Jack of Harts

Our first hyperdrive was so slow it took a year to fly to Alpha Centauri.  We spent decades exploring just the systems within fifty lightyears of Earth on those drives.  They were so expensive that only the rich or the governments could afford to build them.  After Contact, the Peloran taught us how to build cheap drives.  The oppressed and huddled masses traveled to new worlds in search of fresh starts, and that has changed everything for the better.