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Just wondering - how hard is it to close a jump gate? I'm guessing it's pretty difficult and not something just anyone can do. Yet it was clearly something a fair number of people knew how to do during the fall, given the number of lost worlds. So who can do it, how difficult is it and how long does it take?

Hi macd21.
In my opinion people closed the jumpgates as they saw fit. I bet easiest (and common) way was to explode, ram a ship or just play around with "electronics" on the Ur device (remove all crystals and place them over here - then explode =P )
Of course, some cases, the gates come back on line with no previous knowledge or maybe with the help of a device (like in Hira/Kurga).

There must be specific ways on making the gate reset for x time (days, years, centuries). But the character needs at least a good knowledge on Ur devices and lots of luck!

Hope I helped!

I recall reading (though this could just be false memories on my part) that their were tricks to setting the reset time on a gate when it is activated, and even artifacts (pieces of the gate itself??) that could be removed to completely disable the gate. Given enough time, the jumpkeys themselves become useless because of drift.

I seem to remember having discussed jumpgates with... Bill or Andrew or someone a few years ago, and one of the things they stressed was that eash jumpgate is probably unique, so some of them might be as simple as flicking the switch, while others might not be possible to swich off at all. (Clarification: Closing jumpgates wasn't discussed specificaly, but I assume each gate is different in this respect as well. In any case, dramatical appropriateness and story needs rules the day Also... my memory is bad).

My guess is that it's less prying open the gate and bashing things until it turns off and more a way of hacking the technology. Otherwise we wouldn't have likely been able to re-open the gate to Ivar without figuring out how to open all of the others.

The fluff does mention the gates are self-repairing and most conventional attempts to damage them have failed to do any significant damage. Although there was mention they were able to once find some broken off debris, likely the result of a comet impact.