I've gotten on a kick recently for recreating LCARS screens and Okudagrams in Adobe Illustrator. Some of you have already seen a couple of Okudagrams I've done and at least one has been posted here before.
The latest I've finished is one that shows the Federation/Romulan Neutral Zone. It's kind of a TNG update to the graphic shown in "Balance of Terror". I believe the graphic comes from the season 1 finale from TNG, but I'm not certain. I had to make up the colors myself for my rendition, until I can see a screen cap that shows the correct colors.
That link, like all Fortune City ones, doesn't work. Can you upload it to Flare please?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Unless I'm mistaken, members must have 250 posts before they're allowed to use Flare Upload.
That Okudagram of the Fortune City logo is pretty sharp, though! Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Eh, it works just fine here.
Posted by E. Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Ditto.
As far as colours go, how about darkening them up somewhat?
Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :
Works fine and looks good.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Works for me, but It seems a bit off....The romulans have waaaay more territory than the Federation?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
It's a map of the neutral zone, not the entire federation.
Good work by the way! Although the colours don't look quite right for an authentic looking LCARS display.
Posted by SoundEffect (Member # 926) on :
I agree about the color choices to a point. We know that the Federation is often represented with blues, Klingons are identified with reds and Romulans with green.
Does anyone have a screen cap of the original so I can make it the right colors?
If anyone else doesn't see the picture directly, perhaps you can choose it from the list on this page:
At the rate I'm going, I should be able to do the Flare Upload in a couple of months.
[ January 09, 2003, 20:26: Message edited by: SoundEffect ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
If we're critiquing the picture itself, there's no neutral zone between the Klingon and Romulan empires.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Perhaps its presence or absence depends on whom you ask.
The original Earth/Romulus treaty may have specified a nice ovoid NZ all around the Romulan space, before anybody knew where the borders and territorial ambitions of possible third parties lay.
When the Klingons expanded and ran their ugly foreheads against the brick wall of Romulan presence, this naturally took place at the location of the original NZ, where the Romulans had built their fortifications after the war. So de facto, the NZ remained there, even if de jure, both parties in conflict denounced it, and if the Feds no longer had access to or power over that region of space.
Thus, old UFP maps like possibly the above one could retain the Zone there, while modern Klingon or Romulan ones would simply show a line of conflict that coincides with the former Zone. And dialogue in "Redemption" would merely refer to the fact that there was no UFP-controlled Neutral Zone in place, and thus no convenient legal loophole for Picard to act.
Interesting that there seem to be guardian outposts even in the Klingon part of the map, though (but why 42 and 47, apart from the obvious?). Perhaps during TNG S1, cooperation between the Feds and the Klingons was assumed to be greater than later shown?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I was actually refering to the colour of the bars and text on the top and bottom of the image. However the map could do with having some of the elements shaded differently as well. For instance I would have the different colour grids for each power shaded slightly darker than the base markers and text with a little less saturation. I'd also make all the stars white, with the exception of the Romulus Romii stars, to make them stand out more. Like so. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
But the Neutral Zone is obviously just a boundary between the areas claimed by the Federation (or pre-Federation Earth alliance, depending on who exactly fought the war and when and when the treaty was written), not an attempt to isolate the Romulans in some space reservation. Had the Romulans been beaten so severely that they had to accept an interstellar quarantine, I'd have a hard time believing the Federation would ever give them the chance to just continue on as they did before. In other words, it seems to me such a severe restriction that the Federation might as easily have insisted on keeping weapon inspectors on Romulus in perpetuity. Or, heck, an observation post on this mostly unused Remus place.
Now, I'm sure there would be language in such a treaty to provide for future expansion of the Zone as both the Empire and the Federation grew.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
Ah! Much better! Thanks SoundEffect! Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Now, I'm sure there would be language in such a treaty to provide for future expansion of the Zone as both the Empire and the Federation grew.
That's basically what I've always figured happened. The original Neutral Zone wouldn't have needed to stretch more than a hundred light-years, two hundred at the most. But by TNG's time with the 8,000-LY Federation, there'd probably need to be more of a long border.
Though I don't have any personal specifics, I've believed that the Tomed Incident (2311) arose from a conflict over the previously not-well-defined regions of the Neutral Zone. And so the Treaty of Algeron was partially an extension of the Neutral Zone.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
What we did in the Star Charts was a compromise of sorts between two concepts: a RNZ that "separates the planets Romulus and Remus from the rest of the galaxy", as Spock says, and a RNZ that merely draws a curtain over the private parts of the two adversaries while leaving the sides wide open.
