Pseudospace
Pseudospace is space whose geometry does not follow the familiar Euclidean rules. In Elysium, it includes alternate ways for space to connect and for space and time to twist. The core worlds describe it as an incursion: a rift opening into an otherwise stable reality. But we brought flat space with us. We are the incursion. This universe is naturally chaotic, and its hyper-euclidean reaches are many times larger than the Flatlanders can conceive.
Factions that explore only flat space can share a relatively consistent picture of what they will find. Beyond it, that confidence fails. When a corporation is brave enough to commit fully to colonizing and exploiting this territory—Wonderland—absolutely anything is possible.
Where factions live has become a cultural divide. The Chaos factions inhabit the edges of stable Euclidean space. The Flatlanders build their camps on its few islands of stability, surrounded by an infinite ocean of spatial and temporal chaos. Those islands make Elysium look orderly from within. They give a poor account of the universe around them.