In reference to the movie, "Game", I'm curious, and would like to turn it in a sequel... or even a trilogy? No, not Game2. That won't work but the Game, set in the future as it is, would make an excellent launch vehicle for a series of intergalactic space wars. It could go something like this...
As an ice trader, and one of the few surviving members of the original Games I'm just-back from the inter third of the galaxy where things move really fast, I have news, and need of a discreet audience with Star Fleet.
About the Game:
You probably never heard about the second game. It was delayed a couple of days because the night before it was to start, someone poisoned the water supply with a designer drug. Ya, there are rules in place, now.
35 years ago, you were just a child. You believed whatever you were told about the Game and why it was important. Its not the barbarous thing people have made it out to be.
It began as a celebration of our victory over the Invaders and as an affirmation of life. It was the Human Race that repelled the Invaders, we were the ones that held the line, drove them back from our galaxy and they've never returned. The price we paid was a full third of our Star Fleet, but you'll never see That in the history files.
One of the concessions we're allowed for the victory, is we don't allow tourist on our planet. The military leaders and dignitaries from other Races can gate in to be present for the Game but few have ever been allowed tours. No one else is allowed anywhere near our home-world.
All the history books say we held the line. The Humans held fast and repelled the Invaders. That's what the Game is about, not some blood thirsty psychotic Race's need for, or love of butchery.
You probably don't know how it started. All the history books buried that first incursion in the renegade piracy that went on at the end of the 1st Milky Way War, well, after the 3rd one, so far the peace has held.
Back in the beginning when the gates started going up, it didn't take long for some of the enterprising races to start stealing from the gates. That led to the Star Marshals and we all know that it was their heavy handedness that led to the 1st MW War. Although it was brutal, it didn't last very long. Back then the Galaxy wasn't very well mapped out and only a hand full of the races were even trading with eachother.
The 2nd MW War was just an out-and-out power grab. You had 3 of the major powers try to carve up nearly two of the Spiral Arms and when objections were raised... there were warring races, less well armed, but everybody was gating in from everywhere and when they went home they tended to take the war back with them.
...This is about the "Invaders" from Andromeda, and their first raid on the Milky Way...
At first they thought it was a mistake. It happens, not very often but it happens. But when they started shooting, all Hell broke loose. All the outbound hubs cut power to their gates, protocol, so it stayed local but they gated in on their own gate and back out the same way.
As per protocol, the first two major powers on scene coordinate, verify whatever it was, keep it localized and contained, and then send in scout and recon ships, to assess and report back.
They grabbed up some of the out bound gates, some cargo containers and their crews then it seems, blasted anything that moved. It didn't make any sense what they took or what they left behind, tools, food stores even a couple of containers of weapons. There was a cruse liner docked at one of fueling stations who's passengers saw the whole thing and that was another thing that didn't make any sense... this relativity large cruse liner, full of people was completely ignored as though it wasn't even there.
Ya, if all the powers hadn't had all that left over paranoia from the 3rd MW War those "things" could have dropped in on someone's Home World and then nobody out side the Federation would have believed "it" came from Andromeda and wasn't some rouge element going to start MW War 4.
The whole Hub system came from that arcane 20th Century network, the World Wide Web. It was discarded mid 21st century because the inefficiencies, that and how easily it was hacked. It being easy to hack made it perfect for warring and alien races distrustful of eachother but wanting to do commerce.
Each randomized jump through system has its own security and inspection force, something the old Earth based "WWW" never had. That and whatever product, service or people being "jumped" through the system never gets to a destination World but only to a collection gate where its inspected again before being allowed to continue. Therefore, each "Package" is sent from its Home World to a small Hub and given its senders address and its destination address. After that nobody knows which set of major and/or minor Hubs it will go through before it reaches the collection point of the destination address. It may be inefficient but after all the inspections its unlikely to go BANG! when it arrives.