So, er, inspired by Masao, and spurred by wanting to know where a hypothetical Trek show would start, I've returned to the thankless (and reather silly) task of trying to come up with a map of Star Trek. My focus will be TOS/movie era sites with an eye towards later expansion to include TNG and DS9. Also asking after Mandel's Star Charts in this thread got me to thinking that I ought to give it another crack. Since this is a 'creative' project (and certainly is in line with the "nothing better to do" mandate) I didn't feel like it belonged in the SS&T forum.
And so I started with the above trying to work out Mandel's galactic coordinate system which, I'm still not sold on. But also intending to pull as much as I could into my 3D program for great cartography this is a massive object scaled such that one unit would be the equivalent of one LY.
After several evenings of relearning VRML and then wrestling with the data, I managed to get a subset of the Hipparchos data into my program. It ain't exactly convenient, but it does give me much more control over the way things look than, say, Celestia.
And so what I'd really like to do at this point is to maybe collaborate with somebody, or several somebodies here who might be able to help establish where things are in Star Trek. (Please don't just point me to Christian Ruhl's st.dimension site. It's a fantastic site and an incredible resource, but my eyes have been marinating in his Scandanavian thoroughness for the past week or so.) This is the stuff I've never been any good at. So if anyone has a short list (10, 50) of Star Trek stars/systems and what/where those fit with real star data/names/coordinates. I'd love to hear from you. Also feedback on aesthetics would be appreciated.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Not sure I can provide anything too concrete, other than an alternative perspective. When I was talking with Masao about the Earth-Romulan War, before ENT started (so we're talking five years ago now), I developed my own map layout to provide my own "flavor" to the relationship between the various locations. It's all on the maps from my never-finished but never-forgotten articles on the history of the Earth-Romulan War.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Nice- you could easily revise it to include some of Enterprise's events (first contact, Romulan policy of annexing planets with mines, suspected hostile relations with the Vulcans etc.).
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Wow, yeah that's really cool, MM. It's well thought out, and I like what you've done with the colors and the expanding and shrinking borders on the map. Strata 3D has a feature called "Metaballs" which let's you throw together big blobs of spheres to make irregular organic shapes (even animated) and I'd hope to use those in this project to show borders and territories. I mean in a similar way to what you've shown.
My router went bust on me, so I've mostly been dealing with that and haven't really played with my maps too much. I've added sector grids using the 20ly cubes I've read so much about. And I've also placed Wolf359 and Andor (Andoria?) using the Ent. location of Procyon.
Seriously if anyone has a big list of Star Trek locations and the (conjectured) real star equivalents I'd love to start plugging shit into ISDB and making more labels...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Betazed should be i there somewhere too-as it's "striking distance" from Vulcan and Andor.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
But where...
Incidentally, I can render this map as a flat projection as well. I mean if that's desireable. To a potential collaborator. Who wants to make a pixel-pusher do his bidding. Making custom maps for him/her. And stuff...
It's just confusing on account of the depth issue. It does make it look like Andoria and Vulcan are spitting distance from one another.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
If I were to guess at Betazed's location, it would be at the bottom left of your 2- map. That would (possibly) explain Betazed's late entry to the UFP nad would allow for that whole "striking distance" comment.
Incidently, would the Borg's flightpath in BOBW be from almost due "west" on that map?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Why does Betazed have to have a late entry to the Federation?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
If it were a founding member, telepathy in TOS would be much less a source of amazement and terror to the heroes...
I'd postpone their entry until the very last possible moment - which would probably be 4.7 days before Ian Andrew met Lwaxana Troi.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Ian Andrew Troi would meet Lwaxana, daughter of the fifth house of Betazed, holder of the sacred chalice of Rixx (A mouldy old pot) and heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed.
She wouldn't have been Lwaxana Troi before meeting Ian Troi. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, I didn't say founding. Though as I recall, telekinesis is what seemed to weird people out, when it came to mental powers.
No, my heretical founding UFP member candidate is the Trill.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Get a rope.
I have no problem with Betazed being part of the federation well before TNG. I would presume they might be fashionably late arrivals given the TOS crew's reaction to telepathic abilities, but that's not exactly a date. What do we know about Betazed? Well specifically, what Spectral class star am I looking for?
