SIRIUS
The Great Beamrider Network Node
8.6 ly distant 6th nearest star
2nd nearest non-red dwarf system
A-type star 23x luminosity of our Sun
The Great Node at Sirius provides starship deflections and velocity boosts.
The energy rich system harbors a large population.
Ships are deflected in three dimensions to star systems beyond.
A spectacular suggestion by G.D. Nordley.  Use of mass beams from numerous star systems to accelerate masses to 87%c or faster and implode asteroids to form miniature neutron stars or black holes.  The impacts release vast energies, heat matter to a plasma or "zoo of particles." Some explodes outward but some inward, compress and collapse into super dense object.  This could be used to make more mini-N stars or black holes.  There are perhaps a trillion comet in Sol's 2ly radius Oort Cloud and vast numbers of icy planetoids.  Certainly other stars have Oort Clouds, so there is no shortage of objects to implode.  There could be many brown dwarfs out there, undetected red dwarfs and Jupiter sized extrasolar planets in the interstellar voids orbited by icy moons.  These could be "seeded" with artificially created mini black holes to ignite them and create new star systems.  Mini-N stars and black holes could be fed with cometary matter. About 6% to 40% will convert to energy; far more efficient than fusion, to light, heat and bring life to space colonies of the Oort Cloud made of ice shell radiation shields, metals and  polymers.  Comets are rich in organics for polymers and thus carbon for fullerenes.  Beamrider stations energized by mini-black holes or ignited brown dwarf stars  could propell ships across the voids of the Oort Clouds at high speeds.  There is far more to outer space than the territory near stars. 

Are there natural "wormholes" out there? Could we open wormholes somehow?  Could we use mini-BH power to do so?  What if we accelerate mini-BHs with mass beams that push against their electrostatic fields like mass beams on starship magnetic fields generated by mag-sails of huge solenoids to near light speed and fire them into natural black holes? Could this blast open a space time tunnel?  Pure speculation on my part.  No less.
And who will travel on starships of the future? Perhaps androids, given the gift of sex, polymer skins with nanoreceptors for touch, warmth, pleasure; moist, soft, warm skins that absorb fragrances and nano-mucous glands in the errogenous zones.  Perhaps they will live for thousands of years.  On long voyages they will just power down and go into standby mode for years in dry inert gas filled chambers.  They will be highly artistic and social.  Our souls reborn as silicon and polymer Titans of outer space???