Star Charts: Yridia

[DEWLine]

Since Yridia got name-checked on DSC: Lethe, it seemed a good idea for me to start digging for a location. Especially since ST Star Charts and Stellar Cartography seem to be getting regularly referenced on-screen. I've been looking via whitten.org at the sector "stack" centred on X: -50, Y: -30 and extending the Z-axis search, but so far I can't seem to find a G-class star at the right location just rimward of the X: -40 line.

The closest I can find, Gliese 149 A, is a K5V star. Not quite "there", I believe, although the X-Y coordinates are close.

Any thoughts?

Also, since they established a nearby nebula - which doesn't exist as far as real-universe astronomy is concerned in that neighbourhood - I'm wondering if we're looking at a remnant of the Expanse from ENT?

 

[Ithekro]

I can't find Corvan II on the ST Star Charts.

Also weren't the Yrudians thought to be extinct until sometime in the 24th century when they were rediscovered by Captain Ransom at some point before 2370. But also having been around in the 22nd century. Maybe their sun went supernova?

 

[Timo]

Yup - we don't know the exact scenario, but if there's a place called Yridia in the 23rd century and people think there aren't Yridians there, then said place probably has indeed been ruined and abandoned, and the Yridians are now living elsewhere. A star currently unsuited for hosting Yridian-type life would be a nice solution there. Trek features multiple ways for a star to suddenly change radically: perhaps somebody had a deal with the Yridians go sour too many times and decided to deliver a surprise package into their star?

Nebulae in Trek tend to be compact, sometimes mere thousands of kilometers across. A fairly natural unnatural way to get those would be space battles: a compact nebula might be the flotsam, jetsam and secondary cascade products of a big fight, possibly way bigger than the minor league stuff of primitive species like the Dominion or the Federation.

Corvan (or Corva, as we ever only heard of "Corvan" in the possessive sense in TNG - perhaps this dilithium stuff is why Minos Corva is such an important place in TNG?) and Yridia were actually assumed to no longer exist when the Alpha/Beta maps were drawn. The one thing known about both worlds was that an associated lifeform was either incredibly endangered or then presumed extinct, after all. The list of worlds accompanying the foldouts isn't in exact synch with the art... But there's wiggle room there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DEWLine]

Additional data point:

Having re-read the UFP map from Stellar Cartography, I note that Yridia's location (a) remains consistence with Star Charts and (b) is on the "mouth line" of the Delphic Expanse. Hence my suspicion that that "nebula" is a remnant of said Expanse, not quite fully dissipated over the intervening century since Archer's adventures.

 

[Timo]

A gradual dissipation of the Expanse would also nicely account for a gradually increasing threat from the Klingons, who were basically walled off from Earth before ENT S4. No sudden rush to avenge Archer's arrogant antics, but a gradual realization that it's no longer quite as risky to try and fly towards Vulcan, that is, Federation space as it used to be. And that it gets better by the day.

Timo Saloniemi