(Also, as any boy is wont to do I have been comparing my maps with the work of others. And I am disturbed to find it different. Well namely that Christian's Z axis is the opposite of mine so that 2D projections are mirror reversed. If my calculations are correct (and I've been corresponding with Winchell Chung and my math-savant exgf to re-check this again) my map should show a view of Sol and environs from a position just above of the galactic disk with the top of the map (and the y axis) pointing towards the galactic center. Of course much of this depends on what you consider 'North'. It may be worth mentioning that I am using the convention of galactic north mentioned in this wiki as set out in 1959 by the International Astronomical Union. In a related story, I am a loser. More later.)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
. . . are the Trill.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote: Ian Andrew Troi would meet Lwaxana, daughter of the fifth house of Betazed, holder of the sacred chalice of Rixx (A mouldy old pot) and heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed.
She wouldn't have been Lwaxana Troi before meeting Ian Troi.
Knowing Lwaxana, do you seriously believe that she'd change her name just for a husband?
No, it's obvious that Deanna's father changed his family name from Andrew to Troi in the marriage...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Oh, and BTW, there is nothing wrong with you coordinate system, Balaam. It just looks that your galaxy is upside down...
Most Trek maps have the cartwheel spinning clockwise, which I guess looks "natural" somehow. Even National Geographic went for that orientation, to the pleasure of Trek fans trying to get their bearings.
But everything in the Sol system spins anticlockwise (okay, Venus and Uranus and a few rocks perhaps notwithstanding) when viewed from Earth's North, which is where everything usually IS viewed from, in this day and age of "western" cultural supremacy. A mathematician would automatically orient spinning things anticlockwise, too.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
My project is still in progress. I'm about 3/4 through placing all the stars within 50 light years of earth in their proper 3-D locations. Before starting out, I should have actually looked to see how many stars there are (996). I've also put lines, based on Winchell Chung's maps, between each star and its closest neighbors. Also, thanks to Winchell, I've indicated which stars are likely to have habitable planets. But I haven't assigned any trek names yet.
Your map appears to be horizontally flipped from the ones in Star Charts, which were based on Christian's Ruehl's maps from ST: Dimension. Most of Winchell Chung's maps are rotated 90 degrees clockwise from these. I remember when Christian was preparing his first maps they were also like yours (also derived from Hipparchos data), but he flipped them to resemble those in Guide to the Galaxy by Henbest and Cooper.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Wow. 996 stars. By hand. Don't take this the wrong way, but I thought I was crazy. What I've seen of your maps has been beautiful. I mean I was going over my work with the above mentioned math friend and showing her some other maps people had done. Yours was the one she immediately picked out as the clearest and coolest.
It is a relief knowing that Christian's maps were flipped. I rechecked everything I knew how to check and I was still coming up with the same orientation. I've never been entirely sure why Winchell decided to have the galactic center up the X axis. I suppose it's a question of taste.
Speaking of flipping, thanks Timo for catching the incorrect spin of my galaxy legend. There was no Western orientation bias or higher mathematical purpose behind it. I just goofed up when I was scaling it in Photoshop.
And so at Jason's recommendation I placed Betazed:
I originally had it at Pi(3) Orionis, but then that seemed too close. It's now at a star that doesn't have a name (HIC 32984). That's 28+ ly from earth (which should be nearly a month's travel at Warp 7 TOS scale in MinutiaeMan's Warp Speed Calculator is to be believed). I can give that position a little perspective...
I've started placing some others (Regulus, Denebola), but as previously mentioned, this is the part I'm no good at. (At times I wonder whether there is a part I'm good at) It's quite easy to place them and reposition them. I thought it was going to be a pain, but then I figured out a faster way. It's actually pretty fun. In a sad sort of way. So what's next?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Nice! I just (finally) recieved my copy of Star Charts yesterday, so I'll chime in with more (useless!) ideas soon.
It's a really nice book with some really lame header fonts and a completely unlikely Dominion map that I cant fathom, but I likes it overall!
Mabye I'll be Evil and scan the whole thing so we can have the pullout sectional map of the galaxy as one large combined JPEG file.
Unless someone has already done that, that is...
Ballam, what's the white vertical line represent? If Star Charts is to be believed, Sol seperates the Alpha/Beta (parking lot) quadrants...
Though that is ...odd.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: If it were a founding member, telepathy in TOS would be much less a source of amazement and terror to the heroes...
I'd postpone their entry until the very last possible moment - which would probably be 4.7 days before Ian Andrew met Lwaxana Troi.
Timo Saloniemi
It's more that everyone seems to know about the Betazoids by DS9 and an entire race of powerful telepaths in the Federation would complicate many stories in TOS/TMP where the truth is called into question....and the potential for using Betazoids (I hate that term- sounds like the crappy cartoon "zoids") in intel work or as judges.
