Exploring the Alpha Quadrant

[Robert Bruce Scott]

In the 24th and 25th Centuries, Star Fleet vessels started showing up in the Beta Quadrant, the Gamma Quadrant, and even a few in the Delta Quadrant. Somehow, it seems that the Alpha Quadrant had been tamed and explored by the Federation, the Klingon and Romulan Empires, the Cardassians, Breen, Tholians, Ferengi...

Hogwash. Let's assume for the moment that the Alpha Quadrant (and the other three) extend nearly from the center of the Milky Way out to the edge (as we understand it.) The Milky Way is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter (the edges are really poorly defined - some member star clusters are well over 50,000 light years from the center), about 2,000 light years deep in our environs (closer to 4,000 light years deep closer to the center) and contains more than 400 billion stars. (Probably far more.)

Based on this, we can assume that the Alpha Quadrant contains at least 80 billion stars. Approximately 20% of these (at latest calculation) have planets. So has Star Fleet explored 4 billion solar systems? My point is there is a LOT of room within the Alpha Quadrant for ongoing and needed exploration, hidden civilizations - possibly fairly large star empires that have not been encountered yet by any of the empires I listed above.

And then there are the brown dwarf systems - which could support life in various interesting ways. Brown dwarfs are so dim they are difficult to see. At this point, the estimate is about 70 billions brown dwarfs in the Milky Way, but I strongly suspect that number will grow dramatically as the James Webb telescope reveals more of our as-yet-unseen galaxy.

 

[admiralelm11]

Where are you going with this if I might ask, please? I'm curious.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Where are you going with this if I might ask, please? I'm curious.

I'm not sure I'm really going anywhere with this. Just noting how much room there is in the Alpha Quadrant for Trek adventures - vast, undiscovered civilizations and empires right on the Federation's doorstep. It's a really, really big galaxy. And, to borrow Spock's observation from The Wrath of Khan... We 21st Century humans have a tendency to think in only 2 dimensions...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Bynar0110]

Doc Brown would understand it since he thinks in 4 dimensions.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I'm sure I watched or read something about the development of TNG which had that at the start of the show only around 19% of the of the galaxy had been charted/surveyed/explored, leaves a lot of space left (even in the AQ) to go boldly into.

 

[Bynar0110]

Wouldn't space be infinite?

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

...around 19% of the of the galaxy had been charted/surveyed/explored...

Wouldn't space be infinite?

Space is, apparently, or at least for all practical intents and purposes, infinite. The Milky Way Galaxy is not. But 19% charted, surveyed and explored? Let's throw some math at this:

I'm going to do a lot of thumb nailing just to keep the math simple: The Milky Way is about 100,000 lightyears in diameter by an average of 2,500 light years deep. So to get the area, it would be (pi x r squared) x 2,500 lightyears.

(3.14 x 50,000 squared) x 2,500 = MWv
(3.14 x 2,500,000,000) x 2,500 = MWv
7,850,000,000 x2,500 = a volume of 1,962,500,000,000 cubic lightyears. Just shy of 2 trillion (almost the size of our national debt.)

If the Alpha Quadrant is 1/4 of that (roughly) that's about 500 billion cubic light years. 19% of that would be about 95 billion cubic light years. But that's 19% of the Alpha Quadrant. 19% of the galaxy would be around 380 billion cubic light years charted/surveyed/explored.

Charting (listing the stars and their relative locations and velocities), I can believe. In fact, I think we're close to 5% now if we haven't exceeded it. But exploring? That would take a LOT of antimatter and dilithium crystals!

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Gibraltar]

Remember that exploration doesn't necessarily imply manned craft. I would imagine that Starfleet supports a wide variety of long-range, high-warp sensor probes that are sent out ahead of their manned missions. These probes undoubtedly map stellar phenomena, scan for potential Class-M planets, monitor for EM, radio, and subspace signals from regional civilizations, and basically give the follow-on starships some good hints about what they'll be encountering.

I'd guess that these probes also outnumber starships by a considerable percentage.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

I would imagine that Starfleet supports a wide variety of long-range, high-warp sensor probes that are sent out ahead of their manned missions.

