From: MLINDROOS@finabo.abo.fi (Marcus Lindroos INF)
Subject: Federation boundaries (WAS:How fast really?)
Organization: Abo Akademi University, Finland
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 12:31:51 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.23

Some things we know about the geo(astro?)graphical boundaries of the Star Trek
universe...

1) The Klingons are in the general direction of Gamma Hydrae, a "real" 
star system some 130ly from the Sun (ST II:TWOK)

2) In "Heart of Glory," Riker says that they have to wait two days for
Starfleet Headquarters (San Francisco?) to respond. They were close to the
neutral zone in that episode. 
If "Where no One Has Gone Before" is to be believed, subspace
signals need about fifty years to travel 2.7 million ly.. Again, the neutral
zone is some 150ly. from Earth.

3) The computer graph in ST:TWOK implies that the Klingon Empire lies *INSIDE*
the neutral zone as the Enterprise plots a course to fly behind the oval-shaped
NS (one of several inconsistencies(sp) in TOS/TMS).

4) IN STVI:TUC, the Excelsior is able to establish real-time contact with
the Klingon homeworld while still inside the neutral zone! No visible time
delay at all, and the fact that the Praxis explosion was able to rattle the
ship indicates that the NS must be very shallow. Sulu & co. aboard NX-2000
almost certainly were no more than a few 100AUs from Kling/Praxis.

5) As a direct consequence of 3) and 4), Klingon territory cannot extend far 
into space. My own guesstimate would be that the neutral zone "blob" with the
Klingon empire inside has a
diameter of 10-20ly. but is extremely densely populated. The Klingons could
well be the equivalent of late 19th/early 20th century Germany - an aggressive
superpower with a powerful army and a huge population but little territory.
The Federation is more like the British Empire, with colonies and outposts
all across the galaxy.

6) As to the Federation, we know of about 20 "real" star systems that have been
mentioned and/or visited in TOS/TMS/TNG (I'll publish them sometime). 
The three most distant are Mintaka,
a primitive Vulcan-like society visited in "Who Watches the Watchers" that lies
some 2500 ly from the Sun. Deneb, 1900 ly. from the solar system, lies on the
boundary of explored space according to Picard in "Encounter at Farpoint" and
the Federation wanted to establish an outpost there. Rigel was mentioned in
"Mudd's Women" and seems to be some kind of "wild west" on the outskirts of
civilization - 900 ly. away.

7) All other stars are within 200ly of our Sun. Of these, eight or so are
located within 50ly. As a general rule, the closer to the solar system one
gets, the more "real" star systems one comes across. This would be expected
because most of the ST characters are from Earth, SF headquarters is there
and most stars that were given individual names (Vega, Epsilon Eridani,
Menkar...) are close to our own Sun.

8) Thanks to Joseph Creighton's excellent Ships & Locations list, we can take
the number of known starbases (about 50) and calculate an "Unknown Constant"
for the number of unseen things (races, worlds, starships, starbases etc.) that
yet have to appear in a ST:TNG episode/TMS movie:-) Since the highest Starbase
number encountered is 900, the UC must be ~ 19. The number of worlds that
are members of the Federation is more difficult to estimate, but probably in 
the 1000-2000 range (=<100 * 19).

9) Interestingly, there were far more "known" star systems in TOS than there
are in TNG. This is probably a direct consequence of the fact that the 
Federation has expanded a lot since Kirk & co. roamed the spaceways. Still, the
relatively small number of Federation worlds and the fact that a huge 
percentage of them seems to be located within 50ly (eight of a possible 1000 
stars) seems to indicate that the local "core" has a diameter of no more than 
200-300ly. Beyond this, there is a huge perimeter of partially explored systems
with scientific outposts, starbases and the like. This "Alaska of outer space"
probably is some 5000-6000ly across. Most likely, there is no firm boundary 
between these two areas - but the vast distances mean that staying in
touch with the Core Worlds around the Sun becomes increasingly difficult
beyond 200ly (at Warp 6, the Big E. needs a year to travel from one edge
of this area to the other).

10) The "final frontier" is the vast area of the galaxy probably surveyed by 
unmanned probes and/or remote observations by space telescopes from Federation
space. We know that 19% of the Milky Way has been "explored" in this way, and
the map included in ST:TNG Technical Journal (the only map that is "canon" BTW,
was seen in one TNG episode) seems to support this conclusion. Occasionally,
Federation ships have moved to the center of the galaxy (ST V) and to
the edge of it (one of the first TOS episodes) - presumably by using encounters
with black holes or "worm holes" to cut travel time to a minimum.
---
For some reason, most efforts seem to be directed at the central regions and
spiral arms of our galaxy. The area beyond the solar system has more or less
been neglected, possibly because there are some hostile aliens there (Gorn,
Cardassians, Ferengi, Tholians...).
    

MARCU$


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