A fluidic gate is mainly known to be the entrance to, or from, fluidic space. The only life form known to live there, is Species 8472, as Starfleet is already aware of. It is believed that through fluidic gates, they travel to our universe. A fluidic gate is therefore not the same as a wormhole or black hole, and its structure is quite different. The singularity that lies at the heart of the gate is a point in which space is infinitely curved in itself. It is stable while at rest.

When the gate starts to open, though, a delicate balance of energy is required to maintain the singularity and enlarge it enough to let a ship come through without making it collapse. During the opening phase, the complex subspace field, that surrounds the singularity and makes it stable and impervious to any attack attempt, becomes fragile in some points. Neutrino emissions often indicate when some object or ship is attempting to cross the opened gate.

To close the fluidic gate, you must fire a coherent beam of gravitons from your deflector dish into one of the "holes" that appears in the field and make the singularity collapse in on itself, sealing the gate, though it is logical to assume that soon another one would be opened. It is important to say that the "holes" appear following a chaotic pattern, so it is only possible to predict the location of the next "hole" just seconds before it opens, and they stay open for a fraction of a second.

Also, this can only be attempted when the gate is opening or closing. If a ship comes through it, you will not be able to seal the gate until it enters this transitory state again, and there is a risk for the ship travelling through the gate. If the energy configuration is not precise the ship may be destroyed instantaneously.

There is a very small possibility that the closing of the gate will create a subspace shockwave that might alter the Cochrane coefficient of a region and interfere with passing ships' warp capability, possibly even rendering warp travel impossible in this area of space. Setting subspace beacons to emit a reversed subspace signal around the gate, in case there is this subspace wave, should hold the shock wave to a very limited area of space that would have minimum effect on the development of the species on any nearby planet.

(article by: Captain Randall Sanchez)

A Bioship of Species 8472 entering a fluidic gate.