The Graviscope

First invented late in Era-0, the graviscope is an instrument that makes gravitational waves visible.  The first graviscopes were large and unwieldy, mainly used in ground-based observatories.  The graviscope revealed much about space, showing the locations of black holes, dark matter clusters, and many other objects that would not otherwise have been found.

Graviscopes are also useful for detecting ships traveling faster than light, as doing so distorts the fabric of space-time, creating gravitational waves.

Midway through Era-1, graviscope technology was developed to the point that it became a practical instrument for space voyages.  As a result, space travel became substantially safer.  Ships that would have previously been lost in gravitational-wave storms, or swallowed by black holes were able to avoid these fates.

Early graviscopes were based on laser interferometry, while later designs changed to a mechanism combining nanotechnology with the exotic material known as gravitonium.

There was a previous version of the graviscope used in the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, but it was never developed there beyond the level of the ground-based observatory.  The legendary engineer Kroah Dashan wrote a famous treatise on the use of graviscope data in finding the optimal placement for stargates.

Entanglement Device

The Entanglement device is a means of faster-than-light communication that is instantaneous, but only works at very low bandwidths.  First invented by the legendary engineer, Kroah Dashan, the entanglement device works on the same principal as the star-gate, but at much smaller scales.

Few Entanglement Devices are made, because they have a mass and a cost approaching that of a star-gate, while only allowing a very limited amount of information to pass through.  Like star-gates, entanglement devices operate only in pairs constructed together, and then separated after activation. 

The Empire of 1,000,000 Suns only made limited use of entanglement devices, using them mainly for large-scale coordination of naval fleets.  The Planetary League made more extensive use of them, typically placing a small number per colony as part of a communication network.  Even with the instant speed of the entanglement device, communications were still slow due to the low bandwidth.  Because of this, Gazillion, inc.  made a lot of money with its own parallel network of entanglement devices built in corporate outposts near Planetary League colonies.  The Holy Empire of Man largely abandoned this technology because of its anti-intellectual culture.  In Era-3, the Galactic Republic improved the design, allowing for higher bandwidth, smaller size, and lower cost.  Consequently,  Entanglement devices became much more widely used during Era-3.

Clock Pulsers

A special application of entanglement device technology is the Clock Pulser which was invented during Era-1 in the Gazillion Corporate State.  The only information this device can receive is a single bit that pulses at a regular rate, connected to a remote timing device.  Because the clock pulser operates through the action of a fluctuating quantum field, it allows for the synchronization of timepieces, even in places with intense gravitational fields, or on high-speed spacecraft (where the pulsers appear to change speed, but are able to maintain synchronization).  Clock pulsers are all cubes, one meter on a side, weighing about twenty metric tons, because of the unique physics, and exotic matter needed to make them work.  The Planetary League operated a galaxy-spanning network of these devices synchronized to a hyper-accurate atomic clock on Earth.  This was the basis of the Galactic Standard Calendar, the standard time-keeping scheme of the League.  All colonies of the Planetary League, and most capital ships had at least one of these devices in order to maintain proper timekeeping.

Clock pulsers do not work in hyperspace; however, and when a ship with a spatial compression device emerges from higher dimensions, it needs to re-synchronize its clock with a local timekeeping source.  Occasionally, especially if the ship has been through a hyperspace storm, the ship will arrive at a point in time that was unexpected at the outset of the journey.  This seems to be related to the phenomenon of cosmic drift.

Star-gates

Description

Star-gates are ring-shaped machines that directly connect two locations in space.  All star-gates are constructed in pairs that connect to one another.  They are huge and very expensive to create.  The two halves are built together, and then, after the gate has been activated, the two pieces are separated, one going to either location that is to be connected.  Once activated, there is no way known to shut down a star-gate.  The construction of star-gates requires large amounts of exotic, and hard to obtain substances.  The absolute minimum size a star-gate can be is about 500 Meters in diameter.  If one half of a star-gate is destroyed, both halves will explode with a colossal amount of energy. 

History

In the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, the star-gate was invented well before the 1,000 Years War.  The legendary engineer, Kroah Dashan, oversaw the creation of a dense network of star-gates that protected imperial shipping routes from piracy, but also helped keep the Empire provincial.

Within the E1MS, and in a few other places, there are some ancient, dormant star-gates, known as the Zanathian Gates.  They are rumored to have been built by a civilization even older than the E1MS.

In human space, Star-gates were invented midway through Era-1, but the Planetary League only ever built a handful connecting a few major systems and regional capitols.  The Holy Empire of Man built a few more during Era-2.  Era-3 saw a dramatic rise in the use of star-gates, after the Galactic Republic discovered a more economical means of production.