I think you just solved an enormous plot problem for me for the Star Trek Beagle pilot.

Thanks!!! rbs

 

[Bynar0110]

It would be interesting of what kind aliens live in the unexplored parts of the Alpha Quadrant

 

[admiralelm11]

Star Wars aliens, renamed and repurposed for Trek?

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Remember that exploration doesn't necessarily imply manned craft. I would imagine that Starfleet supports a wide variety of long-range, high-warp sensor probes that are sent out ahead of their manned missions. These probes undoubtedly map stellar phenomena, scan for potential Class-M planets, monitor for EM, radio, and subspace signals from regional civilizations, and basically give the follow-on starships some good hints about what they'll be encountering.

I'd guess that these probes also outnumber starships by a considerable percentage.

The Quadros-1 probe made it to Idran in the GQ, who knows how many more were sent out into the farthest reaches of the different quadrants, so that 19% would expand out across the Milky Way along narrow corridors that these probes travelled.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Wars aliens, renamed and repurposed for Trek?

The United Trek writers created a number of small, but quite interesting and troublesome empires that shared borders with the Federation and other major AQ powers we're familiar with from the franchise. Offhand, I recall the rather lupine Alshain and the "Little Cousins" (can't recall the actual name), so-called because they are very much like Klingons. Klingon-Lite.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Gibraltar]

^ That was the Talarians, a canon species seen in the TNG episode Suddenly Human.

 

[Bynar0110]

If the Federation deep enough they might make first contact with well known alien races from other media like the Vistors from V or the Cylons from Battlestar Gallatica.

 

[Tim Walker]

Apparently, in Tin Man (TNG) , probes were sent forth before the manned ships. At least to stars of particular scientific interest. Perhaps most of that 19% are places that, so far, have been reached only by the probes.

Maybe most of the probes are flyby probes, each of which visits multiple star systems.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Maybe most of the probes are flyby probes, each of which visits multiple star systems.

I wonder how many problems those probes might cause. Seems like a rich vein for stories:

• A probe enters a solar system that is host to a space-faring but pre-FTL culture. Being technologically adept, they spot the thing. First contact is a machine. Imagine how we would react.
• A probe enters a system recently colonized by the Cardassian Empire. Hornet's nest.
• The Borg chase down and capture a probe - and trace it back to its source...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Bynar0110]

I wonder how many problems those probes might cause. Seems like a rich vein for stories:

• A probe enters a solar system that is host to a space-faring but pre-FTL culture. Being technologically adept, they spot the thing. First contact is a machine. Imagine how we would react.
• A probe enters a system recently colonized by the Cardassian Empire. Hornet's nest.
• The Borg chase down and capture a probe - and trace it back to its source...

Thanks!! rbs

Or discover a hostile alien civilization that makes the Borg or the Dominion look like pushovers.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Or discover a hostile alien civilization that makes the Borg or the Dominion look like pushovers.

See Galen4's series, Star Trek Intrepid... Thanks!! rbs

 

[Will The Serious]

...there is a LOT of room within the Alpha Quadrant for ongoing and needed exploration, hidden civilizations - possibly fairly large star empires that have not been encountered yet...

There is certainly more space than mass and it would be extremely easy to miss a passing group of spacefarers, but the unlikeliness of missing a large, warp capable civilization within the Alpha quadrant lies in the technology, as well as the nature of intelligent life that has been curious enough about the universe to actually develop that tech and travel into space.

What sort of radiant signals must the Federation, the Romulan Star Empire, the Klingon Empire, etcetera, be transmitting across the galaxy? With subspace transmissions, for example, any advance civilization could possibly detect those signals within a few years of their transmissions and the alien civilization's own analogous SETI program would have probes tripping across the quadrant to make contact. The reverse would also be true. The Federation and the Vulcan's, by the 25th century, have actively been probing the galaxy for several hundred years looking for just those types of signals and make first contact. The warp signal from Zefram Cochrane's ship attracted the Vulcans.

It would therefore be logical that any new, Alpha Quadrant civilization would also have developed completely different space and energy technologies. That would be the only way to explain how the trekverse hasn't run into them by the 25th century.

-Will