Really an interesting style of these gates.

So to deploy one gate in another system, the first gate is aligned to the system they want to go to, sending the collapsed gate through it in a one-way-mission, then in the designated system it deploys and connects to the gate it just came through, did I understand that right?

thats correct. the concept was for a active gate to be big enough so a inactive one can fit through and i wanted to give hypergates some strategic value. spaceships don't generate enough power to jump on their own, although i haven't decited yet if big ships like cruisers are excluded from that rule (probably not)

Nice.

Reminded me also a bit of the books 'Gibraltar Earth' and 'Gibraltar Sun' by Michael McCollum, where there was also a non-human species that used such interstellar gates to controll their space empire of one million solar-systems and tens of thousands of sentient species under their militaristic rule. Yet in the novels they were more like huge tubes instead of rings. ^.=.^

never read it! but their empire sounds like an awful lot of bureaucracy!

Do they still use the gates or do they have FTL built into their ships?

Gates are and still will be used in the foreseeable future for civilian and to a large extend military traffic. The sheer amount of energy needed to jump from one system to the next is just too great for ships to generate by themselves. I also like the idea of having some kind of order to interstellar travel, you have to travel to a gate, there is a fixed entry and exit point, unlike for exampe star trek where every little shuttle has a warp drive

Hmm okay. Also, I was fascinated enough by your worldbuilding that in one of my made-up future scenarios for mankind I incorporated some elements of the Draconians into it. You're stage is already set but I'm just wondering if you would like to hear it?

Sure thing

The year is 2048 and Earth is on the verge of WW3. But then, a large alien spaceship emerges from hyperspace and immediately is on a collision course with Earth. It was large enough and moving fast enough during its uncontrolled decent that at least one urban are was devastated due to the shockwaves produced as the ship fell. After it crashes the wreck is investigated, no bodies or any sign of crew were found but for humanity one thing was clear, we weren't alone and whoever built the ship were clearly lightyears ahead of even the most advanced thinkers on Earth. And so, the devastation that a third world war would cause would pale in comparison to the threat of invasion from outer space.

With all war plans out the window, the people of Earth unite for the first time and form a united Earth government. Assuming that the aliens might be hostile and might one day come looking for their lost ship, humanity spends the next 15 years attempting to study the (Draconian) ship while also constructing a (primitive) defense fleet and satellite/space station defense systems. And it is at this point after 15 years that a small Draconian expeditionary fleet arrives in search of their lost ship. Military is quickly alerted that a series of irregularities in the gravitational field have been detected by DSMS(Deep Space Monitoring System) and make the connection to a similar anomaly that occurred 15 years ago just before the alien ship arrived. And so the stage is set for first contact.

Some points here.
1: The Draconian ship I'm imaging here that crashes is at least the size of a destroyer.
2: In this scenario humanity is only able to study so much because only 7% of the tech on board survived impact.
3: I'd imagine whatever fleet that the Draconian would ever send to recover their ship would be expeditionary due to them tracking the ship deep into uncharted space.
4: Obviously the lost ship would've had to pass through a gate in order to jump so my thought is that the gate suffered some sort of failure that caused the ship to be sent to a random set of coordinates (Which to be fair the chances of a random FTL jump landing an alien ship in Sol are really thin but hey this is just sci-fi after all)
5: Honestly I think this scenario is best for us because we're still not ready for first contact, so mankind finding an abandoned alien ship or said ship crashing on Earth would be the right way to force us to discard our differences and unite as a species, and it would be better if we get forced to unite without having our planet invaded and 2/3 of our population getting exterminated.
6: What happens next is still debatable, do we just "give" the Draconians their ship back? How will the Draconians react and respond to a humanity that despite the advances of 15 years, are still a primitive, pre-Type 1 civilization?
7: Remember when you talked about overkill? Well, my comment might be overkill, but I had little difficulty explaining XD

Yeah such a scenario can work out, ultimately it all depends on the superior species attitude because they are holding all the cards in the end no matter how heroic the humans act in all those hollywood movies.
Do you want me to make counter points?
I also can tell you that draconian first contact protocol is rather aggressive and depends on the technological level of the species they encounter

Sure go right ahead.

I don't want to interfere too much into your idea, the only question i would have about the story is about the missing crew, if a ship would jump so close into orbit there would be no chance to evacuate in time, so there should be bodies.

Obviously you can do as you please in your worldbuilding, i just would lay it out from my perspective now

1. Losing an entire destroyer is a huge deal, not only expensive but also way over a 1000 crew members would be gone missing and the confederate government would go to great lengths to find and rescue them, meaning it would take them probably only a couple of weeks or months to locate them, maybe even less.

