why does everone in the delta quandrant call it the delta quadrant

[Christopher]

I don't know. Space may be big, but dividing the Galaxy into fourths seems reasonable when talking about large regions of space.

I never said it wasn't. I just said that it's only useful in that narrow context, so Trek overused it when it would've been better to come up with alternative cartographic designations that would be more broadly useful.

It's the same problem they had with "warp core breach." When TNG: "Contagion" introduced the term, it was explicitly stated that a core breach was virtually impossible due to the dozens of safeguards that would have to fail simultaneously to allow it to happen. So there would be dozens of ways that a ship could be destroyed or its crew killed without breaching the core, because antimatter is so dangerous that the means for containing it would have to be supremely robust. And yet later writers just got lazy and fell back on using "warp core breach" every time they wanted to put the ship in danger, making warp cores seem insanely fragile.

More to the point, my comments go to the original question of this thread: Why would alien cultures use the same quadrant designation when it's so completely arbitrary? Sure, you can chalk it up to universal translators, but ideally it would be preferable to have a more physically meaningful, less imaginary way of partitioning the galaxy. I mean, different countries pre-1880s may have had a bunch of different ideas of what the Prime Meridian should be, but they could all agree on where the continents and oceans and mountain ranges and rivers were. And I'm just trying to offer some thoughts on the broader question of galactic cartography and the challenges it poses, because that's something I've had to give thought to in developing my own original science fiction. It's not just about nitpicking Trek-canon minutiae. The galaxy is a real place, after all, so a discussion about its structure and cartography is not just about one TV series.

 

[WebLurker]

I never said it wasn't. I just said that it's only useful in that narrow context, so Trek overused it when it would've been better to come up with alternative cartographic designations that would be more broadly useful.

Any thoughts on that?

It's the same problem they had with "warp core breach." When TNG: "Contagion" introduced the term, it was explicitly stated that a core breach was virtually impossible due to the dozens of safeguards that would have to fail simultaneously to allow it to happen. So there would be dozens of ways that a ship could be destroyed or its crew killed without breaching the core, because antimatter is so dangerous that the means for containing it would have to be supremely robust. And yet later writers just got lazy and fell back on using "warp core breach" every time they wanted to put the ship in danger, making warp cores seem insanely fragile.

I never noticed that, esp. since most of the incidents I recall were under irregular circumstances, but I get what you're saying.

More to the point, my comments go to the original question of this thread: Why would alien cultures use the same quadrant designation when it's so completely arbitrary? Sure, you can chalk it up to universal translators, but ideally it would be preferable to have a more physically meaningful, less imaginary way of partitioning the galaxy. I mean, different countries pre-1880s may have had a bunch of different ideas of what the Prime Meridian should be, but they could all agree on where the continents and oceans and mountain ranges and rivers were. And I'm just trying to offer some thoughts on the broader question of galactic cartography and the challenges it poses, because that's something I've had to give thought to in developing my own original science fiction. It's not just about nitpicking Trek-canon minutiae. The galaxy is a real place, after all, so a discussion about its structure and cartography is not just about one TV series.

Okay.

 

[Christopher]

Any thoughts on that?

I've spent the past couple of days giving detailed thoughts on that. Sometimes I feel nobody actually reads the things I post here.

 

[WebLurker]

I've spent the past couple of days giving detailed thoughts on that. Sometimes I feel nobody actually reads the things I post here.

Sorry, I tend to write off-the cuff. I'll double-check.

 

[soornge]

The universal translator can translate any alien name for any (roughly) analogous area of space to "Delta Quadrant."

But it can't translate the word "Federation" into Talaxian.

"You federations are obviously an advanced culture."

marvelously said

 

[at Quark's]

I think for the same reason the Borg call (or the Universal Translator renders) the sector in which Earth is located 'sector zero-zero-one' (at least when communicating with Starfleet vessels) ....

 

[urbandefault]

So if they divided the quadrants into sections (or boroughs), Earth and Vulcan might be in Manhattan, Romulus might be in Queens, the Klingons in Brooklyn, Bajor in Staten Island, etc.

And Voyager would be hopelessly lost in New Jersey.

 

[Sophie74656]

So if they divided the quadrants into sections (or boroughs), Earth and Vulcan might be in Manhattan, Romulus might be in Queens, the Klingons in Brooklyn, Bajor in Staten Island, etc.

And Voyager would be hopelessly lost in New Jersey.

Nothing bad about being in Jersey

 

[Doom Shepherd]

I'm just gonna drop this here: The Galaxy according to Star Fleet battles.

