posted
From an astronomical point of view, the "border" of a solar system is the heliopause, where the solar wind becomes equal to the interstellar medium. For the Sol system, the heliopause is somewhere out past the orbit of Pluto, but we don't know how far exactly. But for galactic law, what would be the territorial limit of a independent star system? Is it double the distance from the outermost planet, for example, or some set distance, like 1 ly or a parsec or 5 ly?
In the sol system, Pluto is 40 AU out, so might the territorial limit be 80 AU? (At wf 8 [old scale], this distance can be crossed in around 90 seconds). Also, 1 ly is about 63,000 AU.
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posted
But what about the Oort clouds? Aren't they even further out? Lots of goodies in there, anyone would want to make sure they staked a claim to it all. . .
posted
The solar systems in Trek could also have clear-cut physical borders, unlike those in the real world -but much like the Trek galaxy has one.
Perhaps each system is encased in a bubble of weird ionization that prevents other systems from listening in on its RF EM emissions, which is why the people in the early 21st century haven't yet discovered any space aliens even in the Trek universe. This might or might not coincide with the real-world "bow shock" at the motionward heliopause.
Such a limit would be nice in that it would be the limit of Prime Directive protection, too. Starships outside the bubble wouldn't attract much attention amidst the natives. "Pirate radios" broadcasting there, or other EM pollution, wouldn't bother the system.
In practice, if the diagram in "Sons of Mogh" was to scale, it looks as if the outermost planetary orbit pretty much defines the territorial space. Weren't the Klingons supposed to lay their mines outside Bajoran space? They were right outside the outermost orbit shown.
posted
I agree that it should be the limit of the Oort Cloud since it would be a key economic developement area.
But if you make the Economic Exclusion Zone the Oort Clouds, it's possible that two Oort Clouds from two relatively close star systems can overlap.
Heck, ours goes out to about two light years. If you had a star system three light years away they may have overlapping Oort Clouds.
So, in such a case you would treat it like two nations that share a narrow waterway, split the difference between them evenly.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
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posted
Apparently, the Oort Cloud extends to something like 100,000 AU (about 1.5 lightyears), and could be actually anywhere between 5000 and 100,000 AU from the Sun. Not very strict at all. And they haven't actually been confirmed by anything other than mathematics.
Taking the outermost planet as a limit is bound to give trouble, since there is no firm definition of what a planet is. There are enough reasons to dismiss Pluto as being a planet or, vice versa, to call planetoids like Quaoar planets.
The most utopian way of course is to not claim empty space, and only focus on celestial bodies. It would be clearer, but it isn't workable with nasty Orions pirates and vengeful Klingon captains...
posted
Don't forget that any stars in wide binary system (with stars say, 2 LY apart) would also be affecting the orbits of each other's outer planets due to their gravity. I would doubt that there'd even BE an Oort Cloud in such situations.
Masao, I know I already discussed the heliopause with you, but it's just occurred to me that every instance of a starship entering a star system on the screen has been seen with it approaching planets of some sort or another. That suggests that the "practical" border of a star system would be its outermost planet, whatever that may be.
Hehheh... I've got a monkey wrench to throw into this -- does the star system boundary form an actual sphere at whatever point is the outer edge? Or is it shaped into a disc that fits with the orbits of the planets, so that it would look more like a spiral galaxy in shape? (Maybe that'd finally explain the Mars Defense Perimeter! )
Back to the outermost planet's orbit... a major problem there would be determining what the outermost planet is. These days, we've got disagreements over whether Pluto is actually a planet or not. (I don't think it is, myself.) Also, considering the various examples of astronomical weirdness we've seen over the years, what about outermost planets that happen to have highly irregular orbits?
I think that the heliopause would have to be the only easily definable border that relies on the interaction of a single body with the interstellar medium.
quote:Originally posted by Harry: The most utopian way of course is to not claim empty space, and only focus on celestial bodies. It would be clearer, but it isn't workable with nasty Orions pirates and vengeful Klingon captains...
Heck, they've mentioned "Federation space" and the "Federation border" often enough... I don't think there's any way they could not have interstellar boundaries. As I discussed with Masao over e-mail, if you didn't have interstellar space claimed as Federation territory, the Klingons could've sent an attack fleet to gather just 1 LY away from Sol and be able to claim they're just practicing "war games" or whatever...
