It was massive. Had the structure not been built in space, it would have been impossible to view the whole of it at once. Even so, any being taking in the spectacle of its design would need to do so from a considerable distance and through a rather well-placed viewport. At a considerable distance from the closest sun, an incredible number of artificial light sources had been included in the construction in order to better illuminate the object as well as the surrounding stations necessary both in construction and operation. Smaller craft buzzed busily about in the vicinity but even the biggest of them were microscopic in comparison.

The magnitude of the galactic jump gate didn't disappoint.

The gate had been in the making for the last few decades and was designed to be a free-floating celestial object tied as loosely as possible to the gravitational field of a stable, if otherwise completely useless, as well as politically neutral, star. Many different factions, though at least superficially friendly ones, allowed the gate to be a joint commission. Despite this cooperation, the associated costs for funding such a project were unlike any single instance ever undertaken before, even after the financing had been divvied between the participating governments. The prospect of such a venture, however, made the cost seem worth to effort, at least to someone.

The purpose of the gate was to cross the incredibly large gap between galaxies in a relatively short period of time. The use of conventional star drives could travel such a distance, however such a trip would take longer than most species would remain alive. And although sleeper vessels were not unheard for taking on such a task, the probability of finding nothing immediately useful on the other side of the expanse of empty space was highly probable. The jump gate, though, exponentially eliminated the delay for a ship of considerably smaller size to make the journey. If this vessel was sent, subspace relays established, and scouting missions carried out, information could be relayed back to the Milky Way quickly. On top of that, if (though most governments were banking more on when) valuable resources were discovered, a sleeper ship with the necessary resources could then be sent to construct a galactic jump gate in the neighboring galaxy.

Of course there was no guarantee that anything found in these neighboring galaxies would be worth anything. Corporations were aware of this gamble and were hoping to make their profit back simply through franchising, advertising, and entertainment value over the course of the lives of those they send, not to mention the interest from debt accrued by the governments taking part in the venture. The crews themselves were assembled, perhaps a little haphazardly as a result of the corporate interference, mostly out of the few who volunteered. After all, if the crews couldn't find anything worthwhile on the other side of their jump point, they would be effectively stranded there, and, with limited personnel and resources, be unable to found a colony of any type. And even if a viable spot was located and either a government or a corporation made a push to send a sleeper ship, the crews of these scout vessels would be long dead by the time any colonists arrived.

In one large, rather overglorified event, more than a dozen scout ships were sent through the gate, each to their own respective galaxy. One by one, the gate turned on, an immense amount of energy was channeled through the system, a ship was pulled in and subsequently vanished into a demolecularized puff of atoms. The gate then repositioned, crews aboard one of the stations recalculated arrival points, and then repeated the process. Until, at last, they were all gone: the scout ships, the news crews, the old hat celebrities, nearly everyone. Then gate sat there, without further function required of it.

It became a massive ring of metal, floating uselessly through space.

[center][b]***Scan of Nearby Star Systems Report #1***[/b][/center]

1. G0-class main-sequence star. Planets: several probable.

2. T-class brown dwarf star. Planets: unknown.

3. F1-class main-sequence star. Planets: several probable.

4. O6-class Supergiant star. Prominent heavy elements appearing in spectrum. Planets: few.