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.

The greatest problem the Branan thought they had to surpass was the fact that the stars they wanted to colonize were simply so far away. The true problem was that they were actually far too close to each other. Hyperspace is affected and built by our physical universe. Our gravity holds it together. From a star to a grain of sand, every piece of our universe affects hyperspace. Betelgeuse is a massive supergiant star, and the effect it has on hyperspace is magnitudes beyond our tiny little sun. And the five companion stars it has captured simply magnify the inconsistencies for lightyears in every direction. The Branan truly did try to find hyperspace. Generations of their best scientists searched for centuries. But Betelgeuse’s chaotic nature and its effects on hyperspace stymied their best efforts. They never knew it was their home that denied them. And in one of the universe’s greater practical jokes, they chose to colonize systems with multiple stars, gas giants, and dozens of planets that further churned hyperspace to a froth. It took Albion knowledge to navigate hyperspace through their stars, and the Albion took their knowledge when they left.