We can only go on what they say and do. We could extrapolate all sorts of hidden meanings and metaphors, but then we would be little more than English majors (in the literary sense, not language per se) needlessly ruining a work by dissecting it into tiny little pieces, thus missing the whole point, and get nowhere.
They were talking about using the map as a (not so) simple mall guide map, though. They did not speak of metaphorical representations of the colonies, but of looking for that pattern in the "sky." Whether or not that makes any sense or will get them anywhere in the long run, that is what they were doing. What we think about this doesn't really change the fact that it happened. Maybe they will use them metaphorically in future episodes, but they have not said anything about finding the meaning of the symbols yet.