First look inside the new Stellar Cartography
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I was originally going to get this right away...but looks like I'm going to have to wait until after Christmas or next month t get it. I can't wait to check this out, and that Cardassian Union map looks fantastic.
I'm more interested in the contents of the book proper, which I haven't heard much about.
Of course! But there are ten of them!
Sample map from Star Trek: Stellar Cartography by Therin of Andor, on Flickr
(A Blu-Ray container for a sense of scale.)
Similar to Bantam's "Star Trek Maps", but those were printed on both sides, making them tricky to frame. These are printed on one side only.
36" x 24" (91 x 60.5cm) each.
The book is essentially a companion to the "Federation: The First 150 Years" book. Similar size, binding and cover, although only 48 pages (vs 176 pages for "Federation: The First 150 Years"). Glossy pages throughout, reproducing the maps as double-spread images - whereas the ten, larger, folded maps in the magnetic folder are matt finish - and the book has a double-page of text to put each map into perspective.
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So the larger maps don't provide anything that isn't in the book other than size and removability? Is this going to be another thing where they release the book by itself the following year?
I'm sure it's been designed that way, but avid map collectors are not going to be satisfied with the book-only.
I haven't done a page-by-map comparison yet, but the map I photographed above is shown in the book both with (small size) and without (larger) text labels. (And was painted by an Andorian artist/cartographer, Rhiis Talee!)
Hmm... that first image shows the UFP's original borders, which seem a bit small to me; they surround the five founder worlds but leave out known Earth colonies which presumably would've been under UFP jurisdiction, like Vega and Deneva. Perhaps there's a way to reconcile this?
It looks like the map is mainly historical, since it seems to outline the Vegan Tyranny -- actually a concept from James Blish's Cities in Flight universe, but he mentioned it in his TOS adaptations.
I also would've thought Hobus would be a lot closer to Romulus. I'm curious about the textures in that map of Romulan space, though. Maybe a representation of the interstellar medium density, regions where it's concentrated?
And Heliopolis as well? (Possibly outside the area excerpted.)
Interesting, that. Might it have been referenced in an episode and we missed the name-check?
Possibly artistic discretion. That map is meant to be attributed to Romulan records, after all.
Heliopolis is a city on a planet of Alpha Eridani, aka Achernar. The Romulan War novels showed that the colony was destroyed and Achernar taken in the war, which is consistent with Achernar being the capital of the Imperial Romulan State during its brief existence. So Heliopolis would no longer have existed as of the UFP's founding.
No, Mandel is just continuing the tradition. It was referenced in Star Trek Maps as well. STM had a number of in-joke references to worlds from original prose SF, like the Ringworld, Riverworld, Pern, and Alan Dean Foster's Hivehom and Tran-Ky-Ky. There's even a star system called THX-1138.
Wow -- I was just looking over my PDF scans of STM, which I use for reference these days because my physical copy is too fragile, and for a moment I could swear I smelled the paper of the real thing. I guess that sense memory is burned into my brain.
Got notification from Amazon that this shipped today, so I hope to have it soon!
Looks like they didn't change their placement of Andoria...
Looks like they didn't change their placement of Andoria...
AHOY MATEY, SPOILERS AHEAD....
I got mine today and if you go to the previous thread when this "book" was announced you will see how excited I was for it....
Well, now, I must admit I'm left cold. I really was expecting "Star Charts" expanded to the Nth degree. This isn't it. What made "Charts" cool was all the scientific and pseudo/Trek science it contained. Explanations of sectors, planetary and solar classifications etc. This has none of that. In fact, the only illustrations in the "Stellar Cartography" book are the maps themselves. Sure, folded maps are purdy and, yeah, I'm sure to fame a few but I was expecting a little more "meat" to the text.
As for the text, I guess you could say each map has an accompanying essay written as a synopsis of the historicity of the map. In other words, each essay is presented as a fiction, hence containing many references that aren't "canon". Thus, the whole package isn't what I was yearning for - Trek non-fiction. Its a slick redo of "Star Charts" without the "science". With so much info in the actual shows, why include fan-fic or, worse, made up stuff?
