Trans-Orbital Accelerator

A trans-orbital accelerator (commonly abbreviated TOA) is a popular form of short-range transit gate, pairs of which exist in the majority of planetary systems to link points of interest in local space without relying on the cumbersome and expensive conventional gate network. This is achieved through the use of an Alcubierre tunnel rather than the hyperspace method employed by stargates or the discontinuous jump method of planefolders.

Due to the subluminal nature of the Alcubierre tunnel, trans-orbital accelerators are limited to transit speeds fractionally slower than light, as opposed to the 5-10 parsecs/second achieved in planefolding transit, and are limited in practise to a comparatively short jump distance for both safety and efficiency reasons; trans-orbital accelerators are incapable of transporting ships in both directions simultaneously, due to an inherent risk of collision at superluminal speeds. It is not uncommon for high-traffic systems such as Gliese 876 and Sol to feature multiple accelerators at each planet to streamline this process.