Every day it seems you hear someone talking about the malfunctioning Tada-O gate in Cooper Sector, in particularly "Gate raids". Before I go any further though, allow me to give some background on this Gate.

Approximately one-and-a-half years ago, Tada-O Built a gate in Cooper with experimental new technology. This new gate technology promised faster and cheaper travel to new sectors. Unfortunately, this Gate, when first activated opened the Ten-Gu home system. Hundreds of vicious creatures, commonly referred to now as "fish", poured into the system because the Gate was stuck open. After some time, they managed to close the Gate but not before these fish had filled the sector.

Fast forward to today. The Cooper Sector has become a hunting ground. Every day hundreds go there to kill the Ten-gu for fun and profit. The Ten-Gu hide - being an especially profitable and sought after community. Now, though, there is a even more dangerous hunt going on. Twice a day, a large number of hunters gather at the broken Gate and activate it! Hundreds of Ten-Gu fly out and attack the awaiting hunters.

All this time, the Gate is held open, causing tremendous stress on the frame and generators of the malfunctioning Gate and smoke can be seen billowing from it. In these pictures I took (from a safe distance!), you can see the strain growing on the Gate. It made me wonder how long the gate can handle these stresses? For the answer, I went straight to Tada-O to talk to the designers, only to find out they had all been killed at the grand opening. I did, however, manage to get this quote from one of Tada-O's senior managers. "Tada-O gate Big. Strong. Broke. Work not right. Try most hard to fix. Die many. Explode could!"

It's a scary thought to think of a Gate explosion with so many gathered there for a raid. I asked one hunter what he thought of the possibility and he said, "Maybe . . . but the profit's just too good."