Tein Gates
Though at its core a Tein Gate is merely a very large Tein Machine, the gates or linkages are treated differently from any other machine that interacts with the Mirror Plane. The gates are far larger, able to transport enormous halls of full of people and goods at a time. The gates are the lynchpin of interstellar travel, and the Gatekeepers as well as various other human powers are constantly researching ways to create larger Tein Gates to increase the volume of goods and people that can cross through to the mirror plane at a time.
Described as stepping through a fifth dimension, a Tein Gate moves material within the zone in place. People, things, air are all moved without being transformed in the interim. The receiving end must thus displace an equivalent volume of matter, and the sending end produces a vacuum which must be filled. Thus, Tein Gate usage creates powerful winds on either end and potentially even explosions and other damage if not carefully managed. Gatekeepers will manipulate the environmental systems of the gate halls in order to thin the air in the receiving end and thicken it in the sending end so as to balance out these fluctuations.
Though the gates never have enough carrying capacity for everyone, it is also difficult to upgrade them because it would take the gate offline for the duration of the upgrade.
Gates are generally operated on a back&forth schedule, with the contents of one hall being transported, unloaded, a few minutes being allowed for the hall on the other side to be filled, and transported back again to be unloaded. The entire process has been refined to be incredibly fast and efficient, and the time table is merciless. If the goods or travelers are not in the hall when the warning bell goes off, they're not getting through.
Manufacturing
Tein Gates require extremely potent power sources, generally dedicated on-site nuclear fusion reactors. They require perfect vacuum to be constantly maintained in the particle containment chamber, or the link to the mirror plane might be lost. The guide-rails of the system must be kept in precise condition to ensure that the system does not transport anything unintended. As Tein processes are capable of shearing molecular bonds, a misaimed Tein Gate would serve as a weapon of mass destruction capable of causing incredible damage to the space station it is hosted on.
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