Wormhole Gate operation

            The typical Federation gate handles more than one wormhole, and so leads to more than one gate, because of these complex relationships within the network a system is required to coordinate wormhole use, and so avoid costly mistakes in gate operation.

            During gate operation one wormhole within a gate’s set is selected and energy is dumped from the anchor gate into the wormhole terminus, the resulting expansion transforms the submicron wormhole into a meters wide terminus with a conduit length of effectively zero, this expanded wormhole is termed active, and in this state is used to transfer goods and people. The selection of one wormhole is made by cooperative energy application at either end, because the collapsed wormholes need energy applied at both ends to become active, the other wormholes within the gate do not expand as only one end is supplied with energy, and so selection is made. Generally the collapsed wormhole is used to transfer an activation message to the destination gate, alerting it to apply energy, the message is simple and simply states the ident of the transmission gate, and an activation sequence. When a particular wormhole has been activated the others held in the gate migrate from positions from centre of the well to the terminal confinement annulus, a zone around the edge of the gate that securely traps the collapsed wormhole termini, fortunately the expanding throat of the active wormhole pushes the collapsed wormholes into this region, though once expanded the collapsed wormholes could migrate down the throat and transfer to the other gate, the role of the confinement annulus is to stop this from happening.

            Because the collapsed wormholes can be used to convey messages to distant gates no additional communication hardware is required to coordinate gate operation, though of course a receiver and transmitter needs to be built into the gate complex. Almost without exception the wormhole message system relies on gravimetric communication, using the collapsed wormhole as a conduit to transfer ripples of distortion to the distant gate, the DCM ring built into every gate can be used as a transmitter and a receiver to these signals, and the use of gravimetric communication, means the variable conduit lengths of the collapsed wormholes do not cause a significant time gap between transmission and interception. Though each transmission through the gate network sends information about the sending gate and other status messages, it is only the activation sequence that really counts, because without cooperative application of energy the wormhole can’t be opened. The additional information is simply a way of identifying the other gate for traffic control, or of course enabling a gate to be added to a queue if the gate is currently busy.

            Because of the reliance on energy application at both ends, a wormhole cannot be opened if either gate is damaged or unpowered, this feature confers some degree of safety to the transport as material cannot be sent to a broken gate. Also in the event of gate destruction, the wormholes once contained are now liberated and naturally decay away, this means that in the event of total gate failure there is wormhole failure at all of the connected gates, so neither wormholes or messages can be sent or made to the destroyed gate.

            Each gate can only reliably handle one active wormhole at a time, and so sometimes a gate will try and contact an already busy gate (this happens often for important nodes in the network). Though the gate receives the contact signal, it cannot open more than one active wormhole at a time, and so the second gate must either wait for the gate to clear, or redirect to another vacant gate. The inability to open a second terminus is not only prohibited by the safety of those traveling through the active gate, but also an technical impossibility, the active wormhole draws the applied energy of the gate, and because the active wormhole is the only one centered in the middle of the distortion, the second wormhole can not draw enough energy to become active, also its position in the terminal confinement annulus means that any expansion will be of centre and asymmetric and would not lead to a stable terminus.

            The collapse of an active wormhole is effected by cutting power at both gates (generally), and without the applied energy the wormhole degenerates, and as it does so the other stored wormholes can migrate from the terminal confinement annulus back to the centre of the distortion. The only exception to this rule is where another gate is waiting for connection and is applying energy at its end, then energy is maintained at the receiving gate, and the first collapsing wormhole replaced with the second waiting in the terminal confinement annulus, where it then migrates to centre and expands, becoming active.