The Itani Gate is a Precursor artifact, but no one knows if it was created by one of the Precursor races from the Forge, or an unknown third. It provides instantaneous transit for spaceships from the Itani System in the galactic plane to the Forge some 1700 light years above.
The Gate is ancient – none know how old. It is generally reliable but not without its risks. The Gate has been known to “flicker” when in use, resulting in the destruction of the transiting ship. Others have simply disappeared into the Gate field – passing into one end, but never coming out the other, like a ghost train on Old Earth, vanishing into a tunnel beneath the hills.
When it became evident that the Forge was far from some bright new frontier, and that the most common reward for risking the Gate was a significantly abbreviate lifespan, interest in transiting waned. The Gate structure itself remained something of an enormous tourist attraction. But in the decades preceding the coming of the Otherlords, only the hardiest and most dedicated of scientists, prospectors and would-be tomb-raiders bothered to make the passage.
Early in the war, refugees used the Gate to flee to the Forge when they could. But for many, it was safer and easier to head further along the galactic plane, rather than risking a passage through the thick of the struggle. The bulk of the Exodus occurred in the years immediately following the war.
Itani Gate was always isolated, but since many populated systems near it were eradicated, it is even more so now, a circumstance that further reduces traffic through the Gate