Okay, so it kind of takes some understanding of physics, but I also drew this kick-ass diagram which should help a lot.

Basically, space is curved. But that curve also has little curves in it. These curves are caused by gravity. Kind of like putting something heavy on a blanket, the object sinks into the blanket. So. Wait. Ah.

Okay, space is like a BALLOON. And these little holes in the surface of the balloon space are caused by something pressing into the space balloon. Anyway, because of this huge curve and the little curves getting in the way, travelling around is a real pain.

However, the discovery of wormholes allowed us to get through the balloon space unharmed. Instead of taking the long way around, you can just go from point A to B much faster. For the most part, our core systems are filled with hundreds of these wormholes. You basically file into them, and then you are sent to the companion wormhole elsewhere.

Jumpgates are super expensive though, so there are a lot less of them in the frontier, so we’ll end up doing a lot of travelling the long way once we get there.

There are rumors that the Federation has some cool jumpgate stuff, but I haven’t seen it. Apparently there is a ship that acts as a gate, and other smaller ships can generate temp gates to tunnel back to it. How crazy would that be?

Well, it kind of makes sense, I mean, that’s kind of what the humans  did to get here. Sort of.