This is what we laypeople know. Since 19__ it had long been postulated that the black hole, for all its magisterial deadliness, could in fact be a source of discovery. Everyone knows the basics. A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing – not even light – can escape. General relativity predicts that a sufficient compact mass can deform spacetime to form such a hole. The boundary between this region and the area in which normal gravitational rules apply is called the event horizon. The area in which the hole exists, a singularity.

Kerr’s theory of the Einstein–Rosen bridge predicts that if an object were to fall into a black hole, it might be sucked down a tunnel, and through a ‘white hole’ or ‘ring of fire’ on the other side, to emerge into a parallel multiverse. Essentially, what this theory suggests is that gravitational forces that exist within the hole could break down matter and remake it anew. That being the case, interstellar space travel utilising the power of such forces began to be seen as a conceivable pursuit.

The observation of gravitational waves emanating from a collision of two black holes by the LIGO3 collaboration in February 2016 proved that radiation could escape a singularity. A second sighting later that year confirmed it.

Ever since, a challenge was set. How might we harness the powers of spacetime distortion in order to serve our urge for exploration? Was it even possible? When the adequate technological advances were made nearly eighty years later, we sent probes to Earth’s nearest event horizon, Sagittarius A. Not to find out what was on the other side; that was of little interest. But to examine the gravitational processes that cause the breakdown of spacetime as we know it, and the ability to survive them without perceptible change.

Following those probes, scientists were assembled from around the world. They were locked behind high walls that housed enough buildings for a small town, forming gated cities made up of families, lovers and close friends. Still, even they couldn’t go beyond the inner sanctum of research buildings where scientists, engineers and academics worked from sunlight to sundown every day. All were monitored for every hour of their existence via cameras, voice-recording instruments as delicate as butterfly wings, or implanted DNA chips. Any mention of a wrong word, or a strange mannerism, and soldiers turned up at the door flanked by needle-thin sec-bots, armaments glistening in mandarin sunset. Sayonara. Or so they said.