I simply prefer to think of them as joining sometime during the "lost era" between STVI and TNG's first season.
While certainly not canon, in the DS9 books, Trill was a new Federation member during Pike's term as fleet admiral.
Best to disregard the awful TNG episode as either a bad dream or as memory loss caused by aftereffects of that time Data had the entire crew's memory wiped twice in one episode.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Do we have any idea where Trill is?
So the whitish vertical line is not, in fact, a V'ger plasma probe thingy, but actually an artifact of the sector lines I've been using. That perspective had them all in a row. Which makes me realize that my well intentioned attempt to place sector grids confused things far more than clarified. The following image has removed all sector cubes but for those in which I have stars labelled. (They're there, just harder to see. May have to work on that)
[edit: for those interested, these are the local sectors where I have labelled stars.]
[ September 29, 2005, 12:29 AM: Message edited by: Balaam Xumucane ]
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: It's more that everyone seems to know about the Betazoids by DS9 and an entire race of powerful telepaths in the Federation would complicate many stories in TOS/TMP where the truth is called into question....and the potential for using Betazoids (I hate that term- sounds like the crappy cartoon "zoids") in intel work or as judges.
This is the same group of people that regularly forgot that they:
1/ Had stolen a working cloaking device 2/ Had had their ship modified to go at around warp 14 in preperation for an intergalactic journey...and it seemed to work fine 3/ Forgot that they knew how to speed up a person so that they moved so quickly they were invisible 4/ Forgot that they knew how to make someone temporarily telekenetic. 5/ Forgot that they'd met shapeshifters on several occasions, even as late as ST VI. 6/ Forgot that they'd seen this parallel Earth thing over and over again and should stop being surprised by it really.
I have no problems with them not using Betazoids in those positions. With the exception of "The Dumhead" and Troi's "Captain, they're hiding something!" they didn't really use them like that in TNG onwards anyway. So I have no problem with them being around (or even joining) in TOS time.
As to the Trills... if we're going on the assumption that "The Host" didn't happen (and considering everything that DS9 throws at us, we pretty much have to), what evidence is there for an early Trill joining? Did any of Dax's previous hosts hang around with the Federation? I know that one of them had pre-marital hankey-pankey with McCoy, which certainly doesn't prove that they were members (don't!), but indicates that they, at the very least, knew of the Federation.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
No to mention that there's no way telepathic evidence is admissible in any court that isn't Orwell-scary.
I confess to basing my "Trill could totally be old-tymey members!" almost solely on Dax's mention of a brief romantic encounter with the good doctor, but consider the context. Which, OK, I can't remember, but it was some sort of conference, which implies at least that the Trill were well represented at random interstellar organization functions. So why not put them in the Federation? That single reference to a Trill in the OS era is more than most other known UFP members get.
But I didn't mean that I think this is, you know, the one true way or anything. I just think it's possible and, most importantly, would have been neat.
And while I'm ruining this thread with my derail, I wanted an Enterprise episode about 22nd century Cardassians too. Thanks for nothing, Hollywood.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Dax knew Kang, Kor and Koloth. When they went back in time in "Trials and Tribbil-ations" she wanted to go say hi to Koloth. She kept reminiscing about the good old days when those styles were "in vogue" and how she could remember how young Koloth used to look.
I think we have to ignore TNG's "The Host" for the same reasons sited above - almost everything in DS-9 contradicts it.
As for Betazoids - I have no problem with them being around in TOS era. We only saw 3 seasons of TOS and that really wasn't enough time to fully explore the galaxy. Consider in those three years we never saw a male Orion, yet they surely existed.
Vulcans were somewhat powerful telepaths. Talosians definitely were. Betazoids wouldn't have been that big a deal.
Thinking of the Talosians- what happened to them? Relations seemed to thaw a little at the end of "Menagerie." Could the Federation step in and help rebuild their society? They would definitely have turned the tide in the Dominion War.
What about the Organians? Why did they stop interfeering after "Errand of Mercy"?
It works both ways. If the lack of Betazoids in TOS means they weren't known or discovered by that point, then we could also assume the lack of Organians or Talosians or Melkotians or Medusans in TNG's era means they must have disappeared.
I want to see an episode where a Medusan uses an android body like Data's and becomes a fully interactive member of the crew.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
There's a difference though between not hearing about Betazoids (normal humanoids with telepathy who get naked at weddings) and Organians (ultra powerful beings who threatened to destroy the Federation and Klingon Empire unless they made nicey-nicey).
