Jack of Harts

The Branan were limited to normalspace by the stellar geography they lived in, so they spent centuries preparing colonization fleets that traveled a century or more across ten, fifteen, or even twenty lightyears to new star systems. They left their homeworld behind, knowing they would never see it again in their lives, in the search of new lives on new frontiers. They built powerful industrial economies in all six of the Betelgeuse stars, and then colonized six more systems with nineteen stars up to twenty lightyears away. The youngest of those colonies was centuries old when we made Contact, with a larger population, a higher industrial base, and more advanced technology than any of our colonies. There were more Branan living under their twenty-five stars than there were humans in our one hundred star systems. And then we gave them hyperspace.