Three great anomalies exist within the known galaxy. Unexplainable, each had raw powers, and kept spaceships out of these areas for centuries, even millennia.
The Great Nebula existed over a large plane of space. It was expansive and before the inventions of quicker methods of travel, at lightspeed, took years to cross. Even with this, trading posts were built, primarily on the edge of the expanse. The only other ways around it were more expansive than going through it.
The Nebula was known for great ionic jolts, and gaseous clouds that disrupted ship systems and killed people with radiation. Only with the advances of technology was the galactic community able to conquer this expanse and traverse it safely.
The Great Ion Sea was an "sea" of raw power. While never as focused as the Great Nebula, it still existed within a certain area of space. Large ion storms ripped through it. Without special equipment, it was impossible to cross safely. Even with such equipment, ionic pressures have destroyed countless ships.
The ion storms were not centered at these points. Ion storms have broken from the mass, and surrounding planets have been destroyed or heavily ruined. Power Stations in later days were built on the edges for it is also one of the main sources of power, for those stations which survive harvest the ions (ex. hydrogen ions). Even so, these stations last a few years at most.
Last and most deadly is the Great Maw. Within it were even greater anomalies, gravitational distortions, rips in time-space, temporal vortexes. With this was the spinning amounts of asteroids, which continue to collide. It is the most fixed of the three. The center is one of the only portions without anomalies. Only a handful of ships have crossed, the safest way going through a curve around the center in a corridor-type structure.
Energies cannot be derived from this. It was so expansive as to serve for several territorial boundaries. As several ships made it across, a single station had been built on the boundary of the phenomena, to study the raw powers of the Maw.