First look inside the new Stellar Cartography

[Deranged Nasat]

As I said earlier in this thread, it was a shame how this didn't really update the Star Charts to include ENT s2-4. Anyway I was just randomly watching DS9: The Adversary (season 3 finale) and noticed a couple of omissions there.

Barisa Prime is noted as a Federation colony near Tzenkenthi space, yet whilst paging through the Star Charts while watching the ep I couldn't find it marked anywhere (which is odd as Barisa Prime is listed on the big list of UFP planets on the first fold out map)
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Barisa_Prime

And there's also the Tzenkethi colony world the Defiant is heading for to attack. Its name escapes me, but it wasn't marked on the map either; there's just the Tzenketh homeworld.


So that was just a random ep I watched, which makes me wonder how many other minor omissions there may be on it, which again, it's a shame they couldn't have been fixed for Stellar C

M’Kemas is the system in question, and I agree that it’s unfortunate that both M’Kemas and Barisa were omitted. It’s strange that while certain liberties were taken in order to flesh out other alien territories – interpreting Klingon and Romulan, even First Federation, ship names as star systems, for instance – some regions are left far barer than they need to be. The Talarians are another example – Talar and Galen are included, but Castal and Woden (two systems easily placed within the vicinity of Talarian space) are not. Contrast with the Ferengi Alliance and its stellar neighbourhood, where almost every obscure system is featured, including those mentioned once in offhand comments and those extrapolated from demonyms – the Ludugia System features, name taken from the Ludugial gold that Ferengi were trading in during one episode of TNG. This inconsistency is rather odd, in my opinion; many obscure systems were omitted even in spite of being readily linked to certain small areas – M’Kemas, Barisa, Castal, etc – while many others were meticulously featured.

Similarly, and as you've noted, the list of Federation member worlds names planets that don’t actually appear on the map, while Whatever-ian Wool or Wherehaveyou-ian Ale is acknowledged with a relevantly named star system in the Cardassian Union or surrounding neutral territory (DS9 did quite well out of this). We have Inkaria, Delavi and Rudellia, but oddly no Lissepia, despite that world being mentioned about twice a season. Nor is Luria shown, despite Morn being of considerably more interest than Delavian Chocolate . Obscure Federation worlds from the movies are sometimes included – Kazar, Aaamazzara - but others – Kashet, Efros, Arken – are not. It's all so very arbitrary and confusing...

There seem to be some updates to this "new edition" - Mirada, Devos and Ventani have been added to the Dominion War map of Cardassian-proximate territories, and I think Cold Station 12 made it in (as, strangely but happily, did Vanguard Station). I would have liked for every system to be included, though.

 

[Ronald Held]

Why can't there be an update to the Star Charts within a few years?

 

[Ethros]

^ Well, there could, if you mean in a book format like StCh as opposed to the big fold out posters of StCa. It's just whether it would be deemed to sell enough.



Deranged Nasat, exactly. I see someone else has studied the names of all the stars on it as much as I did

Other random examples that are included would be Fellebia, only coming from a throwaway line from Phlox in ENT: Unexpected "When in Fellebia, do as the Fellebians do."

Vitar, presumably the home Vitarian wool, a type of fabric used in some clothes Garak sold to Morn in that oh so very memorable scene from DS9: Way of the Warrior (joke)

and Neethia, from a Neethian cradlefish, throwaway line in ENT: Vox Sola


So yeah, it can be fairly random. I imagine it must have been pretty hard to put together, however they did it; watching 700 episodes with a pen and paper in hand writing down notes maybe!



Even after Stellar C, I'm still gonna prefer to look at the Star Charts. Finding it fun now every time I watch a random Trek episode I'll look up the relevant planet/area of space they're in said episode and see what their general route is.
Before The Adversary I watched TNG: Chain of Command, and it's cool looking up Minos Korva, the McAllister C-5 nebula, Celtris, Lyshan, Tohvun, and Torman, just from that two-parter.





