Farthest point in Fed Space

[Crewman47]

It's been said that the Federation covers around 8,000 light years worth of space, which would take months at warp 8 to even travel through, but what I don't think we know is how far out that Space stretches. So from onscreen references what is the farthest out, within Federation Space, any Starship has been from Earth, as I guess is the center point of Federation Space and do we get any omplication of any time spanned between to far distant points?

Any thoughts?

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Deneb IV, the location of Farpoint Station?

TGT

 

[Timo]

Good guess.

But all we know is that Farpoint was at the edge of explored space - and the star Pollux, in Earth's immediate neighborhood, was beyond that edge in Kirk's days, as per "Who Mourns for Adonais?"! So obviously the edge can't be a simple spherical surface, and any reference to it must be viewed in light of this.

In TOS, we've witnessed Kirk at least 900 lightyears out from whatever he thinks of as his home. He also made all those trips to the Galactic Barrier at the edge of the galaxy, which probably is thousands of lightyears away from Earth even in Trek parlance - and in "Where No Man", there is a Federation lithium cracking plant within impulse range of the Barrier. In TNG, the farthest real-world fixes were to mere few hundred lightyears from Earth as well, to places like the Pleiades, or Mintaka, or Omicron Ceti, but again the hero ship obviously loitered significantly farther out than that (even going extragalactic once).

In which direction could a Federation explorer have wandered for 8,000 lightyears before planting the flag? Antispinward would mean running into the Klingons and Romulans, in terms of modern Trek cartography, but our intrepid explorers could probably sidestep those empires and press on. The farthest known location in that direction would be Canopus, some 200 ly away. Coreward lies the Great Barrier, an obstacle that can be reached in a matter of hours or at most days at warp seven, so probably the Feds in Kirk's days didn't go very far in that direction. Antares would be the farthest known location in that direction, again mere hundreds of lightyears away.

Rimward we hear of visits to Gamma Tauri, Omicron Ceti, and perhaps the "real" Rigel (even though other, more proximal Rigels exist), so apparently no adversary blocks the way there for at least the first thousand lightyears. The outer Galactic Barrier might lie in that direction, although it would be more convenient to assume that it encompasses the whole galaxy like a disk or a donut, and that our heroes didn't travel all the way to the rim of the galactic disk for their occasional adventures with the Barrier.

Spinward we hear that the UFP has knowledge of Deneb (presumably Alpha Cygni and not one of the other Denebs closer by), which lies several thousand lightyears away. But for the 8,000 ly figure, there'd have to be a Federation "island" farther spinward than Deneb, and perhaps another "island" farther rimward than Rigel, with the span quoted by Picard stretching between those two.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Cestus III on the border of Gorn Space.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Earth may be the center of the Federation as far as its political power is concerned, but geographically it could be anywhere within its confines. I'm actually more inclined to believe that Earth itself is not far from one of its borders due to the apparent proximity of the borders of other governments such as the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Cardassians (just to name a few). Core worlds like Earth and Vulcan may lie along one end of Federation space while a great deal of it expands in another direction either towards or away from the galactic core.

And of course, the Z-axis must also be taken into account with that 8000 light-year figure too.

There could be quite a few worlds that can be said to be at the farthest point of Federation space, and like Timo said there could be "islands" of Federation territory that may not be part of the "continental" UFP--these could be separated from the mainland by many light-years of neutral territory or territory actually claimed by someone else...

 

[JayTheTrekkie]

I would say the farthest point is Viridian 3 (yes, not in Fed Space) from Star Trek: Generations. Does that count?

 

[HellRaiser]

I dont think the Viridian system can be a part of the Federation because the civilization on Viridian IV was pre-warp. IIRC there's a DS9 episode where Cassidy Yates and Sisko are talking about baseball and she mentions the farthest point in Federation space in relation to DS9 (the station), which seemed to imply one of the longest distances available between Federation borders (though it could be contested that Bajoran space is not Federation space and still considered either a protectorate or allied space).

@Timo: Impressive answer-- thx for having something so well thought out.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I dont think the Viridian system can be a part of the Federation because the civilization on Viridian IV was pre-warp.

We've seen pre-warp civilisations and worlds located in Federation space before, even in Insurrection the Feds thought the Baku were pre-warp and yet the briar patch was located within Federation space.

IIRC there's a DS9 episode where Cassidy Yates and Sisko are talking about baseball and she mentions the farthest point in Federation space in relation to DS9 (the station), which seemed to imply one of the longest distances available between Federation borders

Like I said above, Cestus III.

Sisko said though that it was at the otherside of Federation space from DS9 but that does not mean its the furthest point from DS9, the otherside could just mean along another stretch of the Fed border, the furthest point from DS9 could be much further away, if you take the Star Trek Star Charts partially into consideration then Zakdorn could be the furthest point but ive never really liked the Star Charts because its shows that the Feds have space at the otherside of Klingon and Romulan Space to which I disagree with, seems a little far fetched.

 

[Timo]

Viridian didn't sound particularly remote to me. Both the heroes and the villains got there quickly enough, and the mysterious Nexus which apparently moves no faster than a starship (and sometimes seems to crawl at low sublight speed) also arrived there in time for the climax.

Cestus was relatively far away from Bajor, but that doesn't mean Cestus would be equally far away from Earth. The wording does suggest that the Federation sits between Cestus and Bajor, but we already have reason to think that the Federation is not a sphere but rather some sort of a multi-tentacled octopus. The distance from Bajor to Cestus might be across one such thin tentacle, really.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SFRabid]

I just watched episode 3 of TOS they went to the edge of the galaxy and were not the first federation ship there. I guess the farthest point from earth depends on which series you watch last.