Spatial Anomalies

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This article is for specifically-named spatial and sub-space anomalies


The Badlands

A region located near to Cardassian and Bajoran space, the Badlands is a dangerous region with a very heavy concentration of plasma storms. The storms are extremely difficult to navigate, most especially for large ships. During the Cardassian occupation, the Bajoran resistance took to hiding in the Badlands, since the large Cardassian warships were unable to follow the much smaller Bajoran craft into the region.


After the end of the occupation the Maquis also took to hiding in the Badlands in order to hide from both the Cardassians and Star Fleet. The Intrepid class was considered to be capable of safely navigating the plasma fields, although the Intrepid class USS Voyager was thought to have been lost when it attempted to pursue a Maquis Raider into the area in 2371. It later transpired that Voyager had been deliberately abducted from the Badlands by an advanced alien being, rather than having been lost to the storms.



Briar Patch

An area which surrounds the Ba'ku planet, the Briar patch is characterized by anomalies and pockets of metreon gas. Warp travel is impossible within the Briar patch, and Starships in the area need special modification in order to operate effectively. In 2375, the Enterprise-E was forced to enter the patch without modification. Whilst there, the ship engaged in battle with two Son'a battleships. The Enterprise experienced significant difficulties, damaging its impulse manifolds. Nevertheless, the Enterprise was able to use its Bussard collectors to scoop up some of the Metreon gas and detonate it in proximity to the Son'a ships, destroying one and damaging the other.



Dark Matter

A type of matter which is difficult to detect with normal sensor or scanner systems. Dark matter tends to be concentrated in nebulas, although by some cosmological models the amount of dark matter in the universe as a whole is greater than the amount of normal matter.


High concentrations of dark matter can create small gaps in the fabric of normal space. Normal matter passing through these areas can become momentarily phased in unpredictable ways, creating transient electrical currents similar to those created by a subspace distortion but without any trace of a subspace field.


Dark matter can also act to degrade the performance of sensors against normal matter, making dark matter nebulas a good choice for hiding oneself. In 2374, Captain Sisko piloted a damaged Jem'Hadar vessel into a dark matter nebula in order to hide it from detection. Within, he found an entire class M world which was undetectable from outside the nebula.


Dark matter is also found outside nebulas. It has been speculated that a tertiary product of stellar consolidation could be a comet-like assemblage of dark matter. This would be strongly attracted to antimatter, which it would neutralize upon contact. Such a contact can lead to displaced protons in the materials involved and can induce forces sufficient to badly damage a Starship hull. In 2376 one of Voyagers shuttles encountered a phenomena which behaved initially in a manner similar to the proposed dark matter proto comet. On further investigation, the crew discovered a new form of life composed of dark matter, although no significant degree of contact was established.



FGC-47

In 2368, the USS Enterprise investigated FGC-47, a nebula which had formed around a neutron star. The nebula was composed of hydrogen, helium and trionium. On entering the nebula the ship experienced a strange drag effect which gradually reduced their speed. The effect was minor and the ship pressed on with its investigation of the area. On collecting samples of the nebula gas, the crew discovered that the nebula was permeated with filaments composed of a highly cohesive form of plasma. These filaments, which became visible when exposed to a high frequency warp field, created a resonant effect when they hit the ships shields, thus increasing the drag coefficient and reducing the ships speed for a given power output.


The Enterprise was able to chart the filaments within the nebula by running the warp field generators through the ships deflector grid to make them all visible, allowing it to make its way out of the nebula.



Graviton Ellipse

A phenomenon which travels through subspace, occasionally moving into normal space for a time before returning. While in normal space subspace ellipses tend to sweep up various objects which are then carried along inside them. The ellipses can be billions of years old, and extremely ancient artefacts are sometimes discovered within them. The anomalies have only been encountered a handful of times; on October 19th, 2032, a subspace ellipse passing by Mars collided with and absorbed the Aries 4, one of the first manned spacecraft Mankind sent to the planet. This marked mankind's first encounter with a spatial anomaly, and almost derailed the Mars program entirely.


In 2376, the USS Voyager encountered the same ellipse. The emergence of the phenomenon caused level 9 gravimetric distortions to emanate from subspace, and Voyager measured its total energy at 30 million Terajoules. The ellipse was strongly attracted towards Voyager, approaching at sufficient speed to prevent the starship from outrunning it at impulse and produced interference which disrupted the ships warp drive, making escape extremely difficult. The gravimetric stresses created are sufficient to rip the hull plating off a Starship, and no vessel which has passed close to a graviton ellipse has survived the encounter.


Fortunately, Seven of Nine recognized the ellipse as Borg spatial anomaly 521 and recalled that it was attracted to objects which emit electromagnetic energy. She advised cutting power and reversing shield polarity, measures which prevented further pursuit and allowed Voyager to escape the anomaly.


