Topic: What's the difference between known & explored space?
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
No, seriously.
In the midst of revamping my writing with acceptable, semi-logical interstellar distances & volumetrics (which...don't even get me started...), I snagged myself on a semantic sandbar. The terms "known space" & "explored space" seem to be used interchangeably, but I don't feel they really are. In terms of exploration directives & knowledge ranges, they're different things, but I'm having difficulty setting down concrete definitions.
Currently, I'm leaning toward known space entailing all that's publicly accessible through knowledge; it may have been charted by subspace telescope or visited by probes, but the general layout is known. Explored space would be more detailed; actually visited by ships & crews, surveyed, plotted, mapped, all the bits sussed out. That seems a good layout...but.
Anyone care to opine?
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I zuppose you could take some known examples of stars visited by one of the series' ships, and use that to calculate a radius, then work out how many stars there are in that spherical volume.
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
On a related note, any math geeks here? I need to formulate the volume of a bulged disk (like a galaxy or a discus) & I'm unsure if it's considered an oblate spheroid or if there's an actual disk formula. Also, if the latter, is there an online calculator for it?
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
For the Federation volume I've just used a short elliptic cylinder elsewhere, since the thickness is somewhat quasi-uniform-ish out this far. So, if the Federation is 8kly by 6kly and 1kly thick, it goes like this:
posted
No worries, just giving an example. The oblate spheroid formula uses the radius, not the diameter, and in the below the radius A is for the length and width, with C as the height:
Volume = (4/3)πA²C
Now, we could also estimate an irregular oblate spheroid, a.k.a. an ellipsoid, like the E-D saucer section, simply by having an ABC form with A being half the length (Ten Forward back to the arboretum), B as half the width (port to starboard), and C as half the height (bridge to yacht).
But, as I am not at a spot right this second to pull those numbers, I'll use my 8*6*1 again:
So, whereas a box that's 8000*6000*1000 would have a volume of 48,000,000,000 cubic light-years, a disk only has 37,670,000,000 (having removed the corners), and an ellipsoid only has 25,100,000,000 thanks to shaving off the top and bottom of the edges all the way around.
There is a calculator for spheroids and ellipsoids here: https://planetcalc.com/149/ . . . just remember to use radius, not diameter, for that.
Alternately, what numbers are you wanting to use?
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Have you tried just typing it into Wolfram Alpha?
Registered: Mar 1999
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
Yeah, I've been using Planetcalc for my spheroids, but couldn't find dick for disks.
My numbers vary on point it time. I'm still working out revising what I've written so far for more logic & such. There's also the matter of vertical vs. horizontal expansion, how much space is solid vs. pseudopods & tendrils (or even webbing), & what stated values to adhere to & what to cast aside (for example, Bajor being 52.3 ly from Sol, yet still being "the frontier).
posted
52.3 light-years from Bajor to Sol / Earth? I don't have the DS9:TM anymore, but my understanding was that it didn't say that, either numerically or in text:
quote: p.3, Section 1.1, Local Stellar Neighborhood "The Bajoran and Cardassian star systems, some 50 light-years from the core Federation worlds..."
quote: p.17, Section 1.5, Support Flight Procedures "Specialized high-warpcourier vehicles can be employed for critical missions and are able to cover the 50.3-light-year distance between the station and the UFP inner perimeter within six days."
Inner perimeter and core can mean quite a lot given a Federation spread across 8000 light-years, especially when worlds like Trebus in the DMZ were thousands of light-years from Earth.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
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