posted
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.
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
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?
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
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.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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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.]
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.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
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.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
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.
Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
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).
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
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...
posted
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?
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.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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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.
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.
Registered: Feb 2004
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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.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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