The Gateway Sector, unlike the familiar sectors of the Imperial reagion, is -- for reasons of history and astrography -- a patchwork of worlds and interstellar governments. The sector is precariously balanced between two major galactic cultures, the Imperial region to spinward and the K'kree to trailing. Though considered by astrographers to be "client states", the various goverments of Gateway stubbornly cling to their own individuality and liberty. In all, nine major intersystem governments exist, wholly or in part, within the sector's boundaries.