Beyond Yesterday (Beyond Saga Book 3)

After years of pushing the boundaries of interstellar spaceflight, Commander Maya Davis is ecstatic when she is promoted to captain. But her enthusiasm wanes when she discovers that her new assignment is a one-way mission.

After taking command of the space-time vessel Yesterday, Maya must travel back in time to discover how and why a piece of 23rd century technology appeared 200,000 years earlier. It's an exciting opportunity--except for the one-way aspect. The best minds of her time say it's impossible to return to the present.

Trapped in the distant past, Maya must choose between a peace that could condemn humanity to perpetual slavery, or a fight for freedom that involves deception, rebellion, and mass murder. Whatever she decides, her actions may very well erase an entire civilization from history.

In the decade since returning from the Gliese 581 system, Commander Maya Davis has risen through the ranks while pushing the boundaries of deep space exploration.

When Director Sommerfield finally manages to access the device she found in the ruins on the Penphins' home world, the Interstellar Expeditionary Force grants Maya command of the Yesterday, humankind's first space-time vessel.

The fulfillment of a lifelong dream leaves Maya overjoyed. But her elation is crushed when she learns her first command is a suicide mission from which she can never return.

Based on the astounding information revealed by the device, Maya backshifts Yesterday 200,000 years into the past to confront beings who wield the ability to control humans like pieces of technology.

Uncovering the truth behind this powerful exospecies' visit to Earth presents her with a no-win situation. If she thwarts their agenda, the human race she knows might never come to exist. But if she does nothing, she may condemn mankind to a fate worse than extinction.

Maya Davis

Since the starship New Horizons returned from Gliese 581, Commander Davis has served in the Interstellar Expeditionary Force for ten years. After foiling an alien race's attempt to destroy a deep space colony, Maya is promoted to captain, given command of the space-time vessel Yesterday, and assigned a one-way mission to the past.

Personality-wise, Maya is an optimist and a dreamer, although experience has tempered her outward display of such things and led her to become more pragmatic. Moral, noble, and a little bit self-righteous, Maya faces situations where doing the right thing and doing what's necessary are at odds with each-other, creating a great deal of internal conflict for her.

As if that's not bad enough, her allergies are constantly flaring up. One would think that medical science would've cured such a trivial condition by the 23rd century, but no such luck.

Maya was raised by her aunt Brooke and uncle Kevin after her mother died when she was a child. When lost in thought, Maya often taps her cheek or bites her lip.

Brooke Davis-Sommerfield

Since the New Horizons mission, Brooke has risen to the rank of vice admiral. She is the head of the IEF Aerospace division and second only to the IEF High Admiral. Assigned to protect the prototype interstellar phase (hyperspace) gate connecting the Sol and Alpha Centauri systems, she uses her combat experience to repel an attack that almost takes out the gate.

While age has seasoned her, Brooke's bad attitude is still very much at the forefront of her personality. She's outwardly abrasive at times, but that's because she cares too much. The things that she can't change bother her. She rarely smiles, and can often be seen scrunching her nose or scowling. The things most likely to improve her mood are Maya (her niece), Fruity Planets cereal, and flying a phase fighter.

But lately, finding her way into a cockpit has proven problematic. Brooke's health has seen a steady decline in recent years due to the sparks (drugs) she took when she was young. Her husband, superiors, and doctors all insist she stay grounded, but Brooke refuses to accept her condition. She'd rather die than give up what she loves most, flying.

Kevin Sommerfield

Brooke's husband and the inventor of the faster-than-light phase drive. Kevin is now the director of the scientific society of the Interstellar Alliance, the human race's top scientific mind.

Bob

No sci-fi story is complete without a loveable robot/AI, and Bob fits the bill here. After helping New Horizons to avert disaster, this AI-turned-sentient now inhabits an android body full-time. Bob is very logical in how he thinks and acts, but he's grown to include human feelings and concepts in his programming.

Zeke

Once an exochild (alien kid) rescued by Brooke, Zeke has grown into a young man. Zeke is a member of a powerful race of exobeings that the IEF has yet to track down.

Josephine (Jo) Ryder

Lt. Commander Jo Ryder has become one of the brightest minds in history and archeology. Recently, she's been heading up the project to excavate the ruins on the Penphins' home world. Jo likes to tell jokes and quote historical figures whether you like it or not. Having grown up in San Diego, CA, her dislike of the sun is something of a mystery.