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Whichever way that difference goes, one would think that the Betazoids or the knowledge of abilities common to them and Talosians be mentioned or at least implied when the Talosians appear in "The Cage".
Admittedly, though, there is no direct line in "The Cage" stating that the heroes would be ignorant of full telepathy. Only the mental projecting powers of the Talosians are stated to be exceptional. So for all we know, Number One could have been a Betazoid...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
That's good! Write it down. Majel Barrett continuity porn.
It's also entirely possible that Betazed and Trill (and whoever else) weren't early adopters. Maybe the offer was on the table, but they were waiting to see whether the UFP would go the route of the League of Nations. Pinky-swear buddies, trade partners, non-aggression signers, even scientific collaborators, yes, but perhaps not full-fledged members.
And I don't think the Organians ever threatened to destroy the Klingons and Federation. Just make their weapons really, really hot. They're so advanced, I can't imagine they'd be interested in aligning themselves with any puny corporeal governments. The same might be true of the Talosians, although in that case, there would be the opportunity for trade. How much you want for this deaf-mute quadriplegiac?
Also this happened.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Balaam Xumucane: That's good! Write it down. Majel Barrett continuity porn.
Speaking as someone that has seen video of horses fucking women and was witness to a crucifixion, that still makes me want to puke.
Donr forget that Curzon Dax was the federation's ambassador to the Klingon Empire. It would be pretty strange to have a non-citizen as the ambassador, so trill is in at least sometime pre-TNG. Based on how far back it was that Curzon took his blood oath with Kang, Kor, and Kolath, he was ambassador many years pre-TNG (they'd been searching for the Albino for a looong time, IIRC).
Liam brings up some great (if comicly sad) points about the "forgetfulness" of Trek and of course, there are also the various godlike races Kirk made pals with that are no where to be seen in TNG (you'd think the metrons or someone coud keep Q from playing games every once in a while).
quote:Originally posted by HerbShrump: Vulcans were somewhat powerful telepaths. Talosians definitely were. Betazoids wouldn't have been that big a deal.
But Vulcans are not powerful telepaths -at least not in comparison with Betazoids. Vulcans have to prepare themselves prior to using telepathy and have to be in physical contact. Betazoids are waaaay more receptive- and potentally dangerous to security- even by casually picking up sensitive information.
Mabye Starfleet Security keeps tabs on any Betazoids in sensitive locations? That would be a hell of a lot of work though.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Well if we want to delve into ENT continuity... Mayweather said he had been as far as Trillius Prime - I'd say that was a reference to Trill.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote: It would be pretty strange to have a non-citizen as the ambassador.
Worf?
I mean, yes, he was a citizen, but the Klingon Empire was not a member.
Also, the Feds trusted the apparent non-citizen Riva with negotiations where UFP reputation was at stake. Odan as well; whatever our opinion of the Trill in general, the episode as written apparently assumed Odan did not come from a member world.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo: [QB]
quote: It would be pretty strange to have a non-citizen as the ambassador.
Worf?
I mean, yes, he was a citizen, but the Klingon Empire was not a member.
Worf was a Federation citizen and ambassador to a foreign nation. He just so happened to have that nation as his ancestry.
quote:But Vulcans are not powerful telepaths -at least not in comparison with Betazoids.
Depends on what you mean by powerful. Maybe as a group they were very powerful. Spock felt the deaths of the entire crew of the Intrepid in "Immunity Syndrome" and he was influenced by their pre-Surak savergry when he went back in time in "All Our Yesterdays." Spock was separated from both these incidents by several hundred light years.
On the other hand, Vulcans can only directly influence people by touch or close proximity. Contrast that with a half-Betazoid that is able to detect surface emotions simply by looking at someone on a viewscreen.
Betazoids and Trills could have been around in Kirk's era and not been founding members of the Federation. They could have been more recent joinees.
It's funny that I have no problem with Trills and Betazoids being around in Kirk's era, yet I complaied about the Remans. I guess it's because Betazoids and Trills (with exception to their spots) look like Humans. Any of those background characters could have been a Betazoid or Trill.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo:
quote: It would be pretty strange to have a non-citizen as the ambassador.
Worf?
I mean, yes, he was a citizen, but the Klingon Empire was not a member.
Also, the Feds trusted the apparent non-citizen Riva with negotiations where UFP reputation was at stake. Odan as well; whatever our opinion of the Trill in general, the episode as written apparently assumed Odan did not come from a member world.
