The Starways

Traveling between star systems without using a Starway is like traveling through wilderness without using a premade road: You'll get where you're going eventually, it'll just take you longer, and have a much greater chance of getting lost.

Among the many strange astral phenomena that can be found throughout the Proxima Galaxy, few are as significant among the civilisations of the galaxy as the Starways. According to legend, the ancient creatures known as the Void Serpents were capable of crossing the vast distances between the starsby "burrowing" through space-time, with the "tunnels" they left in their wake becoming the Starways as they are today. Upon their expansion beyond their homeworld, the Shapers quickly developed the means to harness these Starways as the basis for interstellar FTL travel, building the first Relays to more easily access them, and using the pathways they made between the stars to chart the first Star Maps. Though the Shapers have long since fallen, the technologies and knowledge they've left behind have allowed the races that have sprung up in their wake to continue harnessing the power of the Starways for interstellar travel, forming the very backbone of intergalactic civilisation.

Manifestation

The Starways are normally invisible, though those with an especially high Psionic aptitude can see their endpoints in a star system as a faint "ripple" in space. Any endpoints that are made accesible by a Relay appear to observers as a swirling vortex of light blue light, and those who pass through a Starway describe the interior as a tunnel of constantly shifting light blue light. Additionally, the endpoints for the Starways are located in a fixed position in their system, and cause some gravitational anomalies in their vicinity (another means by which Starways are located for the construction of new Relays).

Localization

The Starways connect the space between the star systems of the galaxy, with the number of Starways connecting to a system varying from star to star.

Type

Metaphysical, Astral