Among the many methods of transportation available throughout the modern galaxy; such as teleportation and warp fields, one such method has remained the most reliable for travel outside of high-infrastructure areas; this being Hyperspace. Hyperspace is the usage of an alternate dimension that exists concurrently along our own to significantly decrease travel time between destinations. It is accessed via a ship installed with a hyperdrive, which upon being fueled with Erchius is capable of temporarily forming a portal known as a 'tunnel' through which a ship can enter at acceleration near light-speed (approximately 266,815,288m/s, or 89% light-speed). Hyperspace itself functions upon the principal of space dilation compared to what is coined "realspace", 200m in Hyperspace would be around 200km in Realspace, allowing travel between star systems in a very short amount of time.
Hyperspace requires both a charging and discharging time when entering and leaving Hyperspace, leaving many ships very open for attack when they are doing either, and also requires usage of what is known as a hyperlane. Very little of the space outside of hyperlanes is explored by any means, as remaining outside of stable hyperlanes for even a short time can result in anomaly-induced sickness, causing death in a short amount of time.
Many species in the galaxy utilized or utilize Hyperspace, including the Humans and the Apex, who mapped out extensively the areas surrounding their homeworlds, and the Floran who have access to some of the most strategic Hyperlane access in the galaxy. Much of the natives of the area known as the Fringe are also quite rich off of becoming mappers for the largely non-existent Hyper-lane network in the Fringe. Many civilian travel ships utilize Hyperspace due to the ease and speed of travel, which is often a cause for concern as Hyperspace pirates do in-fact, exist.
These pirates utilize Hyperlanes like hunting grounds, lying in wait within it for ships to pass by, which they will ambush due to the lack of radio in Hyperspace. For the daring, exploration of outer-Hyperspace is a possible venture than can result in either a very lucrative career with many stories to tell about your adventures, or a very painful demise. Both indigenous species and native materials within Hyperspace are sought after by manufacturers and researchers because of their unique properties compared to what can be found in Realspace; and because of the minimal exploration of outer-Hyperspace, especially that which is far from semi-stable Hyperlanes, this career path is one most craved by frontiersmen looking to make both a buck and a name for themselves.
The vast area outside of stable hyperlanes is known as greater hyperspace, or by other names depending on the culture (humans like to call it 'no-mans land'. Due to the dangers of anomaly-induced sickness quickly killing anybody that strays outside of stable hyperlanes, it is essentially unexplored by the denizens of realspace. Ever since the discovery of hyperspace, people have generally thought that greater hyperspace was simply an empty void with no life; however, the arrival of certain interloper species into realspace, and their accounts about their native dimension, has led us to believe that this is not the case. In fact, it is quite the very opposite; greater hyperspace contains significantly more life than our own galaxy, to a point where almost every system in hyperspace can support some form of life. Metaphysicists have agreed that anomalous conditions simply support life more than non-anomalous conditions do, supported by study of the abiogenesis phenomenon of anomaly.