Field guide ·Identification on sight ·Instrument-free
Reading a wormhole
A wormhole declares four things before it is scanned: the largest hull it will pass, where it leads, how long it will last, and how much mass it will still take. One is read from its colour. Three are written in its information panel. The Bureau records all four. It interprets none of them on the surveyor's behalf.
Flare colour → ship-size limit
The flare around a wormhole encodes the largest hull that will pass in a single jump. Four colours, four limits. A heavier ship is refused at the threshold; the client declines the jump and states the reason. The Bureau notes this is the rare wormhole error delivered before the loss rather than after.
Centre → class
The centre of a wormhole shows the sky on its far side. In Anoikis the colour and figure indicate the class, listed below. In known space it shows the destination region's nebula; Amarr space reads gold. The reading is reliable with practice and unreliable without it. Angle and lighting both introduce error. The Bureau recommends the scanner until the eye is trained.
| C1 | Black and white, with no distinct shape. |
| C2 | A well-defined black lens or nebula in the centre. |
| C3 | A red-and-black centre ringed by a white outer edge. |
| C4 | Murky red, purple and blue, with a white wedge and black centre. |
| C5 | Orange and white, with a white wedge through the centre. |
| C6 | Bright, fiery red. The "deadly unknown". |
Show-Info → destination
The information panel states the destination in bands: a class range in Anoikis, a security band in known space. The exact class is not given and must be scanned. The region is not given either, though the nebula above tends to supply it.
| Class 1-3 wormhole systems | C1-C3 |
| Class 4-5 wormhole systems | C4-C5 |
| Class 6 wormhole systems | C6 |
| High Security | Highsec |
| Low Security | Lowsec |
| Null Security | Nullsec |
| Thera | Thera |
| Triglavian Space | Pochven |
Show-Info → age
How long the wormhole has before it closes on its own, reported in brackets rather than exact figures. Maximum life runs from a few hours to two days, depending on the type. Only the shorter brackets mean imminent collapse; late in life the aurora grows unsteady, then faint. The Bureau treats an end-of-life hole as closed and plans accordingly.
The normal state. A wormhole lives anywhere from a few hours to two days, so most show this for most of their lives.
End of life. The wormhole has begun to decay and grows unreliable. Many crews treat it as already closed.
Closing soon. Cross now, or commit to the far side.
Past its timer. It can close on the next jump.
Show-Info → mass remaining
How much mass the wormhole will still pass before it collapses, reported in three brackets. The wormhole shrinks visibly as mass crosses it. Total mass also varies by ten percent either way and is never shown, so the Bureau reads every figure as the smaller one.
Stable. Full size, with less than half its total mass spent.
Destabilised. Over half its mass has crossed and the wormhole has visibly shrunk.
Critical. It shrinks again and will collapse under little more mass.
Collapsing a wormhole deliberately is a separate procedure. Every type page carries a rolling calculator. The Bureau supplies the arithmetic. The ten percent it cannot account for is the surveyor's to carry.