Statics and bookmarks

Wormhole space is different from known space in that there are no fixed jump gate connections. Rather, the set of links between the wormhole systems gets randomized all the time. Any wormhole link stays open only for a few days, at most. This is due to the unstable nature of the wormhole, and makes mapping of Anoikis impossible. How would one map a continuously changing random network?

Some of the wormhole links connect Anoikis to known space, to our gate-connected cluster, and that is how we can access this region. Many explorers that jump into a wormhole to get to Anoikis subsequently get lost, especially if they do not carry scan probes and forgot to bookmark the wormhole after jumping. Luckily, they can contact the Signal Cartel, who have made it their business to rescue wormhole explorers.

So, can the constant metamorphosis of the map ever lead to systems being completely disconnected from the network as a whole? No, there are "static" wormholes in every systems. It's a confusing name, they move around and there's really not that much static about them, except in the sense that there are a minimum number of wormhole entrances that are present at any time in a given system. 

Our wormhole has two statics: one that will always lead to some highsec system, and one that will always lead to another wormhole system. We call the highsec connection "Nexus", and the wormhole connection "Ursus". Some days there will be more wormholes in the systems, but never less than these two.

The entrance of these two statics does move about every day within Seclusion, without leaving the system though. So, it needs to be bookmarked over again every day, for fellow explorers to use. The exit of Nexus hops around in highsec, and also needs to be bookmarked. Joy when the connection happens to pop up close to a trade hub, disappointment when it leads to a backwater system.

It is an unwritten gentlemen's agreement between explorers to keep the bookmark folder up to date, especially for Nexus. It is the wormhole itself that should be bookmarked, not the anomaly. If you jump to the anomaly, you'll land some ten kilometers off the wormhole and need to approach it. This makes you vulnerable, and a proper bookmark will let you land at zero, able to jump immediately. Also I plan to keep up with this courtesy of keeping the bookmarks up to date (and set them with an expiry of 2 days for wormholes). Today, scanning and probing was our first task, but some good soul had already preceded us and the bookmarks were up to date. At least still for a couple of hours...

 

PS. For reference, this is how the bookmarks in the seclusion folder are formatted:

The green ones are in the same location as we are, Seclusion. They start with the identification code for the anomaly, and then a description. QED-968 is the Nexus, the portal to highsec. The other side of that is denoted by "Seclusion - Nexus", and today it is in Keba, in Aridia. If you'd go to Keba, and warp to that bookmark, you'd land on the wormhole entrance to Seclusion. By the luck of the draw there appears to be a second highsec hole still open, to Polfaly.