Within the setting are strange and exotic events - both witnessed first hand and recorded with the use of quantum telescopes. Some are noted here, including their suspected causes and effects.
A massive red nebulae, its interior's gravitational behavior shifts massively, believed to be caused by a higher dimensional object acting as what is called 'dark matter' - matter which alters gravity but cannot be seen conventionally. Exactly what fury is, remains unknown.
Areas with such highly disrupted 'choppy' space that any attempt to cross using faster-than-light travel techniques results in an object falling out of FTL, often catastrophically - creating un-crossable 'deadzones'. Primarily a natural phenomena, research is underway into the creation of artificial maelstrom.
Entropic Sinkhole are events where the order of things is unusually high or low in ways conventionally non-predictable. Believed to be caused by m-brane penetration caused by interaction with another universe and the extraction of energy from space - either leaking or sucked out into the void. In these locations, zero point energy sources do not function predictably or reliably.
Occurring in areas with extremely low entropy, brinicle are dimensional shadows of electromagnetism, allowing light in limited form and accuracy to cross between different dimensions.
Spherical holes in spacetime that allow an object to enter at one point and emerge at another, taking a shortcut through upper dimensional space. While some are natural in origin, others are artificial in nature.
A situation in which the gravitational mass interactions with an object in higher spaces link it to the relative position of another object. This essentially means if one object is lifted, the other moves with it as if a single component even if there is no obvious physical linkage. The most common example are wormholes but many objects are engineered to have Form-Lock by design.
Mass-lock is involved when an FTL drive is near an object of high mass and its capacity for output is severely reduced as the heavy object provides intense “friction”. This stops objects from being thrown at planets at luminal velocity.
A common combat phenomenon, a death spiral happens when two craft with gravity manipulation try to grapple or connect to one another to pull the other in. As a result, the two orbit a middle spot in a tight double helix, exchanging vollies of weapons-fire – drawing closer to strike in close combat or drawing back and eventually achieving escape velocity from the spiral itself.
While at range the technique makes little sense conventionally, the force involved to tractor an opponent disrupts light enough to make accurate striking an opponent at range particularly difficult similar to how water refracts the true position of objects: the gap must be closed to remove the constantly moving refraction.
These phenomenon while possible anywhere, crop up at massive and specific destinations, making them helpful in navigating simply on sight.
The White Rift Expanse** - Spanning almost 20 lightyears, the white expanse is a large nebulae where conventional rules of spacetime seemingly dissolve and space itself becomes unstable. Very little is known about it.
So named because of redshift phenomena: Distorted space where the velocity and angle of light is altered passing through it. Can render telescopic readings, charting techniques and communications unreliable or even unusable. Red Tide makes mapping space particularly difficult.
A massive polar gas structure, the gas-streams of the nebula, high speed collision and shock-fronts superheat the nebula's hydrogen and nitrogen atoms into a brilliant golden plasma, spreading like supersonic roots or branches at both sides with the star itself hidden by a dusty band toward one side resembling a ground plain. It is thought that in a thousand years, the nebula may emerge into a fully developed planetary nebula, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.