Aerospace engineer Joseph Shoer whipped up this cool map of a galactic civilization in his spare time, when he wasn't researching designs for real-life spacecraft. Not only is this galaxy thoroughly mapped, but it's also got an ultrafast transportation system.
With the advent of superluminal travel, each species soon discovered the network of Channels traversing the galaxy, allowing near-instantaeous travel from Channel Anchor to Channel Anchor. The giant artifacts spoke of a precursor civilization - but where are they now? Their ruins, gargantuan structures on planetary scales, float dead in the Burial Grounds or the Sea of Relics, but no explorers have ever located their ruins on a planet. The only unexplored portions of the galaxy seem uninhabitable: the vast Far Reaches, and the irradiated Cathedral at the galactic core...
Sounds like a smashing setup for a novel to me.
via Joseph Shoer