Anyway this is a repost from the other much longer... "unseen frontier" pg. 21 thread... to make discussion on this divergent topic easier.
Is he giving the borders of the 'powers' amoeba like qualities... since at times some can boarder one another, but other can't etc.
I've found another "map"/"neighbour" situation - Watching Q2 [Voy] Which I finally saw last night... good ep - Author, Author was GREAT though.
Anyway - there was the "meeting" that Chakotay set Q's Son... it involved a Nausicaan (with a VERY yellow face) a Bolian, A Cardassian, a Ferengi, a Bajoran and a Romulan involved in a dispute over an asteroid's mining rights. I can't see any 'power' travelling very far for a single asteroid - it would have to be able to be 'connected' some how to the home 'regions' by supply and support. The fact that there were no Klingons there seems interesting.
Clearly Bajor and Cardassia are close together. I've always speculated that Bolarus IX (the Bolians) is nearby to DS9/Cardassia seeing as we've seen quite a number of Bolians serving on DS9 and a few more Bolian civilians than usual. We even had Chell in Voyager - a member of the Maquis (not saying much seeing as we also had klingons and vulcans etc.)
The Ferengi being there doesn't suprise me - they would be at most major deals like this. The Nausicaan said it (the asteroid) used to be in their space (I think) - I was going to suggest that Nausicaa was close by to The Cardassian Union - ahhhhh but Enterprise suggests that they were known even back then. Well before the introduction to the Cardies and the Bajorans. Even before the Romulans. I've got a sneaking suspicion that we might see Bolians - but they at the start of TNG - didn't seem to be a member of the Federation... anyhoo - one would suggest that at least the Bolians and the Nausicaans share a common boarder... that is not near the Romulan Neutral Zone, but is withing in acceptable distances to the Cardassians and the Bajorans... this makes it one big blood mess. Picture those little water-bomb balloons as different 'powers'. the get them all sticky and mix them up and squash them into a ball... this is sort of how I think the space around all these (including Feds, Klingons, Tholians etc) looks. At the same time there has to be neutral space (possibly the space between stars that doesn't connect directly.
Andrew
Posted by Chris (Member # 225) on :
Err, Andrew, I would think this was a completely hypothetical scenario and thus the writers were certainly rather concerned to include species with the most interesting foreheads than those actually sharing common borders in a internally consistent Star Trek Galaxy ("a what?" I know, I know... ) But seriously, I think the missing link may be the god awful "Brightright II" in this regard - putting the Romulan border within a Yridians shuttle's range from Deep Space Nine (and thus Bajor/Cardassia). Now you only have to decide if this highly questionable piece of information should be considered or conveniently forgotten. Sticking to the latter one, I still agree that the Galactic neighbourhood realistically would look like a mixture of individual planetary systems claimed by different powers... or, at least, that the various empires have very "blurred" borders, with lots of intersections and holes in-between. An finally, there's this little excuse the writers could always use - we think in such two-dimensional terms when it comes to maps and distances... Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I guess the easiest way to do an Alpha map would be to color-code the individual star systems according to their allegiances, and to omit all border-drawing or background-coloring in interstellar space, except in the cases where a clear-cut "Neutral Zone" or "Demilitarized Zone" was specified. I'm not sure how Mandel will do it, but we'll probably soon see. It sounds as if there won't be much 3D complexity.
In any case, the Romulans were a frequent presence in DS9. And unlike the Ferengi, they aren't supposed to roam freely all over the galaxy - in fact, they are supposed to stay behind the Neutral Zone, with only specific diplomatic envoy missions (and secret cloaked incursions) getting through. There are a couple of possibilities here:
1) Romulan presence in all cases *was* diplomatic or clandestine, and their forces were always operating very far away from home turf. This is the most promising explanation, but there are problems: for example, "Paradise" and "Eye of the Needle" had Romulan ships operating in places where other races were operating as well, and those ships readily confessed to their presence. Heck, in "Paradise", the Gasko even volunteered information to the Feds.
2) The Romulan Neutral Zone extends to the vicinity of Bajor. Either it always did, or then it was renegotiated at some point. This is also a possibility, but "Paradise" and "Eye" still suggest that the RNZ was allowed to leak in some cases. So there's no need to assume that all of the Romulan Star Empire would be eternally locked within the RNZ.
3) The RNZ only separates Romulus from Earth, and does not completely enclose Romulus in an eggshell. As long as the Romulans don't spread into the space between the RNZ and Earth (or to any point of space that is closer to Earth than the RNZ is, no matter what the direction), they are free to expand into space, and one such expansion has been towards Bajor.
But would Starfleet approve of such expansion and the possible pincer movements the Romulans could pull? And wouldn't all Romulan ships caught in the wrong area of space simply say "we came around the corner, through the permitted regions, and not through the RNZ"? The TNG-era Feds seem to be far too uptight about the RNZ for this sort of leniency to be likely.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Timo, I have to admit that I've never understood where you got the theory that the Neutral Zone somehow sealed off the Romulans from the rest of the galaxy.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Yeah, I always had the impression that the Neutral Zone only blocked Romulan expansion on their borders with the Federations and Klingons ... that they had a whole other set of issues to deal with on the other side of their territory.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Well, "the neutral zone separates planets Romulus and Remus from the rest of the galaxy" is more or less direct wording from "Balance of Terror". Of course, the RNZ treaty could have been changed after that.
But the main issue here is that a RNZ incursion is always a deadly serious thing in the early TNG Romulan episodes. If it were easy for the Romulans to circumvent the RNZ, why was Picard so uptight about the breaches - and why did the Romulans risk such breaches? It's no good to have a gate if you don't have a fence to go with it, and it's just stupid to climb the gate if you can walk around it.
The RNZ might be limited in its dimensions, yes. Perhaps it is only a small flat shield directly between Earth and Romulus. But somehow the Romulans still pop up in a region of space within runabout range from DS9, a strategically important target for the Feds, then freely announce their presence merely to inform Starfleet that one of their runabouts was spotted flying nearby... Now THAT is something I'd think a RNZ would be designed to prevent. Having Romulans there means that Earth is essentially surrounded, pincered between the Beta quadrant Romulans and the Alpha side DS9 region. Oh, well. Perhaps the original treatymakers were a bit shortsighted. Or perhaps the RNZ in fact cordons EARTH off half the rest of the universe, leaving the Romulans free to roam?
Admittedly, towards the end of TNG, Picard no longer quite threatened with an interstellar war when a Romulan vessel was spotted where it shouldn't have been ("Timescape", for example). Perhaps the RNZ treaty was watered down a lot during the run of TNG?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I think the Rommies can expand away from the Feds. The Feds got uptight when the Rommies crossed the Neutral Zone into Fed territory. I think that Early TNG might have been a "Oh Shit Romulans!" time, after their rather "nasty" encounter in "The Neutral Zone". "We're Back" etc. etc.
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