But I really do admire and love the care, attention and detail that went into it.
One of my favourite such things is the Rogue planet in the Dark Matter in Cardassian space (from DS9: A Time To Stand / Rocks and Shoals.) At the end of that Season 6 opener their warp drive is fried, and Dr Bashir says without warp it will take them "Seven years, two months and three days" to reach the closest Federation starbase.

So the fastest they could go is full impulse, which is ¼ the speed of light. If you work it out going at that speed in that amount of time it would work out the base is just over 4 light years away… and if you look at the map, using the scale key, there is an outpost, Gamma 7, 4 light years away.

IMO that's pretty cool.


The only problem is looking at Gamma 7 on Memory Alpha-
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gamma_7_outpost
It's meant to be near the DMZ, which in its location there it isn't really.

* Hope it's ok to use that picture, let me know if not and I'll remove it. I just found the background maps pic from a google image search

 

[Ethros]

And just be a huge nerd about it, just that little area covers stuff from all these episodes-
DS9: Duet, The Homecoming, The Maquis, Defiant, Improbable Cause, Shakaar, For The Cause, To The Death, Broken Link, Treachery, Faith and the Great River, Shadows & Symbols, Tacking Into The Wind, The Dogs of War, and VOY: Caretaker and Dreadnought

 

[Therin of Andor]

The latest "Star Trek Magazine" from Titan (Pike/Kirk covers) has a good article on "Stellar Cartography", going through many of the decisions that had to be made to present each of the alien-origin maps, and how they needed to adjust things from "Star Charts".

 

[Sci]

I don't really see how Star Trek: Star Charts's decisions on what to include and exclude could help but be somewhat arbitrary, as it would have been virtually impossible to include every potential planet of interest in whatever amount of time the author had to complete the book.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I don't really see how Star Trek: Star Charts's decisions on what to include and exclude could help but be somewhat arbitrary.

Exactly, which is why they pinpointed a different era for each alien map. They are not all as-seen-in-"Nemesis".

 

[DEWLine]

Indeed not. A good thing.

 

[mythme]

Trust me, as someone who has made his own Star Charts of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, using Star Charts as a basis and then correcting and adjusting, adding everything that was left out and/or present after its publication (using only screen-references) makes a VERY busy map. I wish I had the expertise and the software to make a 3-D map because making it 2-D (and I had to buy a roll of graph paper so each quadrant measures approx. 3x5 feet) gets highly congested and distances tend to get distorted.

I wish there was some way I could scan it and share it with y'all. I would love to have discussions about it.

 

[bbailey861]

Trust me, as someone who has made his own Star Charts of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, using Star Charts as a basis and then correcting and adjusting, adding everything that was left out and/or present after its publication (using only screen-references) makes a VERY busy map. I wish I had the expertise and the software to make a 3-D map because making it 2-D (and I had to buy a roll of graph paper so each quadrant measures approx. 3x5 feet) gets highly congested and distances tend to get distorted.

I wish there was some way I could scan it and share it with y'all. I would love to have discussions about it.

I wish you could too.

 

[DEWLine]

Would be fun to argue about, wouldn't it? ;-)

 

[Deranged Nasat]

It would. I have my own pen-and-paper expanded star charts, incorporating the novels as well as canon. I'd love to compare and contrast, mythme.

 

[mythme]

well....if someone could recommend a practical, inexpensive way to scan a two 3x5 foot charts, i'd gladly do it. then we can move the discussion to Trek tech

 

[F. King Daniel]

Take a photo with an HD camera? It might be difficult getting everything lined up perfectly, but it's the easiest way I can think of.

 

[Ethros]

It’s strange that while certain liberties were taken in order to flesh out other alien territories – interpreting Klingon and Romulan, even First Federation, ship names as star systems, for instance – some regions are left far barer than they need to be.

