OK, so I've given up on FTL travel. However I still want my story to have aliens so I decided to take another approach.

I can't think up a cool name as of yet for my device [any suggestions are appreciated] but I thought instead of going past the speed of light, we rather go across dimensions to find aliens. That is where my device comes in. Now I know wormholes or even inter-dimensional travel ain't nothing new, so I hope how I do it makes sense.

First some context, my world works based of string theory up until the 6th dimension, because I am not in the mood to make brand new physics.

Now, bare with me if this becomes a little to much like fantasy, but life in my universe comes from a life seed like in the power rangers movie. That leads into my multiverse because the alien worlds are different different timelines where the seed landed somewhere else in the universe.

Advanced civilizations become able to detect the frequency of other timelines but here's a kicker. Timelines that are too similar [like any that take place on earth or on the same planet in general] have far to similar space time frequencies to detect. So, they usually detect ones of timelines where life began somewhere else.

To explore such possibilities wormholes are used. However they normally only lead to different points in time of the timeline they were accessed in. This is where is, at least for me, gets interesting. Now inside wormholes a certain material comes into being. A 6th dimensional crystal, they are obtained when artificial wormholes cross natural ones and they fall through.

Now for the actual device. By creating initiating the process to create an artificial wormhole with this crystal as it's center and programing a spacetime frequency into the mix [by way of the wormhole making device] you can make the crystal turn into a wormhole where your desired destination is connected.

Best part is its reusable. Up to 50 times.

That's how a cross-temporal federation was made between different planets in different timelines.

Also a rule is that only one timeline of a planet can join the federation. Because closely similar timelines can also act like similarly charged particles. Say if person A from earth meet their counterpart from another timeline. They cannot exist together in the same place for two long or both will disappear from history itself and time is changed.

So there are technically multiple federations.

That last detail isn't really important to my story but I thought it would be a fun addition. Quite honestly I hope you all like this idea. Any criticism is much appreciated and I ask that it be followed by advice. Thank you.