THE WARP - about a bar in space (we'll get to the bar soon)

    Civil engineering reached its definite peak a couple of generations back.  They finally cracked the challenge of space bending, making the dream of cross-galactic travel a reality.  This changed everything.  The idea first took shape many years earlier.  As pivotal, revolutionary ideas often do, on a coffee house napkin.  Once formulated on paper, its very simplicity struck the handful of young 21st Century scientists with embarrassment at not having thought of it before.
    The principle is exemplified by the folding over of a piece of paper so the opposite ends touch, enabling an ant to cross from one end to the other in a mere few steps, saving it the laborious exercise of walking across the whole sheet to reach the same destination.
    As with all of Man’s advancements, the simplest theories frequently lead to the most challenging practical projects.  Two centuries after the napkin was happily shoved into the breast pocket of a university blazer, space bending, or the Ultimate Paradigm Shift (UPS for short) became available to all.  There’s really only one problem.  It’s expensive.  Phenomenally expensive.