Milky Way Galaxy

The Milky Way Galaxy, or simply the Milky Way, is a barred spiral galaxy in the Local Group of the Virgo Supercluster within the Laniakea Supercluster. The Milky Way is the galaxy in which the Stellar Adventures Project takes place and is home to an abundance of life including at least dozens of intelligent races and societies of various states of technological advancement. The galaxy is potentially 100,000 to 180,000 light years across and is home to potentially 100 Billion to 1 Trillion stars and at least, though likely more than, 100 Billion planets and an unknown Billions or perhaps even Trillions of moons, of both of which it is unknown how many bear life. The Milky Way was abandoned in the self-named Battle of the Milky Way and the project now focuses on the Ananas Galaxy.
==Meta History==
In the original incarnation of the Stellar Adventures Project, now known as SAP1, the Milky Way Galaxy was not the setting of the project. Instead, an unnamed irregular galaxy at an unknown but great distance from the Milky Way was chosen as the setting. This decision was ultimately made to avoid complications with accurately representing the Milky Way and to avoid likely conflict over control of the home of Humanity, the planet Earth in the Sol system in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. With the demise of the original Stellar Adventures project and the rise of what is now known as SAP2, the decision was eventually made to move the project to the Milky Way Galaxy and to include elements of the real world - including various actual systems and stellar formations and to a much wider extent than previously the Human race.
==Intelligent Life==
 
The Milky Way Galaxy is home to a wide number of intelligent races, with many more continuing to be discovered regularly, all of varying states of technological advancement, biological or artificial makeup, ideology, philosophy, culture, history, economic status, political power, and so on. Most notably, the Milky Way is home to the Human race, which since achieving intersteller travel at some point in the past 600 years has played numerous roles in important events and have spread out throughout the galaxy, with Human colonists reaching as far away as the Delta Quadrant on the far side of the galaxy from their home system.
==Navigation==
Given the difficulties of providing useful navigational instructions in space, a system was ultimately devised for translating the Milky Way Galaxy into a specific yet simple map. Most notably, the Galaxy is divided into four quadrants, (clockwise) Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, and each are in turn divided into nine sectors, with the galactic core divided into its own region independent from all others. Under this system, the Sol system is near the middle-left of Sector 5 of the Alpha Quadrant.
Sectors can be determined in a quadrant by finding the farthest left sector in the inner ring of the Alpha Quadrant and counting left to right, right to left, then left to right as you go down the rings making a Z-like pattern (123, 654, 789) then translating this to other quadrants by simply following the same pattern at a 90 degrees (or 180 degrees if it's the Delta Quadrant) angle. The Alpha Quadrant can be easily located as the Sol system of the Unified Earth Government is near its heart. Further, one can provide cardinal directions within the galaxy, using the galactic core as the northern pole - as such the direction towards the core is North, the direction away from the core is South, and East and West can be determined from there.
==Read Also==
*Alpha Quadrant
*Beta Quadrant
*Delta Quadrant
*Gamma Quadrant
*Category: SAP2
*Category: Empire
*List of Empires in SAP2
*List of Intelligent Races in SAP2
*Thread: Request Map Changes
*Thread: Map Discussion
*Wikipedia: Milky Way
Category:SAP2