Besides, the Federation, while a Utopian organization in vision, clearly must also concede to the realities of the era in which it was formed. Just like today's United Nations must still ultimately concede to the realities of nationalist policies. International borders would be one of those concessions. For defense (against the Romulans, assuming ENT doesn't shaft that idea), if nothing else.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
This is the kind of story we might have gotten on TNG if GR and co hadn't alienated some potential writers early on. I remember David Gerrold mentioning (probably in his STARLOG column) some of the folks interested in contributing to TNG back in 87, and one of them was the guy who created THE PAPER CHASE. He wanted to explore some aspects of space law and was anticipating getting to do a Trek or two.
That idea of exploring legalities stuck in my mind (I bet Melinda Snodgrass read it as well, since I remember the column talked about the idea of exploring Data's legal status, and this was before the show was on the air or she had written MEASURE OF A MAN on spec), and when I pitched there in 90 one of my notions was a kind of space version of THE DEFECTION OF SIMAS KUDIRKA, which was a true story done on CBS about a quarter century back, about a Lithuanian sailor on a Russian ship jumping from his ship onto an American ship to defect, but then he found out the only legal way they could accept him required him to be IN THE WATER first! Of course, when he goes back in the water, his people grab him back and he gets hard labor.
It had Alan Arkin and Richard Jordan -- Jordan was the American ship captain who had to follow orders and put Arkin back in the water -- and I remember thinking doing something along these lines for Trek would have been awesome.
Basically I did it as persecuted 'boat people' who are picked up in lifeboats by Enterprise, but the rendezous happens within the system, so technically they were still subjects of the persecuting local authority, and Picard would have to hand them back over even though they'd be killed.
Damn, the more I look back on the stuff I pitched, the more I think Jeri Taylor was smoking some bad shit that day, cuz some of these would have been dynamite shows, even if they only bought the premise.
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posted
Maybe its' like the Neutral zone we see in the simulator in ST2. I believe it was shown as a sphere until they entered and then it became a tube. When we see the E approching a system, it could be that the viewscreen is being magnified to see the most important object coming up, not that that is neccessarily the end point of the system. Afterall, it would only take seconds to travel any clear space leading to the outward planet.
I always thought it was funny that TNG had them going past ALL the planets on the way out.... how often does an alignment like that occur?! Of course the helmsman couldve been doing convoluted trajectories to get that affect like a fly buzzing around
I would think that the boundary would have to be the edge of the solar wind and therefore spherical in nature. If you do a disc approach, what keeps a less than friendly fleet from parking a couple of AU's above your planet and well within the Outer perimeters? And if it is the edge, what about the fluctuations that are going to occur do to solar activity? Maybe everyone just has to have markers denoting territory.
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posted
The reality is that the topography of space is, like, really unsuited for territorial limits of any kind.
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posted
The trouble with the heliopause/solar wind is that it varies according to conditions of the interstellar medium, the solar wind (size of sun, etc), and the direction of galactic rotation (smaller upstream, bigger downstream). The best estimates of our heliopause seem to be about 90 to 120 AUs, but that's only a guess. As far as the Oort cloud, it's supposed to go out 100,000 (1.5 ly) but I've seen estimates of 3 ly. The Oort cloud would also be perturbed by various galactic forces the same way the heliopause is.
If the legal territorial limits are based on physical variables, generally speaking big stars would have large limits while small stars would have smaller limits. Another thing to consider is the technological power of a star system. A civilization just starting interstellar flight (prewarp) might be happy with a territorial limit out to its heliopause. But a civ with a powerful warp fleet might feel that 5 or 10 light years is better.
Seems to me that the Federation must have some internal agreements on this, but what about neutral powers? If they have no agreement with the Fed or other powers on territorial limits, they'd be free to proclaim an limit they're able to protect. We've seen several times when Fed ships have been told they have crossed into someone's territory when they thought they were in "free space."
This gets us to thinking, like Kmart said, about Galactic law. I wonder if there is something similar to "international law" on earth which is agreed to by the Federation and non-Federation powers?
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posted
Perhaps a limit based on the gravitational influence of the star(s) would work. The political entity of the given system could be a locus of all points at which the escape velocity from the star(s) is greater than or equal to some set constant.
