Board Thread:Fiction Universe Discussion/@comment-4242472-20140831130500/@comment-1073312-20140831195909

Within 5000 light years of Sol, there is an average of 600 million star systems, and we aren't exactly in the most densest regions of the galaxy.

That being said, given the faster-than-light capabilities of most SporeWiki species, and the fact many are now in sub-galactic (or more) power blocks, its the safe to assume, not only given their massive sensor capabilities (think of hyperspatial detection even), and using drones that most stars have some kind of astronomical data.

However, I think there could still be many, many regions untouched by sentient beings. For a start, interest. Surveying each planet, each asteroid belt and so on, would still require time and economy. We still at this point scratch our heads at the interior of the Earth, its incredibly complicated. This, as well as political issues might mean I think that the "Great unknown" might well be everywhere, even in held territory! It is possible that space empires are quite vacuous, with only limited knowledge of regions of their own space. I doubt very much that a faction which holds 1000 light years in volume has colonised or even knows its 120 million stars very well. I did think about looking into "colonisation patterns" once, different aliens probably have slightly different concepts of territory and grow in different shapes.

Notice how many stories of more true unknown regions usually involve incredibly alien presences, or precursor tech. It could be that certain regions are not easy to access (like going to Grox territory in Spore).