The Radio Burst Incedent

In 2050, just as Earth was on the cusp of decline, a strange phenomenon swept through the observible universe.

Dubbed a Radio Burst,powerful light and magnetic waves swept through space eventally reaching Earth. The result was catastrophic at first. Nearly everything electronic was damaged, with a good potion of it destroyed. Human civilization was set back a hundred years in one fell swoop. For several months there was chaos, as people struggled to adapt to life without electronics and electricity, but soon enough, power was restored and much of the developed world began to recover. The mystery of the Radio Burst however continued to plague scientists. That is, until one bright young researcher, armed with a mysteriously intact computer that survived the Radio Burst, took the scientific community by storm.

He had seen the Radio Burst coming, just minutes before it hit, and recorded what he observed in his computer. Somehow--to this day no one has an explanation as to how--his computer survived the Radio Burst, along with the data he'd recorded. What he found was that the Radio Burst actually appeared to be a dimentional disturbance, and that the light wave was in fact, moving several magnitudes faster than the speed of light.

In 2051, after most of the world had recovered, he presented his findings, and rocked the scientific community. Something had triggered a shift in the very fabric of space time, causing a ripple to roll out accross the universe. But in this universal disaster, there was also the key to something mankind had been searching for for a long time, the secret to Faster Than Light travel.

By studying the Radio Burst, the very first Hyperspace Jump Drive was developed in 2057.