Gates

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Celegian Gates

By Celegian Empire standards, gates are a brand new development. They were first developed in Faust by the Tellurian Circle, a powerful and knowledgeable full circle. In the 227 years since, they have become widely used for long distance transportation, despite the crushing tolls charged by the Empire. Even though the Empire receives huge amounts of fees for their use, the process of opening a gate is so difficult and expensive that the Empire has yet to recoup its cost, at least in money. The gate system is so useful that it's expansion is an ongoing process.

There seems to be no limit to how much distance a gate can cover, but the Empire usually places them no more than 800 miles apart, and the average distance is 400 miles. This is done deliberately, for that means that any invader wishing to use the gates to invade will have to go through several of the Empire's huge fortresses to have any great success. This is also the reason that all gates are located within Imperial Fortresses.

An Imperial Fortress is a colossal structure, usually built in the form of a ring with 5 or 6 sides. At each point is a sub-fortress, and in the center of each wall is an entrance way. The entire structure is completely enclosed and covered with siege-stone, that strong, heavy, magic absorbing mineral essential to military construction. Beneath this, in several deeply buried vaults, are the gate rooms. These contain the actual gates. Each can only be reached by means of a long corridor cut from the stone, which is liberally equipped with turns, traps, and murder holes. There are several massive doors and heavy grates to seal off the gate room. In addition, each gate has two doors, one on each side, which can be closed to bar usage. At the top of the entrance corridor is the toll room, where fees are paid. As a last measure, the roofs of the corridor can be collapsed, or the entire gate vault flooded. As if this wasn't enough the fort also maintains a large garrison of troops at all times, and one or two full legions can be imported using the gates in less than a week.

Several factors contribute to the power of the Gates. First, the transport capacity of a gate is tremendous. The "standard" gate size is meant to allow enough room for ten men to march through side by side, while the gate is high enough for even very large and bulky items to be moved readily. Another factor is the extreme ease of use. Once the gate is established, it takes no skill or training to use it. You simply walk through the portal and you have traveled from one site to another.

The true impact of the gates has only recently begun to be felt. For the first century of their existence they were kept secret, so the public at large had no knowledge of their benefits. Since they were made accessible to the citizenry they have already begun to alter the conceptions of the public. Goods can now be moved quickly, so exotic foods are sweeping the huge cities, creating vast wealth in the swampy southern areas and in the vast northern forests, where these foods originate. How further changes will progress can only be speculated upon. But the greatest change by far is going to be in the government. The power and autonomy of the provincial ordinates have already been drastically reduced, as the time it takes to administer central orders falls from months to hours. Chronun IV, the Emperor, has sworn to regain all the territory lost in the Nightmare Wars. The use of gates will ensure that it will be possible to effectively govern those huge territories for the first time in 60,000 years of recorded history. Gates make the unlimited expansion of the Empire possible, a fact which has not escaped Chronun IV, who sees his name going down into history as the greatest Emperor of all time.