Romulan Space in DS9
- Thread starter Tiberius
- Start date
The Romulan/Cardassian border must be a lot closer than we think...
unless the Dominion traveled the long way round the federation just to sneak across the Neutral Zone and maybe mine it as well (Just in case the Romies decided to join the war)
unless the Dominion traveled the long way round the federation just to sneak across the Neutral Zone and maybe mine it as well (Just in case the Romies decided to join the war)
Apparently the Dominion opened a huge (perhaps thin) corridor inside the AQ/Fed space-that stretched all the way to the BQ.
It seems kinda
that the Dominion would travel all the way into Rom space then attack.http://www.geekstir.com/img/trekmap2.jpg
Depending on what part of the Empire they went through, it puts Earth mighty close to the tip of the spear.
Romulans passed into Fed space with seemingly impunity (cloaks)-how many times in DS9 did they suddenly appear, "oh shit, Romulan Warbird decloaking............"
This crap w/Romulan space was a fubar IMO.
You're thinking in 2-D terms. Just because there is a wide expanse between Cardassian space and Romulan space with the Federation in the middle, that might only be the top "layer". As if we are looking down on the galaxy. Perhaps they are very close on the bottom. forming a sort of bowl (along with the Klingon Empire) in which the Federation sits in.
On the star charts stuff I actually went to the half-effort of comparing their quadrant(s) map with one that showed the Dominion lines during the war a couple of years ago. Lazy scan so I didn't go for accuracy. The Bajor and Cardassia from both the big map and the one that was from a set piece line up and if the rest is in scale that's how it would roughly overlay in 2D.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s248/jrofeta/Chart02.jpg
From it you can see how sort of matches the show. Theres the Fed front, Klingon and Romulan fronts, how a system like Vulcan could be at risk...though how the fall of Betazed put Andor at risk makes no sense in this map. Nor does Betazed falling in 6 months or it being considered relatively safe since it is in the middle of the outsweep towards Klingon space next next to Cardassian space. Though of course this map is taking something that is 3d and making it 2d and many other issues that would make the planet placement very iffy.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s248/jrofeta/Chart02.jpg
From it you can see how sort of matches the show. Theres the Fed front, Klingon and Romulan fronts, how a system like Vulcan could be at risk...though how the fall of Betazed put Andor at risk makes no sense in this map. Nor does Betazed falling in 6 months or it being considered relatively safe since it is in the middle of the outsweep towards Klingon space next next to Cardassian space. Though of course this map is taking something that is 3d and making it 2d and many other issues that would make the planet placement very iffy.
The only way that everything that happens in TOS, TNG, and DS9, can happen, is if following is correct:
1. Feds share a border with Klingons, Romulans, and as they expand, the Cardassians.
2. Cardassians share a border with Federation, and either share one with the Romulans or are very close, however, they are close to Klingons, but they share no border with them.
3. We know that Romulans and Klingons are mostly in Beta Quadrants, but very close and in some part in Alpha, every body else is in Alpha.
4. Breen are close to Cardies and Feds, far from Klingons
Since this is true, the only way a map might work is if the Cardassians are "above" and to a side of Federation. Then, they can wrap around and be close to Romulans. Then, all this makes sense:
1. Romulans attack Dominion outposts all along their border
2. Dominion crosses over into Romulans space, and attacks the Feds
3. Klingons travel some way, rest at DS9, then attack Cardassians in Way of the Warrior
4. Feds encounter Klingons and Romulans early
5. Klingons and Romulans are close allies at one point, later Romulans send supplies to Duras
6. Betazed falls when Dominion make some inroads into Fed space (see map below)
7. Breen attack Earth
8. Klingons have to send a fleet into Breen space and never attempt it again, they must be far off.
9. Romulans set up shop in Cardassian territory for "Die is Cast" and "Defiant", it means they are close, but not close enough
10. Bajor is on the Frontier, but very close to Cardassia Prime, so close, that they can travel there with a sail ship.
This all fits with the map we see in "The Conspiracy" which to me, even though I have the disappointing Star Charts, is the only official map of the Federation.
1. Feds share a border with Klingons, Romulans, and as they expand, the Cardassians.
2. Cardassians share a border with Federation, and either share one with the Romulans or are very close, however, they are close to Klingons, but they share no border with them.
3. We know that Romulans and Klingons are mostly in Beta Quadrants, but very close and in some part in Alpha, every body else is in Alpha.