Erik Maxwell

Lt. Commander Erk Maxwell has risen to become one of the IEF's best pilots. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, he's a friendly, easy-going guy, which is something of a miracle given his dysfunctional childhood upbringing. Erik has grown a green thumb in his spare time.

Trevor Young

Commander Trevor Young has been serving in the armed forces of the American Colonies since the New Horizons mission. He's a bit surprised when Maya asks him to be her first officer aboard Yesterday but accepts. When not questioning her orders, he enjoys hunting with his father back home in Texas.

Shin Saito

Once (or still?) a Vril agent, Shin went from missing in action to the Vice Administrator of the Interstellar Alliance in only three years.

Eve

The product of two merged human minds in a state-of-the-art android body, Eve is the Vril's chief field agent. Somehow, she's become a special advisor to the Interstellar Alliance administration. Much to Brooke's chagrin, Eve surfaces again to simultaneously torture and save her. Eve terrorized the New Horizons mission, and the safe bet is on her hatching a similar plan during Yesterday's visit to the past.

Takashi Katayama

Mr. Katayama is a wealthy and powerful businessman and also Maya's estranged father. Maya loathes the man for telling her straight to her face that he wanted nothing to do with raising her. Despite his absence from her early life, he likes to show up from time to time to challenge her view of the world.

Enki

A brilliant geneticist. He's a member of a curious exospecies, the Onaki, that travelled a long way to settle the Earth in the distant past.

Gemekala

The leader of the Onaki colonists. She's quite pragmatic and imposing.

Android

A robot created to look as close to a human being as possible. Standard model androids perform menial work, freeing up humans to do more complex tasks. Contrary to popular belief, most androids are not even as strong, agile, or fast as humans. However, expensive models can possess many times the capabilities of a person and even hold human neural structure/consciousness.

Auto-syringe

An advanced type of syringe that injects medication or medites directly into the bloodstream without the use of a painful needle.

Bioware / Bioimplants

Technology embedded into a person's body that does everything from display information in a person's vision to strengthening muscles. Bioware is the biological software run by biological implants. Nanotechnology (see below) makes bioimplants possible.

Boomerang

A boomerang/wing-shaped fighter craft opereated by extrasolar beings.

Bot

Shorthand for robot. Bots are typically autonomous machines programmed to perform a wide variety of tasks. Roving vending machines, repair & construction bots, spherecams, delivery bots, and spider bots are a few examples.

Comm / Comm Net

Short for communications or communications network. In science fiction, the term "comm" is often used in place of the modern term "call." In other words, when you contact someone in the future, you don't call them; you comm them.

Eleppu

A heavily-armed extrasolar warship.

Force Field / Rad Shield

A force field is an electrical sheet or wall of electricity and magnetism strong enough to repel physical objects and provide radiation shielding.

Gravgel

Shorthand for gravity gelatin. Star fighter cockpits fill with this clear, viscous, lightweight, and non-stick substance in order to protect pilots from the force of extreme acceleration. Scientists have known since the 20th century that water, and more generally liquids, can provide insulation from acceleration. Early experiments showed that a piece of organic material immersed in water could survive roughly ten times the g-force as the same material when unsubmerged. However, filling aircraft or spacecraft with water proved impractical because of the weight/mass. Studies in this area continued until the late 22nd century, when a scientist invented a gelatinous substance that provided more than ten times the protection of water but with a fraction of the mass. This substance became known as gravgel.

Gravite

A nanite injected into the bloodstream to prevent muscle and bone atrophy due to prolonged exposure to microgravity. See "nanite" below for further details.

Hydro-protein pill

A swallowable pill containing a day's worth of nutrition and compressed water.

Hyperflare

The PF-77 Hyperflare replaced the PF-5 Pulsar as the Interstellar Expeditionary Force's primary combat fighter. A Hyperflare is a hybrid spacecraft and fighter plane--an aerospace craft--commonly referred to as a star fighter. PF stands for Phase Fighter, and 77 is the vehicle model number. The term "phase" means the fighter is capable of faster-than-light travel.

A Hyperflare is designed to function in both atmosphere and outer space. In the mid-to-late 21st century, engineers finally achieved a vastly sought after holy grail: reusable, single stage to orbit (SSTO) spacecraft. In the 22nd century, the design of flight vehicles branched into two categories, those for operation in atmosphere and others that functioned solely in space. Vehicles of the latter type had spherical, cubic, or otherwise non-aerodynamic shapes since atmospheric drag isn't an issue in space. But by the 23rd century, as humankind branched further out into the solar system, vehicle design came full circle. When a single skirmish could begin in Saturn's atmosphere, move into orbit, continue on into Titan's atmosphere, down onto the surface of Titan, and back up into space again, hybrid aerospace craft soon out-performed vehicles limited to only one mode of flight.

