The Void

Uncounted stars blaze in the sky, forming vast galaxy. Each star is a tiny pinprick of light in the dark void of space. Close to a star, the light and heat make life possible, though of course, getting too close can be fatal. The farther one goes from the star, the deeper the darkness. The darkness between the stars is unimaginably vast, and though it is called the void, it is far from empty. The things that reside there are strange and monstrous, vast on a scale that is beyond human comprehension, and driven by alien desires that defy understanding.

Travel between solar systems means passing through the void, and risking an encounter with one of the beings of the void. The earliest interstellar voyages were made directly, spending years travelling through the void, and many of the ships and crews were lost to the beings that reside in the emptiness. The technology of jumping involves accelerating beyond the speed of light and slipping out of the universe as we understand it, into another space. It allows the vast distances between the stars to be bridged in a matter of minutes, rather than years, and avoids the creatures that live in the void. The danger is that one must be very exact about where one comes out of a jump, or risk appearing inside of a planet. For this reason, a jump requires extensive calculations, and a known destination. A system can be jumped to blind by those willing to risk it, and it is this kind of blind jumping exactly that has allowed so much of the galaxy to be charted.