The ship names as star systems is something I noticed too. Yeah obviously done to fill the gaps as it were. But what's interesting is I was watching the ENT Augment arc again today, and the Klingon planet (also in the Affliction/Divergence 2-parter) is called Qu'Vat
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Qu%27Vat_colony

Which I guess the future Klingon ship in TNG: Aquiel was named after
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/IKS_Qu'Vat

That's quite cool, hadn't noticed that before. Obvs Star Charts was published before those ENT eps aired, but its funny how itworked out as Qu'Vat is in the Star Charts



Tracing the plot of those episodes btw with the Star Charts/Stellar Cartography, Soong says they have to go through Klingon space to get the Briar Patch, which isn't apparant there, but I can except maybe in the 2150's the areas of Klingon space were different those of the 2370's, esp seen as the Federation didn't even exist.
Although Cold Station 12 is a fair way from the Qu'Vat system really, for any future overhaul I'd probably put them a bit closer together

 

[Deranged Nasat]

It’s strange that while certain liberties were taken in order to flesh out other alien territories – interpreting Klingon and Romulan, even First Federation, ship names as star systems, for instance – some regions are left far barer than they need to be.

The ship names as star systems is something I noticed too. Yeah obviously done to fill the gaps as it were. But what's interesting is I was watching the ENT Augment arc again today, and the Klingon planet (also in the Affliction/Divergence 2-parter) is called Qu'Vat
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Qu%27Vat_colony

Which I guess the future Klingon ship in TNG: Aquiel was named after
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/IKS_Qu'Vat

That's quite cool, hadn't noticed that before. Obvs Star Charts was published before those ENT eps aired, but its funny how itworked out as Qu'Vat is in the Star Charts

Indeed. The Qu'Vat example retroactively justifies the use of Klingon ship names for star systems, as apparently they do indeed name vessels for prominent stars. (The Star Charts book marks many of the systems in question as "site of battle", though, suggesting that it may be the battle and not the place itself that's being commemorated - these are Klingons, after all ). Funnily enough, the novels also decided to build on the Star Charts decision, because the early DS9 relaunch books feature a Klingon ship named IKS Tcha'voth, while The Left Hand of Destiny later mentions a Battle of Tchavoth. So that all worked out rather well.

The Romulans make it a little more complicated, since characters like D'deridex and Terix have been introduced as far more likely candidates for ship namesakes than random star systems. Although I suppose the characters could be named for the stars or, indeed, the stars for the characters. Supporting that link between names and stars, Vulcan's Soul gives Narviat's private name as Devoras, another star and ship - since it's a private name, presumably the ship isn't named for him, so it's likely a reference to the star.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Well, I finally got a copy.

New stars and systems are as follows:

Adarak Prime
Archer's Planet
Archer (correction from Loracus; second Archer near Klingon space remains)
Aschelan
Azati Prime
Boradis
Delphic Expanse
Denobula Prime (Denobula Triaxa is in fact where it's always been, so we have two Denobulas)
Devos
El-Gatark
Gamma 7A (and zone of darkness)
Guardian of Forever
Hobus
Holna
Kepla
Kimben
Mirada
New Xindus
Makus
Murasaki 312 (and its vortex thingie)
Relva
Rictor Prime
Sybaron
Tibor Nebula
Turkana
Trialas (good to see Enterprise season four hasn't been forgotten; see also Verex ad Vintaak, below).
Vanguard Station (woo!)
Ventani
Verex
Vintaak

Algeron's been moved, for some reason, but other than that there seem to be very few changes, only additions.

I also really appreciated a few non-canon novel-verse consistent nods; for instance, Tellar's moons are listed as Kera and Phinda, Andoria's capital is given as Laikan.

 

[toughlittleship]

I noticed something else I liked - Tzenkethi Coalition is used for the Tzenkethi government. As far as I remember that was established in a novel wasn't it?

 

[Christopher]

As far as I can tell, the name "Tzenkethi Coalition" came from Star Charts.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

We already had an Alliance, a Union, an Assembly, an Hegemony, a Confederacy, etc. There weren't that many names left .

I wonder, though, why they didn't go with "Autocracy".

Tzenkethi Commonwealth?
Tzenkethi Emirates?
Tzenkethi'n'Friends?