Each antimatter-powered Hyperflare features a phase drive with no recharge time (unlike the Pulsar, which had a 10-second charge time). It also has afterburners, forward retrorockets, numerous tiny thrusters, particle cannons, plasma cannons, lasers, and thousands of tiny seeker missiles. A Hyperflare's conventional top speed is in the range of thousands of kilometers per second. Such speeds are achieved via thrust imparting hundreds of gees. Human occupants survive such extreme acceleration through gravgel immersion (see above). The phase drive is capable of relative speeds close to 100c (one hundred times the speed of light).

Hypofield

An artificially-generated field of gravity distortion waves that suppress wormhole formation. The IEF uses hypofields to keep enemy ships from downshifting (appearing out of hyperspace) and attacking without warning.

I-cite

Interface for corneal information transfer and extrapolation. This technology allows data and images to display within a person's vision. To the onlooker, information screens appear to float in midair out in front of him or her.

Matrix

An AI (artificial intelligence) matrix is an advanced computer which functions on the premise of quantum computing.

Mech

Shorthand for mechanized armored (space) suit or powered exoskeleton.

Metatoy

A state-of-the-art toy that changes shape into objects like remote control cars, stuffed animals, or play swords. Nanotechnology makes this true transformer possible.

Medite

A nanite injected into the bloodstream for medical applications. See "nanite" below for further details.

Nanite

A microscopic robot or machine so small it's invisible to the naked eye. Nanites are used in everything from commercial products to medical applications to military weapons.

Nanotech / Nanotechnology

Technology based on nanites such as bioware/bioimplants and other devices.

Neudar

Shorthand for "neutrino radar." Conventional radar bounces radio waves off targets in order to determine their location. Sonar bounces sound waves off targets in similar fashion. Neutrinos are subatomic particles with almost no mass that pass through anything. Therefore, neudar is radar that bounces neutrinos off targets to determine location. And since nothing blocks neutrinos, signals can be sent through the center of the Earth, the Sun, or any other celestial body without being blocked. Back in the 21st century, this technology was only theoretical. Scientists struggled to make it work because they didn't know how to capture a neutrino signal when neutrinos pass through everything like tiny little ghosts. But by the late 22nd century, scientists figured it out. Simply put, there is no hiding from neudar unless anti-neutrino jamming technology is employed. Many force fields include anti-neutrino jamming.

Neurotronic

The term "electronic" refers to devices which operate based on the flow of electricity through circuits. Neurotronic devices, then, function through the flow of neural energy, allowing machines to be controlled by thought.

New Horizons

New Horizons (NH), designated as IEF-01, was humankind's first interstellar exploration vessel launched roughly ten years ago. Maya served aboard Horizons as engineering and operations liaison during first assignment out of the IEF academy.

Phase Drive

The phase drive is an engine capable of a phase shift, which is the act of opening a wormhole. Phase shifting allows a spacecraft to pass through that hole in space-time and into hyperspace, and permits that same craft to return to normal space in less time than it would take light to travel the same distance. From a practical standpoint, phase drives allow faster-than-light travel even though the spacecraft itself never moves faster than light.

Typical relative speeds of modern IEF ships approach 100c (one hundred times the speed of light). That's 2.5 times as fast as the early model phase fighters (Pulsars) and starships (from book 2). The space-time vessel Yesterday is not only quite a bit faster than that but primarily uses its phase drive to traverse large time periods rather than large distances.

Phase Fighter

A star fighter craft equipped with a phase drive and thus capable of faster-than-light travel. A phase fighter is more maneuverable and more heavily armed than an SF-522A Starthroat (see the Starthroat section for further details). A phase fighter's range is limited to intrasolar distances (it can reach Pluto or the Oort Cloud but not Proxima Centauri).

Phase Gate

An interstellar phase portal. This wormhole "doorway" is a shortcut between two distant points in space across light years. See "phase portal" below for details.

Phase Port

Analogous to a modern airport or space port, a phase port is the location where people enter and exit phase tunnels in order to travel around the solar system. Generators in one port hold one end of a given tunnel open while generators in another port hold the other end open.