There are a few corrections and additions here. But honestly, not that much. And since the "alien" maps are presented as such, they lose a lot of value. What I mean is that there is no "Federation" conventions - no distance scales; not even sector grids. Its just blobs of space with stars with names. This makes the 4th Century Vulcan map especially useless. There's no way to get a perspective of distance. In fact, there aren't even any real stars like there was in "Star Charts". Hence, Vulcan is simply "Vulcan" not Epsilon Eridani A. (Its only labeled as such in the aforementioned Vulcan map, which makes no sense since Vulcan's wouldn't name their stars with Human designations, especially if its from the 4th century). To me real stars and distances is what made "Star Charts" so exciting. It made Star Trek seem almost plausible. "Steller Cartography" just seems like a big step backwards; a random mishmash trying to cover everything and ultimately giving nothing.
There are also no ship routes or destinations. Listening to the TrekRadio interview with Nemecek, I expected to see fleet maneuvers and the shifting battlelines during the Dominion War. Nadda in the book and precious little on the pullout map. Furthermore, there is NO Gamma or Delta quadrant maps. NONE. That really made me go sour. So big letdowns for DS9 and Voyager fans. And one map does have something labeled with the thermobaric cloud barrier, apparently indicating the Delphic Expanse. But there is no further word on it. And stars like Azati Prime don't even appear within it. So what could have been a neat map tracing Enterprise's course through the Expanse is a completely disregarded piece of Trek lore.
Yes my friends, I had big expectations for "Stellar Cartography". But even trying to keep my wishes reasonable, this was a big disappointment. Maybe one day they'll do another version; perhaps a 3D galactic representation. Hopefully that will be an improvement. As I mentioned in the previous thread, I had spent years making my own maps. Not to sound smug or callous, but they are more accurate and complete. I guess I'll go back to finishing them.
I got mine today and if you go to the previous thread when this "book" was announced you will see how excited I was for it....
Well, now, I must admit I'm left cold. I really was expecting "Star Charts" expanded to the Nth degree. This isn't it. What made "Charts" cool was all the scientific and pseudo/Trek science it contained. Explanations of sectors, planetary and solar classifications etc. This has none of that. In fact, the only illustrations in the "Stellar Cartography" book are the maps themselves. Sure, folded maps are purdy and, yeah, I'm sure to fame a few but I was expecting a little more "meat" to the text.
As for the text, I guess you could say each map has an accompanying essay written as a synopsis of the historicity of the map. In other words, each essay is presented as a fiction, hence containing many references that aren't "canon". Thus, the whole package isn't what I was yearning for - Trek non-fiction. Its a slick redo of "Star Charts" without the "science". With so much info in the actual shows, why include fan-fic or, worse, made up stuff?
There are a few corrections and additions here. But honestly, not that much. And since the "alien" maps are presented as such, they lose a lot of value. What I mean is that there is no "Federation" conventions - no distance scales; not even sector grids. Its just blobs of space with stars with names. This makes the 4th Century Vulcan map especially useless. There's no way to get a perspective of distance. In fact, there aren't even any real stars like there was in "Star Charts". Hence, Vulcan is simply "Vulcan" not Epsilon Eridani A. (Its only labeled as such in the aforementioned Vulcan map, which makes no sense since Vulcan's wouldn't name their stars with Human designations, especially if its from the 4th century). To me real stars and distances is what made "Star Charts" so exciting. It made Star Trek seem almost plausible. "Steller Cartography" just seems like a big step backwards; a random mishmash trying to cover everything and ultimately giving nothing.
There are also no ship routes or destinations. Listening to the TrekRadio interview with Nemecek, I expected to see fleet maneuvers and the shifting battlelines during the Dominion War. Nadda in the book and precious little on the pullout map. Furthermore, there is NO Gamma or Delta quadrant maps. NONE. That really made me go sour. So big letdowns for DS9 and Voyager fans. And one map does have something labeled with the thermobaric cloud barrier, apparently indicating the Delphic Expanse. But there is no further word on it. And stars like Azati Prime don't even appear within it. So what could have been a neat map tracing Enterprise's course through the Expanse is a completely disregarded piece of Trek lore.
Yes my friends, I had big expectations for "Stellar Cartography". But even trying to keep my wishes reasonable, this was a big disappointment. Maybe one day they'll do another version; perhaps a 3D galactic representation. Hopefully that will be an improvement. As I mentioned in the previous thread, I had spent years making my own maps. Not to sound smug or callous, but they are more accurate and complete. I guess I'll go back to finishing them.