 

[Christopher]

I'm just gonna drop this here: The Galaxy according to Star Fleet battles.

Is there a more legibly sized version of that?

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Is there a more legibly sized version of that?

That's weird... when I first linked to it, the picture was twice the width it is now. Now, even on the site (Memory Alpha), it's the tiny version. Huh.

 

[soornge]

I've spent the past couple of days giving detailed thoughts on that. Sometimes I feel nobody actually reads the things I post here.

i just assumed voyager always almost had warp corp breaches because thier engineer was an academy drop out

 

[soornge]

its not verypopular on here but the funniest reaponse to anything i ever read was on reddit where in a reply to why it took voyager so long to get hone some one wrote because the captain is irrational, the first officer is always getting stoned and the chief engineer is a drop out

 

[Jinn]

i just assumed voyager always almost had warp corp breaches because thier engineer was an academy drop out

Well, B'Ellanna managed to keep a much older and probably way less functioning Maquis ship running, so the advanced Voyager shouldn't be that much of a problem.

 

[soornge]

Well, B'Ellanna managed to keep a much older and probably way less functioning Maquis ship running, so the advanced Voyager shouldn't be that much of a problem.

lmao : i ve worked on tractors so let me open up your jaguar hood

 

[MAGolding]

Voyager is supposed to happen about 375 years in the future of when it was made. 2016 minus 375 is 1641. I imagine that a lot of English language conversations in 1641 would have been hard for us to understand, almost as much as Shakespeare's plays. Especially if those conversations were about technical matters pertaining to some unusual profession. And vice versa. 2016 conversations would be hard for 1641 people to understand, especially anything involving science, technology, and modern professions.

Just as the Voyager crew needs a universal translator to understand a newly contacted alien species, interpretation is probably needed for them to understand us, or us to understand them. Thus the creators of Star Trek productions probably translate everything - including future English and alien languages translated into future English by the universal translator - into modern English for us and simplify and drastically shorten the technobabble at the expense of accuracy. Because the audience thinks of Voyager as being in the Delta Quadrant most spatial references by Delta Quadrant aliens are first translated into English and then simplified from "the fifteenth subsection of the third section of the fifth area" or "the side of our galaxy facing the Xamatrid Galaxy", etc., etc. to "the Delta Quadrant".

 

[MAGolding]

That's weird... when I first linked to it, the picture was twice the width it is now. Now, even on the site (Memory Alpha), it's the tiny version. Huh.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+galaxy+according+to+Star+Fleet+battles&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=869&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik277J--fQAhUQ1mMKHeQwCz8Q_AUIBygC#imgrc=psqNnyQYBKsK5M:

I hope that this will show it in a larger size.

It turns up as a small picture among other pictures. But if you click on it it gets bigger.

 

[Markonian]

Talking about galactic quadrants is as useful as talking about planetary hemispheres.
For precise localisation, there are sectors.

I wonder - would be divide Andromeda, Triangulum and Co also into the four quadrants? Would they be Alpha to Delta, or the next set of Greek letters? Would they be clockwise?

 

[uniderth]

Or divide the galaxy by arms since that is a physical feature that would be less arbitrary to divide by.

 

[KelisThePoet]

Voyager is supposed to happen about 375 years in the future of when it was made. 2016 minus 375 is 1641. I imagine that a lot of English language conversations in 1641 would have been hard for us to understand, almost as much as Shakespeare's plays. Especially if those conversations were about technical matters pertaining to some unusual profession. And vice versa. 2016 conversations would be hard for 1641 people to understand, especially anything involving science, technology, and modern professions.

Just as the Voyager crew needs a universal translator to understand a newly contacted alien species, interpretation is probably needed for them to understand us, or us to understand them. Thus the creators of Star Trek productions probably translate everything - including future English and alien languages translated into future English by the universal translator - into modern English for us and simplify and drastically shorten the technobabble at the expense of accuracy. Because the audience thinks of Voyager as being in the Delta Quadrant most spatial references by Delta Quadrant aliens are first translated into English and then simplified from "the fifteenth subsection of the third section of the fifth area" or "the side of our galaxy facing the Xamatrid Galaxy", etc., etc. to "the Delta Quadrant".

This is a well-put explanation in detail to the effect that the writers rightly prioritize viewer accessibility over fictional accuracy. I like the analogy of the viewers hearing the dialogue of the show as though filtered through a universal translator. What should we call this fascinating "device" of the writers for rendering the world of Star Trek (including speech rendered by Trek's universal translator) in the language of the viewers? The meta-universal translator? The multiversal translator?