Noumenon

Voidborn deep-space expeditions routinely report wormholes in systems that other empires surveyed and found empty. The sensor arrays aboard the Noumenon detect spatial distortions that standard instruments filter out as background noise — topology that folds in ways the math says it shouldn't, gravity gradients with no visible source, exit signatures from transits that haven't happened yet. The layered shield envelope keeps the ship intact while the crew investigates the difference between a stable wormhole and whatever the other kind turns out to be. Whether the Noumenon finds wormholes or whether they form in response to observation remains, fittingly, unresolved.