The drive systems of the Old Cygnian ships were unusual. They used a sort of combined jump-warp technology: the warp engines were configured solely for slower-than-light travel, while a very unusual jump engine provided FTL travel. As studies progressed, it was discovered that the drives used a 'band' of typical jumpspace -- Chandrasekhar-Riemann vector jumpspace, or C-Space -- not normally used for transportation. C-space is much slower and more complicated to navigate through than standard jumps, and the BIS engineers wondered why this was the case.
The answer came soon after the BIS Blacksilver attempted to jump to the Great Collapsar. It emerged from jumpspace outside the sector, in deep space, having overshot its destination by some thirty light-years. Despite the navigator's best efforts, she was unable to jump to any point within the sector outside of a small region encompassing 61 Cygni.
There followed a long, intense research program, the culmination of which yielded startlng results. It was discovered that Cygnus sector encompassed a region of severely altered physics. Whereas other regions in charted space 'existed' or were coterminous with multidimensional spaces such as hyperspace and typical jumpspace, Cygnus simply did not exist in any of those spaces but for C-space. It was as if all the coordinates coterminous with Cygnus had been pinched off into its own little bubble in hyperspace, and simply cut off from the rest of the continuum. Attempts to jump into the sector resulted in the ship appearing along the boundaries of some amorphous zone of indeterminate size.
Aside from the sector not seeming to exist in multidimensional space (not counting C-Space), an even greater shock was discovered when the independant scout Straight Flush was hired to conduct an astrographic survey of the sector. The warp-driven scout departed 61 Cygni, went to flank warp on a heading for the nearby Phi-7 Cygni brown dwarf (about four lightyears away)... and gradually, over the course of one lightyear, lost velocity until it dropped completely out of FTL warp. The best efforts of the Straight Flush's engineer allowed the scout to only travel at relatively high sublight velocity. She could not travel at FTL warp speeds within the sector outside of 61 Cygni.
Straight Flush's contract was renegotiated, and over the course of the next month she was used in another round of studies on the sector's unusual physics. It appeared that very fabric of the region's spacetime was resistant to artificial manipulation. Warp-driven ships would not travel faster than light, space-fold operations failed.
The greatest revelation came when now-CSA scientists discovered that even quantum tunnelling engines, often called 'stutterwarp' drives, would not function either. The electron tunnelling phenomenon is intrinsic to applied quantum dynamics. The ability of electrons to move between two points in close proximity without travelling through the intervening space, and the assosciated philotic ansible phenomenon, whereby quantum particles may exchange information instantaneously across great distances, was held to be a fundamental basis of quantum field theory. The fact that Cygnus sector could not support artificial instances of these phenomena, yet apparently permitted 'natural' occurrences of same, only added to the intimidating level of this mystery.
By this time it was well-known that the sector would not support magic except in the most limited, self-contained forms. Appeals were made to a few small, private research institutes, and the conclusion from these advanced facilities added to the confusion:
"...The entire spacetime coordinate set assosciated with an amorphous region encompassing Cygnus sector has been discovered to be selectively resistant to alterations in the probability manifold from within; it may still be affected by probabalistic influences from without the region, insofar as those influences do not attack the physics-of-reality within the region."
Urban legend has it that the arguing that took place over what this meant could be heard clear across Thunderstruck City on Cygnus Prime.
The 'translation' of the private (and costly) study is actually fairly straightforward: Cygnus adheres to a certain subset of the wildly flexible laws of physics that hold sway in the Domain that the Galaxy resides in. In fact, it holds to this subset with unusual strictness, even where it contradicts natural phenomena. While Hawking radiation has been observed around the Great Collapsar, Hawking drives (essentially making use of the same theory) do not function. Cherenkov radiation has been documented repeatedly; yet the Cherenkov drive likewise fails. Bergenholm anti-intertia fields function but do not permit vessels to operate faster than their thrust permits. In a similar technological vein, fourth-order nascent corpuscle propulsion yields only sublight velocities; the thrust ratings for these engines decreases dramatically within Cygnus. The scientists postulated that 61 Cygni was just on the edge of this zone, if not completely outside it.
The list goes on. Well before the institutes provided their report, BIS engineers finally managed to complete salvage work on the first two of the Gunslinger-class destroyers, the Overdriver and the Falcon. Up until the report came out, further attempts to use FTL drives to reach other locations in Cygnus were not undertaken. During a lull in operations, a test was conducted with the CSA Nevada Sith, an experimental pocket battleship, and much to the surprise of everyone the ship navigated successfully to Phi-7 Cygni through C-space.
