Does anyone know if there's like an official map of Roddenberry's universe? I've seen different ones that all contradict themselves. Some showing the known space(ie. Federation, Klingons, Romulans, etc.) taking up like 75% of the Alpha and Beta quadrant. And then others that show them taking up maybe 5% of that space. And then the Dominion maybe takes up like 10% of the gamma quadrant. And the borg somewhere around 20% of the delta quadrant.
None of the maps would seem to agree with Picard's statement that the Federation is eight thousand light years long.
That map that was in Remmick's office is the one I use most often, but don't know the proper name for it. Since it was featured onscreen, it's probably one the closest canon maps we have. Downside is it doesn't reference worlds or civilizations after it appeared.
This is one of several that was seen in the Voyager's astrometrics lab: http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb...ges/6/63/Voyager_flight_path_Astrometrics.jpg (enlarged and enhanced version from the Star Trek: Star Charts books): http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081210091902/memory-gamma/images/7/7e/VoyagerMap.jpg
That's too bad. I'd love to get an official star chart marked with territories of known civilizations to frame up on my wall, like my map of middle earth. I feel like star trek is slacking in the memorabilia department compared to other IP's. It's always so difficult to find the things I'd want to have. I had a hell of a time finding a to scale Enterprise D commissioning plaque too. I had to watch ebay like a hawk for an old Franklin Mint replica to pop up.
2002's Star Trek Star Charts and 2013's updated Stellar Cartography books are what you're looking for. Official licensed Trek space maps.
In the map posted by steveda19, it seems unlikely Federation territory is so close to the Ferengi, but that their First Contact takes place on the other end of the Federation.
Wouldn't Cardassians be on the other side? How could the Klingons wage war on Cardassia if they'd have to cut through Federation space to get to it? I'm pretty sure the Federation wouldn't allow for that. Not to mention it's supposedly an 8 year trip across the federation?
By using the three dimensions of space (they can go around or over the Federation). Or just a few days at high warp over it. If it isn't a perfect sphere, two points of the Federation could be thousands of light-years apart while two other points could be only a few dozen light-years apart.
There has been a theory that while maybe most of the Klingon Empire is in the Beta Quadrant, some of it extends into the Alpha Quadrant as well (it would jibe with the Klingons being lumped together as an "Alpha Quadrant power" alongside the Federation during the Dominion War).
Roddenberry wasn't a world builder. He was a TV writer. He told stories that worked for that episode of TV and didn't even think about contradictions. The maps you see all contradict each other because the dialogue all contradicts itself too. Map makers have to decide which line they agree with and make a map knowing that it's contradicted somewhere.
Not according to that star chart. The distance between Klingon and Cardassian space is significant. And your point about going over it or around it only strengthens my point. Space is 3 dimensional, and so is Federation territory. If the length of Federation space is 8000 light years, then for posterity lets assume the distance between Klingon space and Cardassian space is 4000 light years, if it's to scale. Think of it as a hexagon. According to the above star chart, if going from point B to point E is 4000 light years. Then in order to avoid going through that hexagon, you went from point B to point A to point F to point E. Doing this, you would need to travel 6928.2 light years. Simply going over or around it would significantly increase the distance traveled. However, regardless at what points in the 3 dimensions federation space is largest and smallest, the minimum distance the Klingons would be required to travel to reach Cardassian space is absolute. And that is the breadth of Federation space; whether they enter it or not. edit: If you prefer to think of it as a circle. And then the diameter of Federation space is 4000 light years. Then by traveling around half the circumference between Points A and B, it would be 6283.2 light years.
Not really, because ships always move very fast onscreen in Trek. Far, far faster than specified in any offscreen warp scale chart. From onscreen material alone, it really doesn't take long to travel the distances presented on that star chart (or any star chart really), especially if one uses the three dimensions of space to cut over the territory of another rather than take "the long way around" it. Although it does seem that the Voyager didn't have very good gas mileage compared to other Trek ships though...
Voyager just probably hasn't found the warp-speed express lanes that are used so routinely in the Alpha Quadrant...
But it's entirely possible that some portion of Klingon space curls under or over Federation space so that the KE and CU share a border. That's the problem with using 2d to represent 3d, all we are really seeing is a cross-section of space.
Space is technically 3D, but the galaxy is more like a pancake than a sphere. It's reasonable to think of the galaxy map as being roughly 2D.
^ But that pancake is over two thousand light years thick. Plenty of room for multiple layers of empires, federations and the odd republic. .