can transport a seemingly limitless amount of ships across the galaxy nearly instantaneously. Additionally, the alien bridges are constatly open and active, requiring no startup or activation sequence, while Star Bridges must endure a multi-hour long process of charging, ship alignment, and bridge uplink. It simply cannot be overstated how important and useful these structures are to all nations, especially as it would seem that humanity has hit a wall after the invention of the Bridge as any further insights that could be gained from the alien portals yet elude our grasp. The last major difference between the two technologies is the key fact that Star Bridges must be placed at the edge of systems, outside if any major gravitational effects, as they must be aligned perfectly with another Bridge for a successful jump, while their Vendrasi counterparts not only have no need of alignment and are often placed in orbit of a system’s star or occasionally a planet, but can also transport ships to any other Hyper Bridge in the galaxy, so long as they are properly linked.
Pangalactic Agreements
Due to their extreme importance to every nations’ economy, infrastructure, foreign relations, and trade, a galactic treaty was signed between all existing countries that no Vendrasi Hyper Bridge could be damaged destroyed (the only known way to turn them off), even in the event of a war where one nation had access to a Hyper Bridge that links to one within enemy territory. Of course this typically leads to any system with a Bridge being the most heavily defended in the entire sector, but such is the price to pay for preservation. Some nations are civil enough to reach agreements in the terms of war that disallow the use of Bridges into foreign space, but this happens so rarely it is seldom worth mentioning. As one might expect, a veritable myriad of battles have occurred in just about every system with a Hyper Bridge, and most have so many destroyed ship hulks floating in them that it is not worth the effort to dispose of the wreckage, especially since the area is bound to be littered with debris before too long once again. The Reaver Guilds however, see these ship graveyards as gold mines, and their presence has come to be expected at any of these major sites as they hungrily scour the space debris for anything of use.
Children Technologies
Terminology: It is custom for any system with a Vendrasi Hyper Bridge within its confines to be bestowed with either the prefix or suffix of “Gate”, i.e. “the Solara Gate system”, “Gordarian’s Gate”, or “Gate Vorseti”.
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