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[intrinsic_parity]

You are the first person to have a working Janus device. As to answer why it's you, the player character, specifically, it's quite simple. If you wouldn't get the device working, the game wouldn't be about you.

Yes this exactly. You're the first person to hotwire the gates. During the domain, no one needed to hotwire the gates because they had the intended method of powering them. Now that is lost, so everyone is trying to jury-rig an alternative method of using them, but no one know the science behind the gates, so no one has been successful thus far. You and the scientists are the first to figure a primitive solution out. There are easter eggs about a more technologically mature solution involving the hypershunts.

You're essentially rediscovering science the old domain knew but no one in the sector knew at the time of the collapse.

[Retry]

It wouldn't make sense for others to be roaming around with Janus Devices.  The only reason there's one working at all is because you delved into Alpha Site and lived to tell the tale, while grabbing valuable data from the Ziggurat's motes.  The reason there's not more devices or further research on opening the Gate Network proper is because the engineering team responsible for developing your prototype (which, by the way, you brought together to begin with) jumped ship immediately after finishing it, taking their necessary data and expertise with them.  Hinting that someone has another Janus Device would add plotholes, not fill them.

The Janus Device doesn't even restore the Gate network, it just allows temporary traveling between scanned gates, at high fuel costs.  A properly restored Gate network would allow for instantaneous, free (at least for the traveler) transport between any gate in existence.

The car analogy doesn't work: your "vehicle" is your Ships, and nobody's forgotten how to use them or even build them.  The gate system in its heyday is analogous to a currently-defunct theoretical magical superhighway infrastructure that used to allow for instantaneous, free travel between two points.  The Janus device equivalent would allow for a small sliver of the Superhighway infrastructure to be placed back online temporarily for instantaneous transport, but its usage demands energy (fuel) and a prior visitation to both points that you want to travel between; it's no replacement for the Superhighway in its prime.

[FooF]

I would very highly recommend the Hyperion Cantos in regards to what happens when a civilization that relied on Gate travel suddenly loses it. Starsector borrows heavily from the idea that a Gated Society (hur hur) would become quite complacent if such a method of transportation existed.

The Janus Device is a prototype and the Hypershunts appear to have enough power to reconnect to the old Gate system (rather than just hopping around the existing sector) but the game is quite silent as to whether or not reconnecting to the original Gate system would be a good thing. Ol' Cotton thinks re-opening the Gates will doom everyone. Maybe Warlord Kanta can give some insight (after all, wasn't she alive before the Collapse?)

[ElPresidente]

if thats the case, I think what would square this circle is the game dropping a hint somewhere else in the game implying that someone else has done this before, so that ur player isnt the first/only person to have ever figured this out in the entire (known) galaxy (which would be very unlikely seeing as "figure out how to use the gates" has to be the most #1 researched thing in the entire galaxy. Cuz, you know, people can probably see that ur using the gates. & if someone had figured it out & kept doing it, even if they kept how they were doing it a secret, it would be pretty unlikely that there wouldnt at least be a rumor that somebody had a magic trick to use the gates.

The most realistic reaction would be that all major powers would want that device. And they would be willing to do anything. Offer you untold riches, and failing that, direct violent action. And not by sending a single fleet after you, they'd probably be willing to send almost everything they have. But even more likely they'd send a million agents to steal it or assasiante you.

And if you somehow managed to elude them all, keeping it to yourself, I also see it as very likely the factions would usnite against you. A combined armada to take it form you.

Realistically speaking, the player would be in deep, DEEP s***.

[Yunru]

if thats the case, I think what would square this circle is the game dropping a hint somewhere else in the game implying that someone else has done this before, so that ur player isnt the first/only person to have ever figured this out in the entire (known) galaxy (which would be very unlikely seeing as "figure out how to use the gates" has to be the most #1 researched thing in the entire galaxy. Cuz, you know, people can probably see that ur using the gates. & if someone had figured it out & kept doing it, even if they kept how they were doing it a secret, it would be pretty unlikely that there wouldnt at least be a rumor that somebody had a magic trick to use the gates.

The most realistic reaction would be that all major powers would want that device. And they would be willing to do anything. Offer you untold riches, and failing that, direct violent action. And not by sending a single fleet after you, they'd probably be willing to send almost everything they have. But even more likely they'd send a million agents to steal it or assasiante you.

And if you somehow managed to elude them all, keeping it to yourself, I also see it as very likely the factions would usnite against you. A combined armada to take it form you.

Realistically speaking, the player would be in deep, DEEP s***.

What are they going to do? Send a massive fleet after you, consuming tonnes of fuel and supplies, only for you to jump to the other side of the galaxy?

[StrikeEcho]

if thats the case, I think what would square this circle is the game dropping a hint somewhere else in the game implying that someone else has done this before, so that ur player isnt the first/only person to have ever figured this out in the entire (known) galaxy (which would be very unlikely seeing as "figure out how to use the gates" has to be the most #1 researched thing in the entire galaxy. Cuz, you know, people can probably see that ur using the gates. & if someone had figured it out & kept doing it, even if they kept how they were doing it a secret, it would be pretty unlikely that there wouldnt at least be a rumor that somebody had a magic trick to use the gates.

