At the edge of the galaxy, thousands of light-years from that blue and green jewel that the entire human race once called "home", a space station floats. It is near the year ten thousand A.D. in the old time system used by the residents of that world, and mankind has spread itself far from home. During that mass migration, however, not all people made it where they were going. Hyperdrive may be the most common method of Faster-than-light travel, but it is far from perfect. One of it's main shortcomings is that it requires you to move through the smooth pathways within hyperspace, a dimension that is inherently unstable. Though the black hole at the center of the galaxy smooths out the fabric of hyperspace, as all blackholes do to some extent, near the edge of the galaxy the maximum size of a ship in hyperspace decreases quickly. If you get too close to the edge, you will find that even the smallest ships are incapable of remaining in hyperspace for long, and once you're out of hyperspace, it is impossible to reenter it at a place where the wrinkles are smaller than your ship. This has trapped numerous ships at the edge, and without another type of FTL drive they are forced to float there, in an area with few stars, most of them dieing quickly.
The Station at the edge of the galaxy has collected these derelict vessels for millennia, though it is unsure how long it has been doing this exactly, as its earliest clear memories are just over five thousand years old, presumably long after it started. Just over a month ago, however, Station found a way to pull ships to it, like a black hole in hyperspace, drawing in ships stuck in hyperspace from hundreds of lightyears away. It has now bore fruit, as a ship has just exited the hyperspace window generated at mouth of Station's device.