• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Star Charts/Stellar Cartography: the Sector System

Henoch said:
SPOCK: Thank you, Doctor McCoy. Moving on schedule into quadrant nine oh four. Beta Six is eight days distant.

SPOCK: (consulting PADD) Quadrant four four eight, sir.

SPOCK: Starfleet records no authorised vessel in this quadrant except ours.

KIRK (OC): I told Starfleet all we had was a boatload of children but ...we're the only ship in the Quadrant.

Yep, these guys are idiots.
Click to expand...
Did they use the term 'Quadrant' in a "bad way", or does it make sense in the context of their dialog / scene?
 
The way Sectors are numbered is obviously Earth-centric philosophically, with Sol inside S001. So we might just as well assume it's Earth-centric quite literally as well, with the numbers spiraling out of S001 in three dimensions like a ball of yarn. This quite regardless of how the Sectors themselves are arranged geometrically (as a simple Cartesian grid, as stacked concentric 2D circles such as suggested in this thread and perhaps by Probert's onscreen graphics, as pseudo-cubical elements of a sphere, centered either at the galactic center or then at Earth or some other point X, etc. etc.).

Would this work in a straightforward manner so that SB9 is located inside S009 and so forth?

A lot of TOS would. In the spiral model of Sector numbering, S009 might well be next-door neighbors with S001, allowing for the Black Star incident and the trouble with visiting Vulcan. S011 would not be any farther out, either, but SB11 need not be; Talos appears to be another sight to be found on a route "back to Earth", from wherever Pike was having his Rigelian business.

Even SB200 defends its right to happen at a very distant S200, since Kirk is the one and only point man for an incident that is described as spanning the known galaxy...

The specifics of the others vary. Any gross contradictions there?

DEWLine said:
Starfleet doesn't make decisions re: where to put colonies, invite worlds/species/star nations into the Federation, etc.. Those decisions are still reserved for Federation civilian authorities, as I recall.
Click to expand...

Perhaps in theory - but membership invitation certainly is something Kirk does in practice, in first contact situations, even if he tends to get turned down by these superbeings he has just spent an episode battling - the Melkots, say. So the question becomes, does Kirk have standing orders to do this, or specific orders, that is, species-by-species ones?

Conversely, colonies appear to be founded by the colonists, in defiance of the government, whereas Starfleet has the practical mandate to weed out those that are in too great a defiance; "where to put colonies" is thus decided by Starfleet even if in the negative.

A lot of practical control is in the hands of frontier starship COs. And the government would be acting on basis of Starfleet advice in its decisionmaking anyway. So the astrography of the colonization zone may well be blamed on Starfleet for the relevant part.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Last edited:
Christopher said:
I'm not sure how to define "accurate" in the context of a fictional narrative where everything is invented and fits together in whatever way best serves the story. Unless you're asking which fictional map graphic is most accurate to real astrocartography. As for canonical charts, these days they're usually just based on Star Charts maps, which are relatively accurate in their depiction of star positions and galactic geography, at least to the best of our knowledge 18 years ago. So I guess the answer to your question is Geoffrey Mandel.
Click to expand...
Stellar Cartography would be the most up to date book, and it's basically a newer version of Star Charts.
 
The second edition of Stellar Cartography, definitely. And between the passage of time and the telling of newer stories since publication, and the publication of newer astronomical data in the real worlds (GAIA DR 2 two years ago last month, and hopefully DR3 in the next two years, pandemic or not), and the pending 20th anniversary of Star Charts in 2022...

Anyway, sidebar note: Kevin Jardine's made more progress in putting together a map of the "50 parsec radius" zone around Sol, and showed two aspects of that work-in-progress based on the GAIA DR 2 data. The first shows five of the "landmark" clusters and density regions inside that radius, and the second focuses on the systems around, above and below Achernar/Alpha Eridani. I didn't know that HD 10180 - which in our own universe has six confirmed planets - was that close to Achernar. Does anyone have access to the Gaia Sky planetarium software to nail down the distance between them?
 
Noting that. Apparently, there's some ongoing debate as to which map orientation works best among the astronomers.
 
Noticing a few more additions to the named-systems list at starmap.whitten.org today.
Andorgha?
Putting Farpoint at Epsilon Delphini/Deneb Dulfim?
 
DEWLine said:
Jed Whitten's updated and moved his starmapping website and rebranded it. Still has its Trek-specific functions, if you're interested!

http://hygmap.space/
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm still working out how to utilize HYG map, and would be curious to see how to use the Z axis and tilting, better.