Phase Portal / Phase Tunnel

A phase tunnel is an artificially-generated stable wormhole shortcut connecting two distant points in space. The phase ports (like spaceports or airports) located throughout the Sol system allow commuters to travel between settled planets, moons, and asteroids as easily as stepping through a doorway. Two generators, one at either end of the tunnel, are required to open and keep open a given tunnel. Phase tunnels also require an immense amount of power to maintain. The energy required to establish them increases exponentially with increasing distance. In the late twenty-third century, stanard phase tunnels connect colonies as far out from Earth as Kuiper Belt dwarf planets but cannot reach other star systems. However, the prototype phase gate (interstellar portal) connects Mars with New Mars in the Alpha Centauri system across 4 light years.

Phase Technology

Powered by antimatter and a newer power source, phase technology allows the opening of a wormhole, matter to pass through that hole into hyperspace, and matter to return to normal space in less time than it would take light to travel the same distance. From a practical standpoint, phase technology allows faster-than-light travel even though matter itself never moves faster than light.

Unbeknownst to the general public, the phase drive also allows for time travel and has since its invention. According to Einstein and Schwarzchild, if a ship can travel to a distant point in space through a wormhole, a ship can also use a wormhole to travel to a distant point in time just as easily. Every phase drive except for Yesterday's drive includes safeguards to prevent time travel.

Plasma Strip

The 23rd century equivalent of a light bulb. Plasma is channeled through a thin strip of material not much thicker than a sheet of paper to produce light. The strips function similar to technology found in a 21st century plasma screen television. Supposedly, plasma strips are more energy efficient and will outlive most people.

Rend

More advanced than a holographic simulation, rends (short for renditions or renderings) have replaced holocubes in all IEF facilities and starships as the primary means of visual display. Rends consist of nanites injected into the air from tiny wormholes. These rendered nanites morph into the shapes of whatever visuals a rend needs to display. Rends can take the form of tangible control systems (Maya grabs and reads rendered gauges in chapter 3), threat board displays (the individual ships engaged in rendered battles), a person (the headshot of a loved one or superior office), and much more. Essentially, rends are the futuristic version of a monitor or viewscreen but also so much more.

Saucer

A saucer/disk-shaped spacecraft operated by extrasolar beings.

Seeker

An automated, antimatter-powered warhead the size of an antique ballpoint pen. The projectile is capable of accelerating to speeds near that of light in a matter of seconds. Seekers are carried and fired by modern aerospace fighter craft such as the Hyperflare (see above).

Sim

Shorthand for simulation. In the 23rd century, all images and video are captured in holographic format. Holograms are much truer representations of the original content than old-fashioned static images and video. Thus, holographic images and video are more commonly referred to as sims or vidsims.

A sim or vidsim is also any interactive holographic program. Someone in the 21st century watches soap operas whereas someone in the 23rd century experiences daytime sims or soap sims. Medical sims are 3D holographic representations of internal organs. Advanced sims, such as those generated by the system installed in the office of the U.N. Secretary-General, are capable of producing lifelike environments similar to holodecks on Star Trek. However, the holograms in BC9 have no cohesion. Thus, the term "interactive" means a person can provide feedback in order to alter the sim, but a person cannot pick up or touch a holographic object.

Sparks / Sparking

Sparks are a slang term for a type of nanorobotic narcotic known to enhance reflexes and cognitive abilities at the expense of a person's health. In other words, sparks are an advanced drug. Brooke kicked her addiction and stopped sparking when she adopted Maya, but now her drug use has come back to haunt her.

Spherecam

Shorthand for spherical floating camera. These softball-sized recording devices defy gravity based on the principle of magnetic flux pinning (superconductivity).

SolNet

Shorthand for the Solar Network, the 23rd century version of the Internet.

Vidsim

Short for video or visual simulation. See "sim" above for details.

Wave Drive

A sub-light propulsion engine based on the mathematical calculations done by a scientist named Alcubierre in the late 20th century. In a lot of science fiction (like Star Trek), the Alcubierre (warp) drive is used for faster-than-light travel. This same principle can also be applied for sub-light travel. IEF engineers have done so with Yesterday's wave drive.

Wave Gun

A handheld device capable of destabilizing or manipulating matter at the subatomic level through the use of electromagnetic, sonic, gravimetric, and other types of waves. Practically speaking, a wave gun can lift or shatter a 100 metric ton stone block, set someone's clothes on fire, boil blood, and much more.

Yesterday (Ship)

The space-time and Interstellar Expeditionary Force vessel IEF-224 Yesterday is the first starship built by humans capable of traversing significant time periods. Drawing energy from its black hole generator, Yesterday can travel a total of 500,00 years before the black hole collapses. A trip of 200,000 thousand years through hyperspace lasts for 6 months as far as the occupants of the ship experience. But since the ship is capable of traveling to any exact date and time within its range, the duration of the trip is irrelevant to observers in real space.

