over the course of the 21st century, mankind experimented with wormhole technology and successfully built jumpgates in space between earth and mars paving the way for the colonization of the solar system and interstellar transport. a jumpgate was shuttled to alpha centauri in an attempt to claim a foothold in interstellar space. even before the gate left the solar system scientists discovered that many objects classified as black holes showed the characteristics of artificial wormholes. there were alien jumpgates which the human constructed gates could connect to. the terrans had discovered the x universe, a seemingly uninhabited collection of star systems connected by a vast network of large, bi-directional jump gates.