A bit of physics maybe?

In a way, if they made a kind of light-speed drive (or slightly slower), you may reason that it would take years to get from system to system. It would. But not for the people inside.

Now you see, as you approach the speed of light, time dilates. It spreads out. So if you travel at almost the speed of light for 4.5 light years (say from here to Sirius), it will only have seemed a few seconds to you. Something at nearly the speed of light thanks to spatial distortions could have a crew that should be, in all rights, hundreds of years old, but not have aged more than a few hours.

Of course, there's the problem of getting to that speed, but let's assume they did something like that, because that would be really the only way.

They might have found jump holes and sent probes in, sending radio signals back. But radio waves can only travel at the speed of light, so they would perhaps never get their signals back...!

My poor little brain

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Monky see, Monky Shoot

"SPOILER IN THIS POST!"
ok, for the battleships, they DO use jump gates. iof you look at the gates, the *are* big enought for a battleship. and the planet the reinlanders found the artifacts on was Pygar. that's where sinclair found hers, and i cant remember if it was in a runor or something but somewhere i heard that the expedition was on pygar. andpygar is in Omicron alpha or Gamma. and therer ARE jump holes to there.

Freelancer
Nerevarine
Destroyer of the Shagohod.
Savior of Spira (twice)