Alpha Centauri Star System, Year 2527
The gentle glow of Alpha Centauri A washed through the window of the orbital station Orion. Captain Elia Morgan stood watching as the majestic planet New Eden, the most advanced human colony beyond the Solar System, slowly rotated beneath her.
Over a century ago, humanity left Earth in search of opportunities to expand its civilization. The first step had been colonizing the Solar System: Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. But the real breakthrough came when the Earth ship Pilgrim successfully bridged the distance to Alpha Centauri, establishing humanity’s first colony beyond the Solar System.
Recently, the brilliant engineer Adam Frank invented interstellar communication technology at Alpha Centauri. For five years now, a continuous link has existed with the Solar settlements.
This revolutionary technology created micro black holes, and if a corresponding device existed on the other side, messages could be transmitted instantly, eliminating the previous four-year delay. This had greatly accelerated progress on all fronts. Yet, sublight travel speed remained the greatest barrier to the colonization of new worlds.
Currently, Alpha Centauri is a highly developed system comprising three major settlements: New Eden, a planet similar to Earth orbiting Alpha Centauri A; Zodiac Station, located near the binary star Alpha Centauri B; and Proxima Colony, orbiting the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, which was the smallest and least technologically advanced settlement.
The society was governed democratically by a Council composed of representatives from each colony.
Despite significant triumphs in space expansion, humanity already faced internal challenges. The existence of political tension and disparities in resources and technology among Alpha Centauri’s colonies indicated that even during unprecedented growth and achievement, human tendencies towards imbalance and conflict persisted.
Elia took a deep breath. Everyone was now captivated by something else entirely a stable black hole had been discovered at a safe distance near Alpha Centauri. Scientists had named it the Eye of Centauri and were preparing an expedition.
Humanity’s technology has already allowed for much: nuclear fusion-powered interstellar ships, artificial gravity, advanced robotics, and quantum computers capable of calculations that would have seemed impossible only a few decades earlier.
But now there was a new challenge to determine whether travel through black holes was truly possible.