By having a RNZ that forms more than a half-sphere (think of a gigantic shower cap), the UFP could effectively contain Romulan expansion in the direction of Earth without preventing all expansion. The Romulans, if the losing party (as they themselves perceive in "The Defector"), might agree to this.
And the canonically shown curvature of the RNZ is always in the UFP's favor, in this picture, in the "The Defector" 'gram, in the original TOS map, and even in the ST2 computer graphics (assuming that was the RNZ). All this reinforces the idea that the Romulans were indeed being caged in.
The only case where the border is shown concave from the UFP side is the floor artwork in "Nemesis"... Which pretty much invalidates the Star Charts.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by SoundEffect (Member # 926) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo: The only case where the border is shown concave from the UFP side is the floor artwork in "Nemesis"... Which pretty much invalidates the Star Charts.
I prefer to think that with all of Nemesis' technical errors, they didn't do their research to discover that the TNG Okudagram and the TOS viewscreen chart were there and canon first.
Yay, Starcharts!
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by SoundEffect:
quote:Originally posted by Timo: The only case where the border is shown concave from the UFP side is the floor artwork in "Nemesis"... Which pretty much invalidates the Star Charts.
Not necessarily - remember space is 3d.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
I think that in TOS Movie times there was a Klingon NZ.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Topher: I think that in TOS Movie times there was a Klingon NZ.
Correct. Though it was referred in Star Trek Maps and other printed sources as a "Disputed Treaty Zone" or some such. It was established by the Organian Peace Treaty from "Errand of Mercy" (TOS) and was abolished after the Khitomer Conference in TUC. This was the Zone that was referred to in TWO in the Kobayashi Maru simulation, not the Romulan Neutral Zone and it was referred to again in TUC.
-MMoM Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
After the Kobayashi Maru simulation was over, Kirk specifically said "the Klingons don't take prisoners." I'm sure Saavik would've raised an eyebrow if she'd thought that she was fighting the Romulans....
If the Organian treaty didn't specify a Neutral Zone (and a Klingon NZ wasn't mentioned during the TV series), then maybe the KNZ was instituted some time in the 2270's, after the Organians "disappeared." In the volatile world of international politics, it makes perfect sense for there to be some kind of shift in the arrangements -- after all, the Romulans had full diplomatic relations with the Federation a decade or so later.
Anyway, I think it'd be easier to think that the ellipsoid NZ seen in TWOK was the short-lived Klingon zone -- which conveniently avoids any strict limitations on the delineation of the Romulan zone.
Also, you've got to remember that TNG involves faster travel times compared to TOS -- so it's easy to believe that at least some of the TNG incidents took place far away from the original theaters of operation. (The "Nemesis" map excepted, though -- because from what I saw of that graphic, I think it was supposed to be representing both Romulus and Earth.)
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Oh, how I'd have loved it if the ST2 folks had had the budget to actually build and shoot Romulan ships there, instead of just reusing TMP stock footage...
Anybody in possession of early script versions? The Gamma Hydra thing was a rather clear reference to Romulans, as was the concept of a Neutral Zone. When were Klingons substituted?
The "Nemesis" floor art seems to correctly show the classic TOS map region, plus a concave area extending beyond that map. Had I seen this two years ago, out of the window would have flown the nicely ellipsoid RNZ! Also, if the gridlines on the map are oriented along the quadrant line, then clearly the RNZ extends to the Alpha quadrant big time, no matter what the orientation (out of the two to four horizontal and two to four vertical possibilities that don't make UFP a Beta quadrant entity!).
Ideally, I'd retain the current Star Charts RNZ map as the TOS configuration, and say that sometime around Tomed the shape was altered in the Romulans' favor.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, I don't know anything about the Klingons being Romulans in an earlier draft of the film, but the ships, and thus presumably the zone, were obviously Klingon by the time they finished making it. Okuda makes a point of it being the first time the "Klingon zone" is mentioned. Though, come to think of it, it might be the only time.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
In "The Undiscovered Country" they make a couple of references to the end of "the" Neutral Zone.
Which brings up an interesting question... I've wondered if (from the Federation's point of view) they simply extended the Romulan NZ along their border with the Klingons? Obviously it would've been implemented with separate treaties, but it could have effectively become a single border rather than two.
Although I've never understood the reason for a Neutral Zone that separated the Klingons from the Romulans... at least, not one that was established by dialogue.
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