The most realistic reaction would be that all major powers would want that device. And they would be willing to do anything. Offer you untold riches, and failing that, direct violent action. And not by sending a single fleet after you, they'd probably be willing to send almost everything they have. But even more likely they'd send a million agents to steal it or assasiante you.

And if you somehow managed to elude them all, keeping it to yourself, I also see it as very likely the factions would usnite against you. A combined armada to take it form you.

Realistically speaking, the player would be in deep, DEEP s***.

But you are technically backed by a major power, the Hegemony.
Heck, Baird has a big talk about how she's gonna send the info (video of you popping out from the gate) to the High Hegemon, before the revelation of the research team skiping town.

[Megas]

The most realistic reaction would be that all major powers would want that device. And they would be willing to do anything. Offer you untold riches, and failing that, direct violent action. And not by sending a single fleet after you, they'd probably be willing to send almost everything they have. But even more likely they'd send a million agents to steal it or assasiante you.

And if you somehow managed to elude them all, keeping it to yourself, I also see it as very likely the factions would usnite against you. A combined armada to take it form you.

Realistically speaking, the player would be in deep, DEEP s***.

Eh, no worse than having Free Port on at your colonies and having everyone spamming expeditions at you.  Basically, yet another excuse to sat bomb all of the core worlds and wipe them off the map.

Also, by the time the player gets the Janus device, he may already have four developed colonies and is effectively a major power, even if the core worlds do not realize that yet.  (Hence, player lashing out and sat bombing everything.)

Some of the fleets along the quest can approach endgame strength.  If player can handle that, he can handle anything humans throw at him.

[DatonKallandor]

The sector is carefully balanced on the knife edge of trying to find a way of reactivating the gates and a hardcore luddic "technology bad" attitude.

You need high-level AI to design the technology that could maybe re-open the gates, but you also don't know if you want to reopen the gates at all, there's been several devastating AI Wars and the biggest government entity has strong luddic church influence stopping it from doing too much technological research.

It makes a lot of sense that nobody has managed to reactivate a gate before, especially when you also remember that the sector tech level has been going down, not up. The opportunity for the people in it to invent a solution has been slipping further and further away for generations.

[KDR_11k]

Remember that the story cuts out the very moment that you get the Janus device working properly. Whatever comes next has not been written yet. That's the simple reason why nobody tries to steal your Janus device.

I always took the strange sounds of the motes and gates to be a hint towards whatever caused the network to shut down. Not a power failure but some other-worldly entity moving into whatever dimensional construct those gates work through.

I haven't actually fought the Omegas yet, are they motivated by keeping whatever is inside the gate network locked inside?

[ElPresidente]

What are they going to do? Send a massive fleet after you, consuming tonnes of fuel and supplies, only for you to jump to the other side of the galaxy?

You need to be at a gate to jump.
All they have to do it catch you when you aren't near one.

[ElPresidente]

Eh, no worse than having Free Port on at your colonies and having everyone spamming expeditions at you.  Basically, yet another excuse to sat bomb all of the core worlds and wipe them off the map.

Also, by the time the player gets the Janus device, he may already have four developed colonies and is effectively a major power, even if the core worlds do not realize that yet.  (Hence, player lashing out and sat bombing everything.)

Some of the fleets along the quest can approach endgame strength.  If player can handle that, he can handle anything humans throw at him.

It would be worse.
Grinded down trough sheer attrition. Imagine 20+ endgame strength fleets attacking you without giving you any chance to repair, rest or ressuply.

Realisitcally, the player should have no chance whatsoever against the entire sector wanting him dead, but we are the chosen one Mary Sue with cheat codes.

[Deshara]

What are they going to do? Send a massive fleet after you, consuming tonnes of fuel and supplies, only for you to jump to the other side of the galaxy?

You need to be at a gate to jump.
All they have to do it catch you when you aren't near one.

or park one at it lol

[Megas]

It would be worse.
Grinded down trough sheer attrition. Imagine 20+ endgame strength fleets attacking you without giving you any chance to repair, rest or ressuply.

Realisitcally, the player should have no chance whatsoever against the entire sector wanting him dead, but we are the chosen one Mary Sue with cheat codes.

Stuff like that would encourage players to colonize a single system, and build High Commands on every planet to infest his system with patrols that would intercept some of those fleets, and player can then pick off stragglers with support from Star Fortress.  Well, players tend to do this already.  If core is so angry that they want him dead and willing to set aside all differences for classic "Gang Up on the Human" trope, then player can prepare and exploit that before triggering that event, perhaps combining that with abusing overpowered combat features (like Doom cheese).

Or, player can pick off non-quest planets one-by-one (either sat bomb or excessive raiding) before his triggers any quests that would anger all of the core worlds.

If core worlds wants to kill off the player, then player can find a way to be Rambo and give them a war they cannot win.

[KDR_11k]

We've already seen what the story does when you have something everybody wants by having every faction send you an envoy fleet to blabber on why THEY deserve the Zig.

[Megas]

We've already seen what the story does when you have something everybody wants by having every faction send you an envoy fleet to blabber on why THEY deserve the Zig.

I ran from or dodged those fleets, since I saw them as likely combat encounters that I did not want to fight.

I have the perfect one-liner for those factions.