4. Breen are close to Cardies and Feds, far from Klingons
Since this is true, the only way a map might work is if the Cardassians are "above" and to a side of Federation. Then, they can wrap around and be close to Romulans. Then, all this makes sense:
1. Romulans attack Dominion outposts all along their border
2. Dominion crosses over into Romulans space, and attacks the Feds
3. Klingons travel some way, rest at DS9, then attack Cardassians in Way of the Warrior
4. Feds encounter Klingons and Romulans early
5. Klingons and Romulans are close allies at one point, later Romulans send supplies to Duras
6. Betazed falls when Dominion make some inroads into Fed space (see map below)
7. Breen attack Earth
8. Klingons have to send a fleet into Breen space and never attempt it again, they must be far off.
9. Romulans set up shop in Cardassian territory for "Die is Cast" and "Defiant", it means they are close, but not close enough
10. Bajor is on the Frontier, but very close to Cardassia Prime, so close, that they can travel there with a sail ship.
This all fits with the map we see in "The Conspiracy" which to me, even though I have the disappointing Star Charts, is the only official map of the Federation.
The Star Charts map actually tries to be faithful even to that funny perspective view that Andrew Probert created for TNG. You could overlay that, too, on the Charts, and have everything match - except for the real stars, which Probert put in the wrong places.
The image above is not of the original Probert map, to be sure, but of one doctored with additional names like Bajor and Cardassia. It's probably still "official", though, in the sense that the doctoring we see was quite probably done by Okuda for use in the early seasons of DS9 (we see it in Keiko's schoolroom once or twice). Or then it could be a fan interpretation...
The idea of the Jem'Hadar using Romulan space "indirectly", through a long "Hail Mary" hooking maneuver, is derived directly from the DS9 war room wall charts that have the position of Cardassia nailed down, and show the Romulan symbol to the far right, at the end of the hook. The idea that Earth sits in the center of the hook is speculation, based on distance estimates and the otherwise well-established idea that Earth should be between Romulan/Klingon space and Cardassian homelands.
I think the most relevant chart here is the one that wasn't considered when drawing up Star Charts, though: the one we see in TNG "Birthright". There, the Carraya prison camp is shown in Romulan space on a map that also features DS9's location. Unfortunately, this chart isn't among the TrekCore screencaps. Anybody willing to do a capture?
Timo Saloniemi
The image above is not of the original Probert map, to be sure, but of one doctored with additional names like Bajor and Cardassia. It's probably still "official", though, in the sense that the doctoring we see was quite probably done by Okuda for use in the early seasons of DS9 (we see it in Keiko's schoolroom once or twice). Or then it could be a fan interpretation...
The idea of the Jem'Hadar using Romulan space "indirectly", through a long "Hail Mary" hooking maneuver, is derived directly from the DS9 war room wall charts that have the position of Cardassia nailed down, and show the Romulan symbol to the far right, at the end of the hook. The idea that Earth sits in the center of the hook is speculation, based on distance estimates and the otherwise well-established idea that Earth should be between Romulan/Klingon space and Cardassian homelands.
I think the most relevant chart here is the one that wasn't considered when drawing up Star Charts, though: the one we see in TNG "Birthright". There, the Carraya prison camp is shown in Romulan space on a map that also features DS9's location. Unfortunately, this chart isn't among the TrekCore screencaps. Anybody willing to do a capture?
Timo Saloniemi
You're seriously going to take a barely-legible Okuadgram as the "official" and definitive map of local space?
Tell me, do you take the giant hamster in a wheel in the Enterprise-D Master Systems Display from TNG as being definitive, too?
"That rubbish? Inaccurate garbage?"
Star Charts is a rich, information-dense, well-researched non-canonical resource that does an admirable job trying to reconcile a lot of contradictory information about astropolitics and warp drive. It has some errors in it, yes, but to just write off the whole thing and give no credit whatsoever to Geoffrey Mandel's obviously hard and quality work is just -- rude, at best.
What, exactly, is it about Star Charts you dislike so much?
RobertScorpio
Pariah
I agree. I liked the Star Charts book. It may not be 'canon', but whom ever created it did, I think, a great job compiling the data they used. I looked at it last night, haven't done so in a few months or so, and it still looks pretty good...
Rob
Scorpio
Rob
Scorpio
Well, yeah, of course there are errors, and of course at some point the errors are going to be more immediately obvious just because, well, we're fans and we fixate on such things. But do bear in mind that that doesn't mean that the actual finished product isn't good, quality work.
You are right, it does seem to have been doctored with. But it doesn't change any of my assumptions especially the one where the Cardiassia is above the Federation. The Long Hail Mary can't be that long as well, because the Dominion is close to Romulans during the war, or shares a border. Didn't they state "In the Pale Moonlight" that the dominion can be on Romulus in 6 weeks, even though they expected some resistance? Here's the map from that TrekCore site:
Well, the Probert map doesn't go 3D, either.
And it's not as if 3D would really be all that relevant within the dimensions relating to the main Alpha powers. They are portrayed as compact things, with each aggressive empire forming a more or less ovoid region of influence with relatively few pseudopods. Aggressive empires wouldn't go for pseudopods - they are too vulnerable.
There's some tomfoolery with tentacles where Klingons and Romulans meet, and it tries to suggest that the entanglement there is indeed 3D - so that the many-tentacled Federation, foolish in its enthusiasm, has easy access to spaces beyond the knotty mess, such as Canopus. But other players are largely separate and only touch each other if this is explicitly mentioned.
