Offline stargates activate spontaneously, CONCORD officials issue general travel advisory

At just after 02:00 EVT last night, a large number of offline stargates spontaneously came online, opening access to eight previously closed-off regions of space.

CONCORD officials have issued a travel advisory intended to dissuade pilots from entering the newly-accessible regions due to “unforeseeable dangers,” but since CONCORD’s jurisdiction does not extend to these regions they have not been able to issue any mandates. Capsuleers are reported to be roaming the new regions already.

The regions were closed off twenty years ago in the wake of a rogue drone attack which left a research outpost, then-headquarters of a Gallente research project known as Operation Spectrum Breach, in ruins.

Operation Spectrum Breach was a Federation-funded research project intended to create openings into regions of unexplored space and facilitate the colonization of new worlds for a rapidly-expanding Gallente Federation.

The project was cancelled after the worker drones at the project’s main outpost went berserk, killing hundreds. Reports of rogue drone attacks from several other areas within the eight regions had surfaced concurrently. To ward off the drones’ potential expansion into trade lanes and inhabited areas, the project’s supervisors had every gate leading into the eight regions closed off.

It is not known what caused the drones to go rogue; many speculate that some form of virus was at play, while others believe that mechanical malfunction or design error are to blame.

Federation officials have expressed surprise and bafflement at the unprecedented occurrence. According to a senior-level aide within the Office of the President, an investigation is “set to be underway.”