Strangely enough, for the world as a whole, Gates offered one universal service above all others - Waste disposal! Even better, it could be ANY waste, even high level radioactive waste. Around the world, most sewage treatment plants and landfills were switching over to Gate disposal. Even industrial smokestacks were being diverted into Gates. Flood control was also being adapted to open waterways into drainage Gates when needed.
Yes, certainly there were protests by environmentalists bemoaning the horrific contamination of Gateworld by these many disposal projects, but that barely even slowed down the process. As humans had once thought of the great forests, people thought of Gateworld as an endless expanse, able to endlessly soak up human debris. Of course, they were quite correct for now. Even the most pessimistic projections showed it would take centuries to create serious environmental hazards in Gateworld, beyond the local dump Gates themselves.
On the flip side, several ecological societies were doing the exact opposite and establishing nature preserves via Gate - forming colonies of endangered plants and animals in many hidden corners of the world. Biologists worldwide were tasked with the establishment of viable ecosystems of all types.
On the amateur side, seeds of any kind were almost impossible to get now, and books on gardening, horticulture, and almost any related topic were sold out. People in general were potting and transplanting almost anything that would grow for import to Gateworld.
Early Gate users were harvesting their first mature crops, and those harvested seeds were causing a sensation of their own - some of the mutations were already evident. There was a huge variety of color and shape far beyond what was usually seen across a wide variety of crops. Rules regarding Gateworld-grown crops were a legal maze, making large shipments almost impossible even for the few farms that HAD such quantities to sell.
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Far from the frightening "evil" blood ritual people had thought of early on, the basic Gate-making compound now in regular use was simply something like Elmer's glue with a few drops of blood mixed in - something anyone could mix up and carry with them. Some people had gotten their Gate-creation time down to under 5 minutes - though many of these now were reaching their limit and finding they could no longer make Gates.
Mapping showed individual Gate networks showed up in Gateworld as hexagonal rings around the initial Gate made by that person, with the centers of each "hex" being 11.2 miles apart from their surrounding ones. Water and really extreme terrain locations were "skipped", so some people had more "hexes" to fill than others before reaching their limits.
Each Gate maintained its own climate, seemingly with no regard to that of other nearby Gates, often resulting in very strange-looking weather patterns. There were (very few) places where one could simply walk from the tropics to frozen tundra in under 15 minutes.
The other point meteorologists were finally recognizing is that Gateworld did NOT have seasons - either related to their point of origin or otherwise. Gates maintained the climate of the season and place they originated from - early June for the initial Gates, to mid-August for the most recent. And yet they all did so while maintaining an even, 12-hour each, day & night cycle.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
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On the biological front, it was established that plant growth was accelerated to about 5 times normal rates, and animal growth by slightly over 2 times. The data on humans wasn't conclusive yet, but it seemed the same was holding true for Homo Sapiens. All single-cellular life seemed to follow the plant rate, as did yeast and fungi. No real cause for the increased growth had yet been determined - raw intake seemed only slightly elevated over the same species behavior on Earth.
Much the same was true for the enhanced abilities of the human immune system in Gateworld and the rapid healing observed there - there just wasn't any good explanation.
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Marc Cassidy was pouring over the first performance reports from manned jet fighters in Gateworld - more nonsense! According to the flight recorders and telemetry, the higher the jets went, the higher the tailwind they experienced - no matter which direction they flew! This had huge implications for flight speeds and range, IF it could be counted on. If not, a plane could easily be stranded far from any possible landing strip.
The effect started to be noticeable at a little under 1 mile up, where it was about 50 mph, and then essentially tripled for each additional mile. No upper limit to the effect had yet been found, but tests hadn't yet dared go above 6 miles for fear of losing aircraft. The other big factor was that unmanned drones did NOT get the same benefit.
So far as Marc was concerned, the important takeaway was that ground-based anti-aircraft fire was going to be nearly impossible. Great for recon or attack missions, terrible for defense.
Reading over reports and recommendations, he finally decided which project to prioritize. He was going to get a lock of pushback on this one, but it seemed the Age of the Zeppelins was about to return. They were the only thing in current designs that could stay high enough, long enough, to do the jobs he needed done. Unfortunately, the lead time looked like a minimum of 2 months.
Cursing quietly to himself, he signed the needed orders and requisitions. Looking even further ahead, his reports on ocean conditions indicated things would be almost as bad - if the first drafts were right, it was going to be a world of sailing ships and submarines. Fortunately, that was a problem for next year. No one was going to have seafaring capability for a while yet.
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Back in Cartan Cove (their coastal Gate, not Cindy's lakeside estate), things were buzzing along at an impressive clip. They had over 100 family and friends on the project now, which included a small homeschooling operation Cindy was required to attend. They had a small fleet of golf carts and garden tractors that could be driven through Gates.
They had 2 large barns, a 50-bed bunkhouse, 3 tiny homes, and six regular homes under construction. They also had 3 acres of solar panels, 8 generators of various kinds, 6000-gallons of gas storage, 2000 of diesel, and assorted other materials. Still, about half of the community members still lived off-site in their Earth-side homes. Cindy's family was the only group currently living in Lakeside, and all but Cindy tended to spend most of the work day in the Cove Gate.
Their seacoast and river ecologies were just starting to produce results, but their riverside fields and orchards had already produced some mature crops. The biggest challenge to their farming was the lack of actual soil, but the river silt seemed to work for most purposes. Their other big soil project involved mixing beach sand with assorted debris (trash) from Earth.
After much debate, the Cartans decided to get a beacon - they wanted to know where they were relative to other possible new communities on the ocean shoreline.