IIRC New Eden is a star cluster rather than a true galaxy.

And why do you want to hand big groups a near impenetrable home?

CCP is the single group that would create new systems. There's several ways CCP can **** with the discovery of new systems

* there might be agruesome faction in these systems that would spread to nearby systems
* a newly discovered system might easily unlock a backdoor to another region, and that might be highly undesirable
* there is no reason new systems would be especially valuable. A large number of stars in the galaxy have no planets due to tidal stripping.

I am not interested in player power, gameplay. I am interested primarily in storytelling and world building. I like interesting stories. Eve is a universe, not some boardgame.

Oh and let me repeat - the entire region that comprises eve is only 100-125 light years across. It is not a galaxy. A galaxy is "about" 50 million times bigger. The milkyway has 500 billion stars.

What does that have to do with anything?

If you hand a group a place they can exist in total safety where they will be nigh impossible to dig out, what do you think they are going to do with it?

And if it also includes a back door into a hostile region, what do you think they are going to do with that?

Thera and the shattered wormholes were the last systems added. Which have nothing to do with your idea. Before that it was wormhole space in general, and before that it was the drone regions.

I am not interested in player power, gameplay. I am interested primarily in storytelling and world building. I like interesting stories. Eve is a universe, not some boardgame.

So on average how many systems has CCP added in the last year?
How many systems have they added in years before that?
Is there a URL where I can see which systems were added last?

This just in from one of our reporters:

"In recent days astronomers from all over New Eden have picked up faint electromagnetic radiation that appears to be eminating from another star cluster.

Preliminary analysis indicates these signals appear to be structured and may even be mathemetical, indicating a high probability that these signals are of intelligent design.

Scientists have been asked to work on upgrading the current scanning equipment to be able to further study these signals in an effort to determine if this is indeed the case.

Furthermore, there have also been reports of an unfamiliar kind of cosmic signature appearing here and there at about the same time these signals were first picked up. This in turn has lead to rumors and speculation that these phenomenon might be linked to one another."

The Scope.

Your comment sounds like the ancient history of the caveman who would huddle at the back of the dank and wet dark cave fearful of the light at the end of the tunnel. A tunnel that drops out of warp into a lush and volatile land filled with resources other than the smell of cavemen.

You sit in your cave and be content while everyone else hunts the anaconda that does not have any fear and will eventually find you shaking in your cave with no where to go.

Let us expand the cluster that is New Eden to become a Galaxy !

I understand that the entirety of known space in eve is under 10.000 systems, and a sizable portion of that is wormholes. SPace linked with stargates comprises a region of "just over 100 light years" across. That's barely a speck in an actual average galaxy.

I propose that player run factions can, under extremely scarce and difficult circumstances, become able to use astrometric technologies to find a suitable natural conduit to a new region of space (inside and outside the known galaxy) and would become capable of creating a star gate to this new region of space. In essence, a large alliance collaborates, constructs a highly expensive "astrometric observatory" and scans.

The construction of these observatories should be linked to a scarce resource - so that the amount of scan attempts per set period is limited to one for the entirety of space. Such scans would be roughly directional, say, in a 35 degree arc which is decided by the creating faction.

This process is then processed by CCP games - CCP games notices the construction of an array, and waits when the array comes online. When the array then comes online, scan begins, CCP will have decided where the new system is to be discovered within that 35 degree (or so) arc (and from a few to tens of light years distant) , and the new system will be unlocked and almost immediately a star gate can be constructed.

The nature of these systems is up to CCP. They may be plain, vanilla systems. They may be very strange. They might very well be occupied. They may be worthless, or they may be completely void of planets. But also possible is that a unique resource, or some horrific danger can be located there. But equally likely such a new system might already have an old artefact gate that leads to another region, thereby unlocking totally new strategical connections.

Why?

Known space should gradually expand. It would be delightful is players would be able to "roughly" determine the direction of this expansion. With some clever planning factions might even be able to secure more elaborate "safezones" radiating away and outward from known space.