R.L. said:

"One thing I admit to believing without proof is that the universe is meant to be explored by intelligence, this requires faster than light travel..."

I'd like to believe this as well. However it does not follow that FTL is desireable in a synthetic universe. For example, one could invoke a Douglas Adam's scenario where the universe is a giant computer designed to calculate some result. The process might require many parallel operations following different logic threads. If the possibility of FTL was admitted then a single civilization could spread through the entire universe like a virus, snuffing out all of the separate threads thus leaving only one (probably incorrect) thread. This concept is the analog of a multitasking operating system preventing a single task from taking over the entire computer through memory segmentation. If a user level task leaves its memory segment without permission from the kernel then the task is automatically killed through a segmentation fault. Now this idea breaks down in the "real world" if one admits the possibility of non-biological life, e.g. artificial intelligence. A starship travelling at 5 percent the speed-of-life could be controlled by an artificial intelligence, e.g. a HAL-9000. The HAL-9000 could slow its system clock way down while in deep space (one CPU second equals one day real time). When the star ship entered a new star system (or had a hardware failure while in deep space) it would reset its system clock to full speed. When in the new star system, the star ship could repair itself using in-situ materials. If there was an inhabitable planet, the star ship could seed the planet with DNA based life using terrestrial templates that were stored in the machine's memory (digital information with check sums not susceptible to cosmic ray mutation). For example the starship might reconstruct human beings with their DNA modified to be compatible with pre-existing life on the newly discovered world. This process would enable transport of people to new star systems without recourse to FTL. Cruise speeds of 5 percent speed-of-light is probably obtainable with an enormous starship (almost all liquid deuterium) using nuclear fusion directly driving a high Isp plasma thruster.

Gary