Yesterday measures 300 meters long and is the rough equivalent in size to a real aircraft carrier. This is small compared to most other IEF starships but still pretty big. The ship is comprised of a forward crew module (20 decks), an aft engineering and engine module, and two nacelle rings. The rings focus extreme amounts of energy and gravity on space-time, bending it to either open a wormhole for phase (hyperspace) travel or for sub-light propulsion. The latter is driven by the ship's wave drive (see above).

Alpha Centauri

At a little over 4 light years away, Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system to Sol. After Gliese 581, Alpha Centauri was the second extrasolar system visited by humans and the first settled. The planet of New Mars orbits Alpha Centauri B, the brightest of three stars in the system.

Aryana

Aryana is a super-Earth class planet that orbits Fomalhaut A, a star about 25 light years from Sol. At present, the colony of New Jodhpur is the most distant human settlement from Earth. Simple life such as radiation-hardened bacteria and mold grow on the planet. Aryana is covered by a gigantic ocean with many island chains but no major continents.

Callisto

Jupiter's eighth moon in terms of distance from the planet and second larget moon after Ganymede. Callisto is home to multiple colonies, including New Galilei, and was the first moon settled in the Jovian system back in the mid-twenty-second century.

Dolus

A dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt. Dolus is the location of Thule, an IEF base of operations and starship construction facility.

Epsilon Eridani

The Epsilon Eridani star system is located 10.5 light years from Sol.

Fomalhaut

Fomalhaut is a trinary star system located approximately 25 light years from Sol. Aryana orbits Fomalhaut A, a big blue star that's one of the brightest in the night sky on Earth.

Gliese 581

A red dwarf star a little over twenty light years from Earth's solar system. The fourth planet circling the dwarf is home to the Penphins, a seemingly-benevolent race of exobeings. The Gliese 581 system was the destination of the New Horizons mission.

Hilda asteroids

The Hilda or Hildian asteroids are a group of asteroids in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Jupiter. In other words, the Hildas are located on the opposite side of the sun from Jupiter but within Jupiter's orbital path.

Hues colony

The largest human settlement on New Mars, a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. New Mars is the location of one end of the interstellar phase gate.

Hyperspace

The higher dimensional space ships and travelers pass through during a phase shift. Hyperspace is incomprehensible to humans, but engineers have implemented phase shielding to reduce the sight of the strange realm to a pinkish hue distorted and filled by mind-boggling shapes.

Jovian System

The planet Jupiter, its rings, its moons, and the elements of human civilization found there. The Galilean moons of the Jovian system are home to millions of people. Scientifically speaking, the Jovian system extends all the way out until the gas giant's gravity becomes negligible.

Kuiper Belt

The Sol system's second asteroid belt. The Kuiper belt extends from the orbit of Neptune to the edge of the Sol system and is less densely packed than the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. Pluto is a Kuiper belt object (a very large asteroid) and a dwarf planet, not a regular planet. The Kuiper belt is home to hundreds of dwarf planets, some bigger than Pluto (Eris) and others smaller (Dolus). Thanks to phase tunnels, numerous small human colonies have taken root on various Kuiper belt worlds.

Luna

The proper name of Earth's moon. Centuries ago, people referred to Luna as The Moon because it was the only moon that mattered or that humans knew. As humankind branched out into the solar system and settled many different moons, the term "moon" became ambiguous. Thus, the people of the future refer to Earth's moon by its actual name, Luna. Relatively speaking, Luna is heavily populated in the 23rd century and a key phase tunnel junction.

Mars

The red planet needs little introduction to science fiction fans. With hyperterraforming of the world having reached the final stages, the billions of inhabitants are able to roam freely without the need for environmental gear. After Earth and Triton, Mars has the third most habitable climate.

MAVEN (IEF Base)

An IEF base of operations on the planet New Mars in the Alpha Centauri system.

New Galilei

The first and largest colony settled on Callisto and in the Jovian system. Named after the astronomer Galileo Galilei as well as the Galileo probe sent by NASA to study Jupiter and its moons in the late 20th century. Hyperterraforming progress made in the last seventeen years has allowed the open-air colony to do away with its domes. In the last few years, New Galilei has earned a reputation as a city with an exciting night life.

New Mars

New Mars is a planet that orbits Alpha Centauri B in the Alpha Centauri star system and the location of Hues colony. One end of the interstellar phase gate and IEF Base MAVEN reside on New Mars.

