Narrator: The wormgate network connects over a hundred thousand star systems in the Milky-Way Galaxy.
Narrator: For at least that many years it has been the only way to get around. . . At least at speeds that make any real difference.
Narrator: New civilizations joined the wormgate network only when a pre-tuned wormgate arrived in their star system... It happened to Humanity and Sol System about a thousand years ago.
Narrator: The Milky Way is a big place, though, and the galaxy-spanning Wormgate Civilization is like a fishnet. There is much, much more empty space in it than there is rope.
Narrator: And some of that empty space is rather less than completely empty, full instead of uncharted star systems, mucking great nebulae hotter than you'd really like to think about, and countless rocky worlds. . . Worlds that, as of about a year ago, the intrepid traveler could actually get to using the teraport...
Narrator: Worlds like this one, with pristine, paradisiacal biospheres begging to be discovered, settled, and exploited. . .
Narrator: Or perhaps just left alone. . .