As regards the various zoom-in maps from late DS9 episodes, those are unlikely to portray national borders, and more likely to portray fluid battlefield situations. For example, the one above shows a possible border, but doesn't imply that there would be specific nations on each side. Rather, the Dominion/Cardassian symbols could describe their expeditionary forces, or the extent of their military expansion.
At least there is no reason to believe that the inage would correspond to the prewar situation, as all the dialogue points to this being a new and alarming development!
Timo Saloniemi
And it's not as if 3D would really be all that relevant within the dimensions relating to the main Alpha powers. They are portrayed as compact things, with each aggressive empire forming a more or less ovoid region of influence with relatively few pseudopods. Aggressive empires wouldn't go for pseudopods - they are too vulnerable.
There's some tomfoolery with tentacles where Klingons and Romulans meet, and it tries to suggest that the entanglement there is indeed 3D - so that the many-tentacled Federation, foolish in its enthusiasm, has easy access to spaces beyond the knotty mess, such as Canopus. But other players are largely separate and only touch each other if this is explicitly mentioned.
As regards the various zoom-in maps from late DS9 episodes, those are unlikely to portray national borders, and more likely to portray fluid battlefield situations. For example, the one above shows a possible border, but doesn't imply that there would be specific nations on each side. Rather, the Dominion/Cardassian symbols could describe their expeditionary forces, or the extent of their military expansion.
At least there is no reason to believe that the inage would correspond to the prewar situation, as all the dialogue points to this being a new and alarming development!
Timo Saloniemi
For a start, the map of the Cardassian Union says the Equinox was lost in 2373. This is two years AFTER the Caretaker kidnapped Voyager - although the Caretaker wasn't even alive two years after that.
Also, what's up with the seperate blob of Federation space you can only get to be going trough Klingon or Romulan space? Doesn't make much sense to have a whole section of space that you immediately lose access to if the treaty with the Klingons breaks up (which is exactly what happened in DS9). And how did the Federation annex so much space since the peace treay anyway? Even as recently as the Enterprise C the Feds didn't have a serious treaty with the Klingons.
While there are some interesting parts - the planetary classification bits, the diagrams of individual star systems and all that - the actual maps are very arbitrary.
Typos are horrible things, aren't they?
1. You're forgetting that space is three-dimensional even if the images are not. There's no reason to think that the Federation wouldn't be able to reach its main space on the anti-spinward side of the Klingon Empire.
2. Let's not forget the fact that there are Member Worlds on that side, and probably a dedicated division of Starfleet. I'm sure that the Federation has things set up so that that side can be self-sufficient under reasonable time frames if there is some sort of horrible interstellar emergency that cuts them off from the core worlds.
Yeah they did -- the Khitomer Accords, first established in Star Trek VI. "Yesterday's Enterprise" did not establish that there wasn't a serious treaty with the Klingons, it established that in the 2340s, tensions had heated up again and were at the point that, absent the visible symbol of a Federation starship sacrificing itself to save Klingon lives, the anti-Federation political faction had gained power.
Well, they'd have to be, wouldn't they? I mean, if you're trying to do a serious map of the Trekverse, you basically have to find a way to portray a Federation that's small enough that you can get from Qo'noS to Earth in a few days, from the Romulan Neutral Zone to Earth in a few days, or from Bajor to Earth in a few days.... and yet that's also vast enough that it's reasonable for Kirk to be out of communication with Starfleet Command during his 5-year-mission, and vast enough that the UFP fills 8,000 light-years, and vast enough that Bajor is out on the frontier, and vast enough that no one really explored the area that contains Cardassian space and Bajor and the Ferengi Alliance until the early-to-mid-24th Century.
I mean, you basically have two completely contradictory depictions of known space and the distances between the major worlds and locales, because warp speeds as depicted in the canon are always a function of how fast the plot demands the ship be able to go.
All this on top of the fact that there's no real canonical depiction of the various national borders.
Any choice you make in trying to reconcile all that is going to be somewhat arbitrary. Something like the Star Trek Dimensions website is no less arbitrary than Star Charts -- and both are excellent, well-written and composed works that deserve respect.
Yes it is. You would literally have to pause your DVD, zoom in, and squint to be able to make out anything it says.
Well, it isn't canonical because it didn't appear in the canon (although some of the maps it used, such as the Dominion War Maps or the galaxy-wide Voyager route maps, did appear onscreen). Mapping or not mapping space on a 3D plane is totally separate from its canonocity.
I would have preferred that Mandel do something to represent the 3D nature of space, too -- maybe a "side view" that's looking coreward from the anti-coreward view instead of looking "down" from galactic north, for instance. But I can also see where it was obviously a very labor-intensive, exhaustively-researched book and where they might not have had the time to produce another POV on the Federation and its neighbors when it was also trying to show Dominion and Delta Quadrant space and make deadline.
^Hell, I like Star Charts better than most episodes.
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