Upon scanning the ellipses interior, Voyager detected a stable region within which gravimetric disturbances were negligible. The scans located some 2.8 billion compounds inside, including the hull materials of the Aries 4. Voyagers crew modified the shields of the Delta Flyer to allow it to penetrate the ellipse and discovered the space craft nearly intact within. Whilst the Flyer was within the ellipse the anomaly collided with a dark matter asteroid, badly damaging the shuttlecraft. Although this made retrieving the Aries impossible, they were able to recover the body of Lieutenant John Kelley from the capsule and give it a proper burial.



Ion Storms

A relatively common phenomena, ion storms can present a significant hazard to ships which encounter them. The storms can cause damage to various systems, depending on their strength. Level 5 ion storms are not regarded as much of a threat to ships, while level 7 storms are sufficient to badly damage shuttlecraft. A level 8 storm is sufficient to present a danger to starships such as the Intrepid class.


The Enterprise carried a pod which had to be ejected during ion storms. In 2267, the ship ejected its pod apparently with engineer Ben Finney still within it, causing Captain Kirk to be court martialed. Kirk was cleared when it was revealed that in fact Finney had faked his own death to gain revenge on Kirk for reporting a mishap he had made some time previously. When the Enterprise visited the Halkan planet later in the same year, an ion storm disrupted the ships transporter system and caused several of its officers to be swapped with crew members of an Enterprise from an alternate universe.


In 2375, the Delta Flyer was badly damaged by an ion storm and crash landed on an M class planetoid. Voyager managed to weather a level 5 storm and rescue the Flyer, shortly before a level 8 storm arrived.



Neutronic Wavefront

A neutronic wavefront is a phenomenon which is produced when two neutron stars collide. The collision forms a ring structure which expands outwards at a significant fraction of the speed of light, presenting a danger to spacecraft which encounter it.


In 2376, the USS Voyager encountered a class nine neutronic wavefront which was expanding at 200,000 kilometers per second, approximately 66% of light speed. The phenomena extended for 3.6 light years, indicating that the collision had taken place several years previously. Voyager was unable to escape the wavefront at warp speeds as the neutron radiation it was emitting was disrupting plasma flow within the ships systems. Lacking sufficient impulse speed to escape the wavefront, Voyager generated an inverse warp field in order to lock itself within position, inoculated the crew against the expected radiation increase, and attempted to ride the storm out.


While the ship was able to weather the majority of the wavefront successfully, the neutronic gradient increased towards the trailing edge. The ship experienced energies of well over 90 million terajoules. The inverse warp field destabilized and Voyager was dragged along with the wavefront, inflicting significant damage on the ship. Fortunately Voyager was able to use its main deflector dish to cut a path through the front and escape.



Murasaki 312

Encountered by the Enterprise in 2267, Murasaki 312 is a quasar like phenomenon of great size and power. Following their standing orders, the Enterprise investigated the anomaly and discovered that it had a negative ionic concentration at 1.64x109 metres and was emitting radiation at a wavelength of 370 Angstroms, with harmonics upward along the entire upper spectrum. The effect had ionized an entire sector, covering at least four solar systems in the vicinity of the ship. The effects of Murasaki badly compromised the performance of both communications and sensor systems across this region.


The Enterprise launched a shuttlecraft to investigate the phenomenon, but the craft was disabled and dragged into the centre of Murasaki 312 where it crash-landed on Tarsus II. The shuttles crew were able to repair it sufficiently to launch again and make a brief orbital flight. Fortunately the Enterprise was still in the area and was able to recover those crew members who had survived the planet.


Although Murasaki 312 began to dissipate somewhat as the Enterprise left, the anomaly continued to exist for at least the next century. In 2367 the Enterprise-D conducted some sensor scans of Murasaki 312 whilst passing by.



Twisted Space

Encountered by Voyager in 2371, the region of twisted space initially caused various minor systems failures on board the ship, most notably in the communications system. When the captain attempted to send officers to the strategic portions of the ship it quickly became clear that something much stranger was happening. The vessels layout had changed radically. Worse, the layout was continuing to change on a second by second basis, without the crew being at all aware of the changes.


Captain Janeway and Ensign Kim attempted to access the bridge via the Jefferies tube system, but instead encountered some form of field which appeared to be distorting space itself. Janeways' arm became enveloped in the field and although Kim was able to free her, the after-effects resulted in severe delirium.


All of the crew's attempts to free the ship from the effect or to counter or even slow it failed, and eventually they resigned themselves to allowing the effect to take its course. The distortion enveloped the entire ship then vanished of its own accord, leaving Voyager and her crew completely undamaged. After the distortion had ended, Voyagers crew discovered that 20 million gigaquads of new information had been downloaded into the ships computer systems.


Even now it is unclear exactly what the nature of the distortion effect was. It may have been caused by a vessel occupying multidimensional space, or indeed may have been a vessel of some form in itself. It is even possible that the field was a life form in its own right. It seems that an answer may well lie in the information Voyager collected, and this will likely be the subject of much intensive study when and if the ship is able to return home.