Timo Saloniemi
But Riva was not negotaiting on the Fed's behalf like Curzon was with the Klingons- he was just setteling a dispute with some non-federation screwheads.
I meant Curzon, not Worf was ambassador to the Klingons- it's the only thing that makes sense- we know he negotiated several federation treaties with the Empire (it's how he met Kang after all) and I think it's mentioned in the episode where Martok gets command of the Rotaran.
Besides, how else could Curzon have been Sisko's "mentor"? Curzon was not in Starfleet, after all, and a high ranking diplomat would have been able to work with whomever he wanted.
...and there's that whole "curzon used to take joy in assigning Sisko to babysit visiting diplomats" thing.
While not canon, the novels establish this idea of Curzon as diplomat turned ambassador and it makes a lot of sense.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
There is a difference between diplomat and ambassador?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Also, I think we're talking a bit past each other here.
I don't want to contest the idea that Curzon Dax was a Federation diplomat who held at least honorary UFP citizenship. I just want to point out that this in no way dictates that Trill would have to have been a UFP member at the time.
The case could have been identical to Worf's (a single member of the species comes to be UFP citizen due to exceptional circumstances, the grows up to be a diplomat), or then subtly different (e.g. a distinguished person gets citizenship as reward for his services / incentive to continue said services).
Finally, whether or not Trill was a member in year X or only joined in year Y gives us little information about the location of the Trill home system. Being that secretive, they could be natives of Alpha Centauri for all we know, and still unknown two days before TNG "The Host"; being that long-lived and (if Dax and Odan are any indication) cosmopolitan, they could come from the far side of M51 and still be present at Jonathan Archer's bar mizvah.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I feel responsible for bringing up the Trill, I guess, so I feel like reiterating that I never meant to imply that they had to be original members; simply that it isn't impossible that they are, and that there are more mentions of Trill in the original series era (1) than there are for some other UFP members.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
I'm into the idea of Trill as, if not founding, then early Fed members. From Enterprise we do know some of those founding members, don't we? I can't remember which episode now. I remember there were Tellarites and Vulcans, of course. Andorians too I think. Someone who doesn't drink as much should really answer this question.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by HerbShrump: There is a difference between diplomat and ambassador?
Anyone representing a country on a given matter is a diplomat, but Ambassador is a assigned post and serves as a power's official representative to another government.
Not that it makes Trill membership at the time of TOS crystal clear.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"There is a difference between diplomat and ambassador?"
Just as much as there's a difference between a politician and a senator.
Posted by Albertus (Member # 1635) on :
On the question of the 'Trill', In ST:Enterprise, Travis Mayweather says that he's been as far as Trillius Prime, while growing up on a cargo freighter. Not a definitive comment on the the Trill's status within or without the Federation.
In the same episode, "Fight or Flight", Mayweather notes that Enterprise has already travelled farther than he had ever gone in his childhood travels. This seems to suggest that Trillius is very close to Earth, at least by Warp Five standards.
In the TNG episode that introduced the Trill, (Can't remember the title and too tired to look), they were a friendly but mysterious species. When DS9 came around, and the character of Dax, Trill history got a bit of a retrofit. In "Trials and Tribble-ations", Jadzia remarks about meeting TOS' Doctor McCoy while he was still in med-school.
All the references to the Trill support the idea that they were known, but NOT founding, or even members of the fledgling Federation.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
First, screw the terrible TNG episode. Seriously- it's awful.
Second, Mayweather might have ben referring to Enterprise having traveled to far more localles than he ever did. I doubt Enterprise is traveling on the straight-line freight runs his dad's ship went on.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I would say the Deltans are at least a member of the UFP during TOS. Well the same with most crewmembers seen in TMP.
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
I'd go along with that. So where are the Deltans from... Delta? The internet says Delta IV. Do we have any info on where that might be?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
don't think that map is actually close to being cannon, using Episoln-Indi as reference direction North-East (towards what i think is the Delta Quadrant), isn't Wolf-357 supposed to towards 'thata-way?'
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Yeah even still is "Delta Eridani" a star - cause it might be suitable for the Deltans.
Arcturian Clones... isn't there a star Arcturia?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Arcturus.
And there are over 80 real stars called "Delta something".
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
How many close to Federation space of TOS?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Andrew, my map is about as canon as Masao's writings for the Starfleet Museum, the events therein described upon which I derived my map. Half of that stuff I made up completely, and the other half came based on my discussions with Masao concerning his timeline of events for the Romulan War.
In other words, it's completely useless for the purposes of this discussion.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)