The research institutes were baffled, and could provide no explaination outside of the belief that something about C-space permitted it access to the 'set of coordinates assosciated with Cygnus.' This, perhaps, was related to the inherent inefficiency of jumpspace travel, particularly of C-space. It was this discovery that keeps the researchers from definitively saying weather the Trinity Zone is natural or artificial, though most tend to believe it is a natural, albeit complex, phenomenon. (Many are perhaps also unsettled by the idea of it being artificial.)
Once this was known, by command directive normal salvage procedure was halted and suspended, and a Walker-class destroyer escort, the Star Witch, was almost completely disassembled. Her drive was subjected to intense scrutiny, and CSA engineers eventually managed to discover how to build C-space-capable jump engines themselves. The process was time-consuming, however, and the resulting engine was viciously power-hungry and bulky, requiring a good amount of volume. Additional Old Cygnian ships continued to be salvaged, most notably the Hunter-class corvettes and the Mordens-class armored scout, and most of these craft mounted very highly advanced jump engines that proved impossible to duplicate. Theories abounded in the engineering community, and it was finally concluded, following intense signals and emissions analysis, that there was some sort of link these ships had with 61 Cygni itself, or something within 61 Cygni, that allowed them to use jump engines much smaller than possible. Unfortunately, these ships required a great deal of maintenance, and suffered increasingly frequent computer failures. CSA Minerva was the last Old Cygnian ship in use by the CSA prior to her decommissioning.
However, ways were discovered to build devices known as jump gates, which could use a combination of solar power and small fusion powerplants to open 'gateways' between realspace and C-space. Construction began in earnest, and soon a jumpgate network had come into being, allowing small ships that did not mount jump engines to travel interstellar distances within Cygnus sector. Tragically, much of this jumpgate network would be destroyed by the Cthulhi during the events following the nova of 61 Cygni.
As time progressed, a much more detailed study of the zone was conducted. Slowly, the boundaries of the zone were charted, and it was at this time that the name 'Trinity Zone' came into use. Some of the scientists worked from research conducted at the Manhattan Project of an alternative-timeline Terra, located at the Trinity site of New Mexico, on the continent of North America. These experiments involved a great deal of thoretical work, work that proved seminal in the study of this region. Thus, at first only among themselves but slowly in greater frequency, the term 'Trinity Zone' began to be applied.
During the charting of the Zone, the nature of the boundaries was studied. The border between the full Trinity Zone and the rest of the galaxy was not clear-cut but rather 'ramped up' to the full effect of the Zone. This region was termed the 'Horizon.' Within the Horizon, the local physics had a tendency of changing rapidly and sometimes unexpectedly, though most of the Horizon was relatively stable. Some of the locations were metastable; one of these regions was discovered to surround 61 Cygni, and gave rise to the term 'loran system,' for a system which can be reached by FTL travel from outside the sector. This discovery also gave 61 Cygni its common name of 'Gateway.' It is believed that some other systems within the Horizon may be loran systems, but as yet none have been charted.
Regions of intense instability also exist and roam the Horizon, though one or two are relatively stationary, forming pockets of so-called 'meta-instability.' These regions are called 'bolge.' One such 'permanent' bolge, charted as 'Malleus Cygni,' is located near the Swanswing Nebula. The closest bolge to Deneb developed within the past year, and is located ten light-years away, approaching the Kolax binary. (Despite it being in the Horizon, the Kolax binary does not have a region of metastability associated with it, and is therefore not designated a loran system.)
Towards the center of Cygnus, in approximately the geographic center of the Trinity Zone, is the Deep Core. The Deep Core is at least fifty cubic lightyears in volume, and it is there that the Trinity zone has the strongest hold. Long-range studies with anything more than radiotelescopes have been inconclusive, and even stellarcom signals have a difficult time at best getting through the Deep Core. It is generally believed that the region of jumpspace coterminous with the Deep Core is -not- 'missing' or otherwise warped, but it is theorized that whatever causes the Trinity Zone holds special influence over the Core areas. There are seven known Core systems. Unlike the Horizon, the border between the Deep Core and the rest of the Trinty zone appears to be somewhat more clear-cut, though research has not been focusing on the Deep Core.
Studies of the Trinity Zone continue, and at each turn it brings something new and unexpected to CSA Sciences. Many worry about the effect the
Horizon's variable physics may have on settlements there, so most surveys have been focussing on the interior of the zone proper. One thing is certain: it will be a very long time before the Trinity Zone is understood.