^Vulcan is 40 Eridani in Star Charts (and ENT: "Home" comes close to verifying this by stating that Vulcan is 16 light-years from Earth). Epsilon Eridani is identified with Axanar.
Where does it put the Delphic Expanse?
Where does it put the Delphic Expanse?
yes that's what I meant. 40 Eridani A - my mistake
The Expanse is kind of a nebulous region. I still don't understand the oblong circle labeled as the cloud barrier - it seems to stand alone on the far side near Klingon space. If you use "Star Charts" as a reference Azati Prime is approx. between Andoria and Deneva. Its roughly egg-shaped, with that being the smaller end. Its positioned diagonally towards the Klingon Empire with the bottom fatter part near the Hromi Cluster. It occupies an area within these points - Argelius, Japori, Xarantine, Suliban and Rigel.
Yes, I know space is three-dimensional, but it seems odd to place it there since Enterprise travelled through this region to reach places like Qo'Nos and Rura Penthe. Not where I would have put it, but oh well.
The Expanse is kind of a nebulous region. I still don't understand the oblong circle labeled as the cloud barrier - it seems to stand alone on the far side near Klingon space. If you use "Star Charts" as a reference Azati Prime is approx. between Andoria and Deneva. Its roughly egg-shaped, with that being the smaller end. Its positioned diagonally towards the Klingon Empire with the bottom fatter part near the Hromi Cluster. It occupies an area within these points - Argelius, Japori, Xarantine, Suliban and Rigel.
Yes, I know space is three-dimensional, but it seems odd to place it there since Enterprise travelled through this region to reach places like Qo'Nos and Rura Penthe. Not where I would have put it, but oh well.
Well, space is 3-dimensional, and the galactic disk is around 1000 light-years thick, so what seems to be "between" Andoria and Deneva could actually be hundreds of light-years "above" or "below" them relative to the plane of the page. (For comparison, Star Charts gives the impression that Vega and Denobula/Iota Bootis are nearly adjacent, only about 5 light-years away from each other as projected onto the plane of the map, but in fact they're 80 light-years apart, because there's a far greater "vertical" separation between them.)
Really, this makes a lot of sense to me. STSC used up most of the territories around the UFP in the plane of the page, but there's plenty of room left over along the Z axis. The problem is that the maps are constrained by the 2D projection and the lack of side-view renderings. It gives the false impression that the galaxy is much flatter than it is.
The placement also makes sense because we know that Enterprise passed near Vulcan en route to the Expanse (since they were going to drop off T'Pol on the way). Yet we also know from "Twilight" that it must be very far from Ceti Alpha. Yet in the map projection, Ceti Alpha and 40 Eridani are in very nearly the same direction. So the only way to reconcile the two is if the Expanse is far removed from Ceti Alpha along the Z axis. And if you look at page 18, it shows that Vulcan actually is well "below" Earth. So I guess that means we can assume that the Expanse is pretty far "below" the plane of the map.
Really, this makes a lot of sense to me. STSC used up most of the territories around the UFP in the plane of the page, but there's plenty of room left over along the Z axis. The problem is that the maps are constrained by the 2D projection and the lack of side-view renderings. It gives the false impression that the galaxy is much flatter than it is.
The placement also makes sense because we know that Enterprise passed near Vulcan en route to the Expanse (since they were going to drop off T'Pol on the way). Yet we also know from "Twilight" that it must be very far from Ceti Alpha. Yet in the map projection, Ceti Alpha and 40 Eridani are in very nearly the same direction. So the only way to reconcile the two is if the Expanse is far removed from Ceti Alpha along the Z axis. And if you look at page 18, it shows that Vulcan actually is well "below" Earth. So I guess that means we can assume that the Expanse is pretty far "below" the plane of the map.
all valid points but the Expanse was said to be 10,000 ly across. no matter how you place that, vertical or horizontal, it doesn't fit there. For me I would place it more "south", spaning from the Klingon border (they did try to enter it and failed. Thus making that their boundary at the time and forcing their expansions and excursions "north-westward") spanning "south-westward" into areas below Cardassian space. Adding up the amount of time and distance Enterprise took to reach the Xindi weapon (and I have) they traveled a very small amount into the Expanse. If traveling due "West", they wouldn't have even traversed Cardassian space, at least as it is represented in Star Charts.
But then this discussion doesn't really belong in TrekLit
But then this discussion doesn't really belong in TrekLit