Sol / Sol system

Sol is the proper name for Earth's sun. As humankind ventured to other solar systems, referring to the star orbited by the Earth as "the sun" became ambiguous (and quite frankly seemed a little egocentric). 

Therefore, at some point in the 23rd century, people started calling Earth's sun by its proper name, Sol, to distinguish it from the suns in other systems.

The Sol system is therefore the proper name for Earth's solar system.

Thule (IEF Base)

An IEF base of operations and starship construction facility on Dolus, a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt.

Triton

Neptune's largest moon and home to the Interstellar Expeditionary Force bases and research facilities. After the so-called extrasolar threat fled the moon at the end of the invasion (in book 1), the technology they left behind helped to advance human science considerably. They also spent over a century hyperterraforming the moon before vacating it, leaving Triton with the most Earth-like climate in the solar system after the blue marble itself. Don't confuse Triton with Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Urusilim

A city on Earth in the distant past.

Backshift

The act of phase shifting (traveling through a wormhole and hyperspace) back in time to the past.

Branch Theory

The theory of multidimensional time travel currently accepted by scientists in the 23rd century. Branch theory asserts that travel to the past creates alternate timelines in order to avoid contradictions such as the grandfather paradox (see below).

Brane

The third dimension in a multi-dimensional universe, or multiverse. The first dimension of the multiverse is the linear universe that we perceive. The second dimension, the biverse, consists of all the other alternate universes or timelines that are similar to our universe. The third dimension, or brane, is the set of all parallel biverses/branes to our biverse/brane. The laws of physics in some branes are so wildly different from our laws that we could never exist there.

Downshift

A downshift is the part of a phase shift when a physical object exits hyperspace through a wormhole into normal space-time.

FTL

Acronym for faster-than-light. FTL, phase shifting (or just shifting), and post-luminal are synonymous terms.

Fused

Common slang in the twenty-third century used to describe something in a positive manner. The twenty-first century equivalent would be awesome or cool. Often, the word "too" is used in conjunction with "fused" to express that something is "too fused."

Grandfather Paradox

A contradiction of linear time travel that asserts that a person cannot travel to the past and affect his or her future. In the grandfather paradox, if a time traveler kills their ancestor in the past, that ancestor can't ever have existed to give birth to the time traveler in the first place. Branch theory (above) resolves this paradox and shows that linear time travel is impossible.

IntraSolar Commonality (ISC)

The former institution that united all nations and colonies in the Sol system under one government. The name of the union was coined to give each and every ISC citizen of the solar system a sense of togetherness and equality.

Interstellar Alliance (IA)

The Interstellar Alliance (IA) is an intergovernmental and intersolar organization devoted to cooperation between and the protection of the nations and colonies of humankind. The IA is the future equivalent of the United Nations. After the ISC (see above) fell apart, humans realized (or at least decided) that a unified human government was too restrictive for individuals in its laws, customs, and ideals. Therefore, the IA was formed to specifically NOT be a government but rather a collaborative partnership. This allows the whole to function together while maintaining dissimilar parts.

Interstellar Alliance Administration (IAA)

The Interstellar Alliance Administration (IAA) is the organizational group that oversees the IA, similar to the real UN Council.

Interstellar Expeditionary Force (IEF)

The IEF is the branch of the Interstellar Alliance devoted to extrasolar exploration, exoplanet colonization, and first contact with exospecies. Established in the spirit of centuries-old space agencies like NASA and the ESA (and not altogether dissimilar from Starfleet in Star Trek), the IEF is not technically a military organization. That said, all IEF officers receive defense training, and all IEF starships carry the latest armaments.

Multiverse

The set of all universes/timelines/dimensions that exist. Our universe is only one out of many. In the 23rd century, the theory of the multiverse is commonly accepted. In everyday speech, the term "multiverse" is typically used to denote the two-dimensional biverse consisting of the linear universe that we perceive and all the alternate universes/timelines similar to ours. But technically, the multiverse also contains a third dimension that includes multiple biverses, most wildly different from our biverse.

Phase Shift(ing)

A phase shift is the act of traversing a wormhole into or out of hyperspace, which effectively allows a physical object to travel faster than light, relatively speaking. An upshift refers to wormhole entry, a downshift refers to wormhole exit, and a backshift refers to traveling back in time.

Upshift

An upshift is the part of a phase shift when a physical object passes out of normal space-time, through a wormhole, and into hyperspace.