Yet, just as the situation reached what seemed to be the point of hopelessness and utter despair, Project Star-Reach made a sudden and unexpected "pay-out"! At the 9/5/19 of the first Cbluvoe of the twenty-seventh Cycle since the "Acceptance", Project Star-Reach initiated the first practical demonstration of what our records refer to as "The Portal of the Far Stars" (perhaps more closely rendered as the "Gate to the Stars", or, perhaps "Stargate").

The exact nature of this device is uncertain, as it seems to have been so well known to all Forerunners that it is merely mentioned in passing in ONE text. Whatever it was, and whatever it was supposed to do, it was evidently an outstanding success. It enabled the Phoenix Confederacy to stabilise its depleted volume of sovereignty at the reduced stage it had reached - and, within a mere millennia, to once again begin to expand outwards. At least, to expand outwards into pre-Collapse areas of the Confederacy. The rate of expansion - presumably all as a result of use of the "Gate of Stars" was incredibly rapid. By the last Cbluvoe of the Cycle, the Confederacy had, in many places, reached the line which had been the old border at its high point!

Also, amazingly enough, the wave of new expansion showed no signs of letting up - as the next section will reveal.