Hi, new here - and great thread. I've also been considering the entire sector system, and have ended up doing a great deal of research on it, so more information from HYG could be very useful (and it's predecessor, Whitten maps dot org)

I've been assuming that all the sectors have a nine digit total layout, per Star Charts, but that only the last five digits are generally referred to, and within the Federation's immediate vicinity, often only the last four. Then for many individual ship operations, just the last three (or Sector Block, per the Star Charts book)

So that would mean many sectors are actually at least five digits in number, and are not listed in terms of 'order explored' except maybe as a secondary factor (or fitted into the larger system)

That way, Sector 2158 (Taugus and Qualor) and 1045 (Bolarus and the Bassen Rift) can actually be close to each other, along with Sector 008 and 002, all aligned on three axes.

In this case, 002 and 008 are actually 21002 and 21008... 1045 is 21045, whilst 2158 would then become 22158. Which fits well with the implied layout in the Operation Retrieve plans, maps and unseen material (from Star Trek VI) As well as several background displays from TNG (as in the episodes 'Brothers' and 'The Mind's Eye', among others)

And adding the Z axis allows a lot of sectors and sector blocks to brush up against each other more. For example, it's implied block 218 is close to 211, in the Star Trek VI deleted scenes material (between Organia and Krios, I assume those sectors, to be - ranging from 21166 and 21185, to 23079) And that also allows a similar layout near Bajor and Cardassia also (both likely to be 'high' off the galactic plane, if they are nearby to Ursa Major's star cluster and prominent stars)

And then finally there's jumps of numbers within the blocks themselves, which presumably go down vertically in layouts of five by five, or possibly smaller. This way, Minos Korva can be far 'below' Dorvan on the 2d maps, but look relatively adjacent (spanning Sector 21503 to 21527, as I currently assume)

Anyway, I have more thoughts - and hopes this well help pave the way toward a better 3D (or at least, semi 3D) map, but I'd appreciate feedback!
 
Last edited:
Timo said:
The way Sectors are numbered is obviously Earth-centric philosophically, with Sol inside S001. So we might just as well assume it's Earth-centric quite literally as well, with the numbers spiraling out of S001 in three dimensions like a ball of yarn. This quite regardless of how the Sectors themselves are arranged geometrically (as a simple Cartesian grid, as stacked concentric 2D circles such as suggested in this thread and perhaps by Probert's onscreen graphics, as pseudo-cubical elements of a sphere, centered either at the galactic center or then at Earth or some other point X, etc. etc.).

Would this work in a straightforward manner so that SB9 is located inside S009 and so forth?

A lot of TOS would. In the spiral model of Sector numbering, S009 might well be next-door neighbors with S001, allowing for the Black Star incident and the trouble with visiting Vulcan. S011 would not be any farther out, either, but SB11 need not be; Talos appears to be another sight to be found on a route "back to Earth", from wherever Pike was having his Rigelian business.

Even SB200 defends its right to happen at a very distant S200, since Kirk is the one and only point man for an incident that is described as spanning the known galaxy...

The specifics of the others vary. Any gross contradictions there?



Perhaps in theory - but membership invitation certainly is something Kirk does in practice, in first contact situations, even if he tends to get turned down by these superbeings he has just spent an episode battling - the Melkots, say. So the question becomes, does Kirk have standing orders to do this, or specific orders, that is, species-by-species ones?

Conversely, colonies appear to be founded by the colonists, in defiance of the government, whereas Starfleet has the practical mandate to weed out those that are in too great a defiance; "where to put colonies" is thus decided by Starfleet even if in the negative.

A lot of practical control is in the hands of frontier starship COs. And the government would be acting on basis of Starfleet advice in its decisionmaking anyway. So the astrography of the colonization zone may well be blamed on Starfleet for the relevant part.

Timo Saloniemi
Click to expand...

Spiralling out like a ball of yarn is possible, yes, but a bit at odds with Geoffrey Mandel's system in the Star Charts book. Still, I'm not solidly married to that interpretation, as there's a number of inconsistencies, and it seems clear a strictly numerical/geometric layout cannot work for the whole system. The 'sector block' system in particular, seems way more messy in the actual onscreen evidence, and probably does follow a semi yarn-ball or 'order charted' set up.

But see my previous post, for more reflections, on that.
 
The more I dig into the Edge of Midnight fanfiction project, and the base map for it that I've been building over the last couple of months...and all the digging into HYGMap I've been doing as a consequence, the more convinced I've become that the sector-numbering system as explained by Geoffrey Mandel is just being ignored by scriptwriters in their day-to-day work. Easier to name the sectors after something particularly notable in each sector, and move on, it seems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Gibraltar
Starship Reykjavík – Chasing Shadows
Replies
11
Views
990
TheLoneRedshirt
TheLoneRedshirt
McCovey Cove
Star Trek: First Duty (PC #4) - "Strength from the Shadows" (COMPLETED)
Replies
2
Views
598
McCovey Cove
McCovey Cove
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top