Before The Expansion, the vast colonisation of space when humanity threw itself confidently to the far reaches of imagination, little travel was done outside of the Sol system. Humanity had little interest in the time it would take to reach even the closest neighbour eve if the radiation could be tolerated. The issue was not one of impending doom that gave humanity the impetus to leave its solar habitat. Sol, Terra, the colonies on Mars, Europa, Ganymede, Calisto, Titan and Enceladus thrives and will do so for as long as organic life wishes to exist upon them.
Humanity started this Expansion after the accidental discovery of suspension fields which was a significant time after the ability for human consciousness to be uploaded into a construct program. The suspension fields were vital to allow organic life to thrive in a newly colonised world. Humanity could accelerate up to a percentage of the speed of light using the manipulation of gravitons. However that still left decades or more of travel between potential habitable worlds. But once the vessels arrived they would be barren of life, little organic could survive the acceleration and deceleration never mind the vast ages that the travel may take. What would be used for food. What life could be used to help populate the world, to colonise and control.
Suspension fields held life in stasis. Not all life survived without issue. The simpler the genetic construction, the more likely they would be to survive the journey. Plants, microbes, insects survived in greater numbers than anything of a higher complexity. This was fortunate as such life is needed as the building blocks of colonisation. But it was still a challenge.
The ability to upload consciousness into a program. To allow simpler genetic material to be frozen and suspended. Coupled with medical advances in cloning and tank births allowed humanity to take complex lifeforms as partial electronic algorithms with simple genetic material to the far reaches of space.
Vast colony ships were sent to every potential habitable world over a period of centuries. Humanity threw itself to the stars with the knowledge that they could conquer and populate. There was a near galaxy worth of wealth to be utilised. Light might limit communication, but distance would not limit Influence.
