The story and the Gatewrights.

How the story works

The story is told in ten chapters. Each chapter gives you one goal, such as flying to the Space Gate or mining 20 tonnes of ore. A tonne is the game's unit of weight for ore and parts. When you reach the goal, the chapter ends, a reward is handed to you and the next chapter begins.

Your current chapter appears in the goals panel, with a hint under it that tells you how to reach the goal. The story starts when your ship reaches space. It is not begun while you are still on the ground.

Your place in the story is saved with your game, and it goes wherever you go. If you play with friends, a friend who is on the same chapter as you finishes it with you when you finish yours. If a friend is on the same chapter at the crossroads, they make the same choice as you.

The cast

Who	What they are
Pell	Keeper of the Beacon at the Gate, and a Gatewright. Pell is a small ring with one eye, very talkative, and the last of the Gatewrights who is still awake. Pell has been talking into the Beacon for nineteen years.
Maester Oda-Thel	The Gatewrights' elder and Keeper of the Gate. You hear Oda-Thel as a recording that has been left running for a long time, and has opinions by now.
The Warden	The Gate's guard, a colossus who keeps the Gate. The Warden is patient and literal. See the Gate Warden for how to fight it.
Captain Brindle Aster	A free trader with a ship called the Reasonable Doubt. She has never managed to sell the ship, and she listens to the Beacon for news of the stations.
The emissary	A messenger from the first people you meet on the far side of the Gate. The emissary's name and people are filled in once you reach the seventh chapter.

The Gatewrights

The Gatewrights are a people shaped like a ring, with one eye and no real arms or legs. They glowed when they were thinking. They built the Gate to be a door that anyone with a good reason could use. Most of them are gone now. What they left behind is a recording, a guard and an apprentice, and those three are the story's main characters.

The Gatewrights' standing with you matters. The Gatewrights remember how you treat their Gate and their guard, and the story's ending depends on it. See the endings.

The Warden

The Warden is the Gate's guard. It is a colossus of obsidian plates, with a halo of runes, four floating fists and one cyan eye. It keeps the Gate shut to anyone it wants kept out, and open to anyone it does not. The Gatewrights gave it one test to tell a repairer from a thief, and the test is a fight. The Warden has not lost one in four hundred thousand years.

Captain Brindle Aster

Brindle is a free trader, which means she carries cargo from place to place for her own profit and answers to nobody. Her ship is the Reasonable Doubt. She is funny and blunt, and she tends to know about a port's cargo before you do. She will give you advice on the stations, and she will tell you not to accept the first offer you are given.

The far side and its emissary

Beyond the Gate lie other universes, and each has its own peoples. The emissary is a messenger from the first of those peoples that you meet. The story gives the emissary a name and the name of its people when you reach the seventh chapter. Until then, the emissary is only a voice from the far side.

Words you will meet

• The Gate: the ring of violet light out in space, with a large portal in it. Flying into the portal opens a map of universes. See the Gate and the Lens.
• The Beacon: a tall, thin tower beside the Gate that holds the Gate's door steady. It has been failing for a long time.
• The Lens: the part that the Beacon needs to be mended. It is made from ore and machine parts.
• The Warden: the Gate's guard.
• The crossroads: the choice at the end of the story, where you decide what becomes of the Gate.
• Standing: how a people feels about you. See reputation.

Where to go next

The chapters are set out in The Gate, the Beacon and the Lens. Read The crossroads and the endings for the final choice. If you want the wider picture first, the multiverse page explains the other universes that the Gate reaches.

← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.