Your point is...?
It's still a long distance from Earth even in DS9's time. In Kirk's, it would be even further away, thus limiting contact even more with that region of space. Assuming it was even "the edge of the Federation" during his time.
Could Captain Kirk have met the Cardassians?
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It's still a long distance from Earth even in DS9's time. In Kirk's, it would be even further away, thus limiting contact even more with that region of space. Assuming it was even "the edge of the Federation" during his time.
About 50 lightyears from Earth, it seems.
What would be cool is if such a map could be made in Celestia or Space engine that allowed for the coloring/shading of entire regions. That would be the ultimate in RL Trek stellar cartography.
The problem would be when people's heads started exploding as they took a hard look and realized that travel times / speeds in Trek are totally nonsensical and plot driven, almost all the time.
The problem would be when people's heads started exploding as they took a hard look and realized that travel times / speeds in Trek are totally nonsensical and plot driven, almost all the time.
Earth is irrelevant. Kirk and his contemporaries didn't spend a lot of time near Earth, even when they were inside Federation borders. The edge of the Federation is where ever it's territory ends. It could be right next door to Earth or 100 light years away.
Could you elaborate? I don't understand how being a purist precludes 23rd Century Starfleet from having had contact with the Cardassians, especially since there was a Cardassian exile on Vulcan a century prior.
I don't think so. Babel was about admitting Coridan to the Federation. Those were Federation delegates on board the Enterprise, not outsiders. Klingons, Romulans or even Cardassians would not have any say on admitting Coridan to the Federation unless they were making a claim on the territory. This would be like Russia or China having a vote on whether Guam or Puerto Rico getst to become a state.
Well, but they may probably be presented as formal observers.
I remember that there was an assumption going around Trekdom for a while... that the Cardassians had been first encountered in the 24th century.
But there is no evidence for that at all, and like someone mentioned, they were known to the Vulcans in te 22nd century; I think the Cardassian people were encountered very early, maybe 22nd century or 23rd century, by humans.
They may have only become militaristic later though, and may have still been in poverty when first encountered - an interesting reverse.
But there is no evidence for that at all, and like someone mentioned, they were known to the Vulcans in te 22nd century; I think the Cardassian people were encountered very early, maybe 22nd century or 23rd century, by humans.
They may have only become militaristic later though, and may have still been in poverty when first encountered - an interesting reverse.
Hopefully Coridan had representatives present, it would be somewhat disturbing if the Federation were considering having Coridan become part of the Federation without Coridan having any say in the matter.
Well, as I pointed above - distances. The distance between Cardassia and Earth is clearly no less than 50 lightyears. In 22nd century, it would took nearly half of the year for Earth starship to travel to Cardassia Prime... and for what? In 22nd century Cardassians clearly wasn't important Alpha Quadrant power, and they lived too far to represent any actual interest for Federation.
My IMHO - Federation knew about the existence of Cardassians from Vulcans since 2100s. It is possible, that some Cardassian expeditions ventured near Federation in 22nd century and actual contact may be established - or Federation may send expedition to meet the Cardassians. But before late 23rd century, and the advent of wapr-9 drives, boths sides were simply "too far" to be really interested in each other.
Being a fictional world, nothing necessarily precludes it. In my own mind, I prefer to think of relations between the Cardassians and the Federation not kicking off until the early to mid 24th Century. As I said, I tend to think that the loners, prospectors, and lone-wolf boundary pushers are the ones who make the genuine first contacts rather than governments, and that these contacts can have happened years before official meetings and relations take place. Case in point: the Cardassian on Vulcan in the ENT era. Another case in point: Vulcan tharavul living and working within the Komerex Klingon long before official first contact between the Klingons and the Federation in the early 23rd Century, as depicted in The Final Reflection.
This I doubt. Too far. For the 22nd century civilian ships, this would be impossible long trip. Let's recall, J-class transports were only capable of Warp 2 - i.e. it would took them more than FOUR YEARS just to make 50 lightyear trip.
And I really doubt that there were many loners with starships in 22nd century. The starships of this era were complex and hard to operate, and usually they were controlled either by large corporations or by small family companies.
You know, it actually occurred to me as I was drifting to sleep last night that I made that mistake. Ah well, a Trek fan is entitled to the occasional screw-up. The shows make these kind of blunders all the time.[pedant mode] EXETER! [/pedant mode]
For the most part, yes, but if you have a crew of Boomers or would be Magellans or what not who want to see what's 'out there' and they just keep on going in a straight line while Enterprise is going back and forth between Vulcan and Andoria, fighting the Xindi, returning to Earth to pull Soong out of prison, then fighting the Romulan War, etc, that gives the slower ship going in a straight line for all those years a REALLY BIG head start.
And I don't mean that those ships necessarily intend to come back, either. Look what Zefram Cochrane decided to do and how far he got before crashing his ship and meeting the companion.
In theory yes, but what the profit? Running the 22nd century starship was a costly process. I.e. they would need to have quite large supply of spare parts, materials, more effective defensive weaponry (because space in the 22nd century was a lot more dangerous than after Federation started to clear the situation) - and for what? Who would pay for all this? Who would invest his money without certain possibility of return?
The only possible groups that could do something like that, are those who may want to "just go away from all this". Some exiles, like Khan. Or maybe some refugees during the Romulan war, who may decide that it's too dangerous to stay in near-Earth space while the total space war erupted.
That assumes that the Humans that first meet the Cardassians are traveling in a Human built ship, as opposed to booking passage on a faster non-Human ship. By the fourth season of ENT, we see that there are several alien species on Earth, they got there somehow. Humans leaving Earth could have left on the same ships that brought the aliens.
The Horizon (Piece of the Action) was about 100 plus light years from Earth in approximately 2165, the Horizon wasn't clearly stated to be a early Starfleet vessel and could have been a civilian explorer/trader.
Why you assumed that those aliens arrived on faster ships?
The Horizon was J-class cargo hauler, capable of no more than warp-3 at best. She literally took years to reach that far.
Maybe he met them the same way Archer met the Ferengi. They never got around to introduce themselves.
Not as late as the 23rd century, when Sulu makes the unconditional statement that the maximum speed of a freighter is Warp 2. This indicates that while top-of-the-line starships had gained several warp factors since Archer's time, the civilians still hadn't gotten the Warp 5 engines.
This.
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