It is the year 2650.
The Hivers, curators of the precious OtherSpace Drive faster-than-light technology, betrayed the worlds of the Orion Arm and tried to use hostage warriors to defeat their B'hiri enemies in a region of the Milky Way galaxy known as the Ancient Expanse.
Their plan backfired. Instead, the hostages joined forces with the arachnoid B'hiri to eradicate the Hivers. All OtherSpace Drives shut down without tendrils of the Il'ri'kamm Hive Mind to operate them. So Earth engineers pulled the original Tilsworth-Cooke FTL drive - first invented a century ago - and started manufacturing new drives to retrofit ships.
It's now a time of renewed promise and exploration for the Stellar Consortium, Fringe, Parallax, and myriad independent worlds.