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quote:Originally posted by Brian Whisenhunt: Maybe its' like the Neutral zone we see in the simulator in ST2. I believe it was shown as a sphere until they entered and then it became a tube.
Err...nope. You're just seeing the oblate spheroid from the inside.
quote:I always thought it was funny that TNG had them going past ALL the planets on the way out....
When did that happen? In the title scene they leave Earth and go by Jupiter and Saturn. I don't recall ever seeing a grand-tour. Did we ever once see Neptune or the planet-whose-name-cannot-be-uttered-without-the-obvious-"Klingon"-joke-following?
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posted
What if all systems signing this treaty just agreed to a preset limit, like a sphere with a radius of one light year spreading out from the core of each star in the system? There would be no variable ranges like their would with the Heliopause or an Oort Cloud. And one light year from the core of each star should provide enough Oort Cloud material to satisfy economic rights. In such occasions where the binaries or trinaries are more then 2 LY apart you could have a corridor connecting the two / three.
I think most of the bigger powers would sign this treaty but there would still be disputes if something important were discovered (like the fact that technically, no one is supposed to claim parts of Antarctica but if they found oil there all those early demarcation lines would suddenly become very important again).
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quote:This gets us to thinking, like Kmart said, about Galactic law. I wonder if there is something similar to "international law" on earth which is agreed to by the Federation and non-Federation powers?
The Klingon ambassador claimed Kirk had violated 'interstellar law' in STVI. Well, actually, I'm not so sure about that. But he did mention 'interstellar law' to the UFP Council President.
posted
I'd be hesitant to accept a border that relies on the Oort Cloud... aside from astronomers being uncertain about how far out it really goes, it's also a feature that is made up of thousands or millions of small objects, and would very likely not be consistent at all from system to system. We've already found stars that have planets several times the mass of Jupiter that orbit their primary closer than Mercury does our sun. How would THAT affect a system's Oort Cloud, I wonder? On top of that, what about cometary halo objects that follow an orbit that takes it really far from a star -- so that it crosses in and out of the star system's boundary? That could give rise to some ownership or jurisdiction conflicts, if a comet has just exited or entered a system (or is about to do so).
(This doesn't matter whether or not a system is inhabited/habitable -- there's still mining rights to consider. After all, Nevada is just an uninhabitable wasteland, and yet we still consider it a state. )
At any rate, I think that the interstellar medium is still our best bet. Either that, or a specific distance that's set for all systems regardless of size. Actually, now that I think about it, the set and static boundary sounds like a better bet. It's just occurred to me that the interstellar medium is essentially the gigantic dust clouds in the spiral arms of our galaxy that give it (and all spiral galaxies) their characteristic shape and appearance. As Masao mentioned, the interstellar medium would hardly be constant. It would even be likely to change a little bit as a star goes through cycles in solar flares or even its life cycle of growth and decline. I'd be willing to bet that, should we ever launch a probe powerful enough to quickly reach the edge of the heliopause and actually study it, we'd find some kind of relationship between solar flares and the size/shape of the heliopause.
I'm not up on my terrestrial geology... what's the edge of the continental shelves, approximately? Whatever it is, I'm sure it can't be consistent all over the world, from shoreline to the beginning of the plummet to the sea floor. I'd suggest that the heliopause would be somewhat equivalent to the edge of the continental shelf.
Therefore, a set radius to set the boundary would probably be the best option. Say, one or two light-years. The only potential problem would be multiple-star systems. But probably coincidentally, Trek has often shown binary star systems to be the location of more frequent conflicts -- we could say that's not just (or directly) from the proximity of the two planets, but from the borders between them, as well.
One more idea... concerning the defense boundaries. What if you took the idea of the Exclusive Economic Zone and applied it to defense? The Federation is somewhat unique in the galaxy, in that it's a union of many separate governments rather than a single race that's taking over a whole swath of territory. Since individual planets (systems) would be somewhat equivalent to the states in the US, perhaps this two-light-year limit is the boundary for the star systems, but the Federation claims something larger for "mutual defense and security" or whatever they'd like to call it. Ultimately, it's still space that's unclaimed by any one system, and the Federation as a whole tells any other alien government that they can't have it.
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