2 and 3 is probably what would likely happen

4. here is the thing, while accidents can happen, a hypergate can only send you into the direction its pointed at, like you would shoot an arrow and the maximum range is around ~80 lightyears. So while a ship could drift off from the path, a lost ship would most likely be in a cone shaped area in front of the gate, drastically reducing the area that needs to be searched.

5. two things can happen, either the scenario as you descriped it or a single nation is taking advantage of it to dominate the others. (but i too prefer the "united" scenario)

6. Obviously confederate official would demand the return of the bodys (if there are any) for proper burials, since a crew might consist of different member races and not just draconians. Denial would have serious repercussions in the form of economic sanctions or humans could be labeled as "dangerous" and their solar system quarantined and isolated.

About how the confederacy is doing first contact, like i said its pretty aggressive and they have no issue of "uplifitng" primitive races if they are allowed to.
usually it starts with automated drones sent through a gate, if a solar system has valuable resources and is already inhabited, lets say humans, the confederacy acknowledges the entire solar system as human property and has to be asked for permission first before mining the asteroid belt for example.
After studing language and custom, diplomats are being send down to the planet (usually without any real heads up or the possible culture shock for the population, like i said very aggressive)
2 things can happen at this point, humans are acting aggressive, in that case retreat and the solar system is declared off limits.
Or humans say yes and in exchange are offered associated status in which they are getting limited technological access for joined ventures etc.

This is how first contact with the Traxians went down more or less, which was also the first race draconians ever encountered during their expansion.

Most of what i have said would probably pop up in one form or another in some of the art i am getting, i am just waiting for my artist friend to open again so i can commission, hah.

I like your points especially about the diplomacy, without warning. I mean right now the only thing we have that comes anywhere close to being an alien ambassador is the UN Department of Outer Space Affairs despite the subject of aliens barely being touched in that department XD.

So to close the loophole with the crew I can only suggest that they abandoned ship just before it through. Also, according to you the maximum distance that any object can be sent through hyperspace to even during a malfunction is 80 light years. I mean I would have expected that the incident takes place on the very edge of their explored space.

Do the draconians account for the possibility that any of their standard procedures might be taken as acts of aggression? Because when two beings who speak completely different languages meet each other they're not going to know what the other is saying or even thinking and of course cultural differences can lead to fatal misinterpretations.

Ah, the way the confederacy explores is by entering a new system, establishing a foothold for further exploitation before moving on to the next system, so the "edge of explored space" would never be more than 80 light years or less if the next solar system is closer. they usually don't skip a system to move further than that, unless i misunderstood what you were saying.

Thats why some language and custom study takes place before first contact with a primitive species and diplomatic ships are small and unarmed.
In case first contact happens between two ships, confederate computers are capable of spitting out at least some crud translation and from a draconain point of view, if another species is intelligent enough for space travel they also should be smart enough to not greet someone with guns blazing

So they would rather stand back and observe us? Even if they did we would already know about their presence because since we know in this scenario what type of phenomenon occurred shortly before the Draconian ship appeared. So if the tri-counties jump into Sol then we're going to know about it. It's all all they might need to do is listen to our radio broadcasts

tri counties, thats an interesting autocorrect haha.
Only for a brief amount of time until they collected enough data.
There are many ways to approach this, stealth probes, long ranges scanners,

Well that was a typo XD sorry

Anyways moving on, suppose our first Contact scenario turns hot, let's say a misinterpretation on our side leads us to firing a warning shot off one of the Draconian ship's bow?

(personally i am not a fan of doing something so drastic like a warning shot, mostly because why would you want to agitate someone that is clearly more powerful than you)
But in case it does happen the diplomats would double check the previous sentences with the linguistic experts on board and try again

How many ships would typically be in a draconian expeditionary force? I'm imagining that there would be at least 6 or 7 capital ships of varying class.

oh, expeditionary force. i thought we are talking about a diplomatic mission specificaly.
Well, here is an example https://www.furaffinity.net/view/35652065/
Nothing above 2 or 3 destroyers, i don't think that humans are that important

Okay, I'm just curious now as to what would happen if just for whatever reason there was a legitimate confrontation between whatever ships were sent to recover the lost ship against Mankind's defenses in this particular scenario of mine.

they would disable the human ships rather than to outright destroy them as a sign of good faith. After that threat is neutralized they would contact their higher ups for further instruction since the ship crashed in a populated area, orbital strikes are out of the question. They could call a recovery not worth the risk and back off completely or they could use Spec Ops to neutralize the remaining tech on the ship if there is any

Do they disable ships using electronic warfare such as EMP's or viruses? (Also if I explain humanity's space combat capabilities I'd want to know the chances they have)

computer viruses, or just simply destroying the engines