The myths and vids from the old American Commonwealth all foretold the advent of FTL travel. Their stories created a story device called hyperspace. Intriguing as the name could be, hyperspace had simplicity. The idea remained the same, one that turned out to have some basis in fact.
Huma's discovery of Firespace involved applications of wave-particle fluctuation. These first use of such technology came with the invention of artificial gravity. Whereas mythical hyperspace is omnipresent, firespace isn't. Firespace is a separate universe all on its own. Only its reachable parts are where our universes cross over.
Black holes and massive stars, for instance, have no access to firespace at all. A large chunk of the Milky Way galaxy seems to have no firespace access. While the Large Magellanic Cloud does. FTL travel is available via Firespace. But that is only because Firespace lacks the same our universe's gravitation constants. Travel between firegates still requires massive speeds. Gravity drives can achieve these, but not at the fantastical speeds ancient stories predicted.
Firespace is an expanse of violent energy. The name for it, firespace, is a nickname of how it looks to humans entering it: regions of constant fire. The raging plasma sea that is Firespace can be navigated by solar sail. A good portion of the Cooperative's research on Firespace are on the many different kinds of navigational drives could be used in it.
The soup of electromagnetic flux makes navigating firespace dangerous. Without proper shielding, it fries most machinery. The unique psychic capacities of Nyctians allow them to help navigate. But until firespace is mapped, it remains risky to travel.
Expeditionary teams from the Corps of Discovery work to map Firespace. They also have established a few forts and firegates in nearby star systems. The Cooperative hasn't yet started a colonizing effort. In time, though, firespace will come to expand the Cooperative out of the System to a broader chunk of the Milky Way as a whole. It might even lead to answers regarding prior mysterious encounters with extraterrestrial intelligent life.
Firespace is not the only intersectional universe. Others do intersect as well. Firespace is the first on the spectrum of accessible universes that matter can transverse. There are many universes, different "spaces," that each have their own vibrational constants. Firespace lacks gravity, making it useful for FTL travel. Other intersectional universes have their own unique points where they intersect with ours.
Like firespace, this is something the Cooperative's scientist Spirits look to research deeper. Huma's work seems to just scratch the surface. In time, it could help shift the Cooperative into an interstellar society.
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