Poll Is the Earth on the border of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants? (Yes/No)

My main question when I think about the layout of the quadrants is: Does the Alpha/Beta Quadrant line revolve around the center of the galaxy as the Solar System does? Do the quadrants change with time?

In Discovery's 31st century, is Earth still on the border?

 

I just don't click on the topic. That's my "who cares".

 

How big is a quadrant?

 

One-quarter of the Milky Way galaxy, or about 50,000 light years from core to edge.

 

Yes, they kind of do because of dynamical coherence, or the spin of the galaxy. This is why the axis terminate or at least pass through fixed points which are in synchronised alignment. These changes would take billions of years though, a bit like the shifting continents on Earth.

Yes, if the Earth is a fixed point on the axis by design.

 

Yes

By definition, it's exactly 1/4 the size of the galaxy.

 

For TNG and newer series, yes. But TOS seems to use the term in a different sense as well. Spock, for example, mentions they're entering 'quadrant 904' in the Squire of Gothos.

 

'Kay. Given this thread is about quadrants going by the TNG+ definition, well...

 

Interesting question. I don't know the answer.

Even if it weren't, it would still be quite close to the border, though. The sun would've moved about 0.52 light years over those 700 years if my back-of-envelope calculation is correct. Which isn't much in galactic terms.

 

I think any star chart has a certain level of arbitrariness about it. Earth is in "Sector 001" because it likely was simply the first sector Humans explored after developing warp drive and a similar rationale may have been behind designating the term "Alpha Quadrant." The Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, etc., probably have their own star charts that are totally different and use different terms, but the Universal Translator reinterprets them, IMO.

I don't have a problem with the Sol System straddling both the Alpha and Beta Quadrants because an early Human stellar cartographer simply drew the map that way. i do like to believe, however, that most of the Federation is in the Alpha Quadrant, which technically makes it an Alpha Quadrant nation, even if a sizeable chunk of it is in Beta Quadrant.

 

Comparing it to Russia: 77% of Russia's area is in Asia, 23% in Europe. But when we look to its population, about 75% of Russians live in the European part. So is Russia more Europe, or more Asia?

 

The border between the alpha and beta quadrants is just some arbitrary line, it's not comparable to a river or a mountain range or something that would make for a more easily defensible border. being on the border would be completely irrelevant and not give earth any strategic value because of its location.

 

It's 1/4 of something. Whether that something is the galaxy is an open question.

 

Having earth right at the border kills the verisimilitude for me. Most maps seems to indicate thats the case though. A good compromise would to simply place Earth a couple hundred light years ( or about 2 months travel) "west" of the border and in the Alpha Quandant. That's where I would put Earth if I was in charge and it came up on screen.

 

The Artificially Declared "Virtual Border-Line" runs directly through the center of mass of our sun "Sol's" slight wobble.

So half of our Sun will always be in the Alpha Quadrant, the other half will always be in the Beta Quadrant.

As for our Planets, it really depends on where we are in the oribt around our Sun.

BIG!

Spoiler: Rough Top-Down 2D Astro-Political Map of Milky Way Galaxy (Thin-Disk Section Only) post USS Voyager's return

Quadrants are really only useful if you think of a map in 2D.

Spoiler: Remember, space is 3D, and the map generally only focuses on the 2D Thin-Disk layer.

In 3D space, you need to think of our Galactic Map as "Octants" or ⅛th of a larger cube.

Spoiler: Dimensions of the Major Structures of our Milky Way Galaxy

The Actual size of our Milky Way Galaxy is FAR larger than you think once you factor the actual size of all the major structures of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Thin Disk, Thick Disk, Galactic Halo
Remember, once you get outside of the Thin Disk section, the Density of Star Systems dramatically decrease the further you get, especially once you hit the Galactic Halo area, there will be even less Star Systems clustered together as densely packed as in the Thin Disk.

The Galactic Bulge should be incredibly dense and crazy packed / filled with Star Systems in that roughly spheroid volume of space around our SMBH Sagittarius A*

Spoiler: NOTE: (Not to Scale!) Side-Orthographic Profile of our Milky Way Galaxy

This is how a real 3D StarMap would look like and should look like:

Spoiler: The Overview Effect - The Locations of Star Trek and Other Sci-fi in Real Space

There's a "Virtual" Flat Reference plane for the center Z=0 that slices through the center of the Thin Disk. All Star System positions are relative to that "Virtual Flat Reference Plane".

Spoiler: Remember our Galaxy is a relative reference to all other nearby Galaxies.

The local 'In-Galaxy' "Virtual Reference Plane" is seperate from any "Virtual Reference Plane" once you span out to the scale of comparing nearby Galaxies.

That would have to be a seperate "Virtual Reference Plane" in and of itself.

Given how tiny our "Sol" Star System is, it really doesn't matter that much.

Spoiler: How tiny our 'Sol' Star System is relative to the size of the UFP

If you really look at how our Star System moves around our SMBH, it's FAR more complicated.

Spoiler: How our 'Sol System' really moves in space.

 

It may be arbitrary, but it seems to be a well-adopted arbitrary decision that every other alien culture seems to buy into. The definition of what distance constitutes a meter, an inch, or a mile were arbitrary choices too, but they only became useful and relevant when the masses adopted and bought into those definitions too. It doesn't make sense that every culture has their own map that defines the contours of regions of space. There would have to be **some** standardization between powers so they would know what each other were talking about and the significance of certain places and lines.

You can't have a neutral zone if the Klingons and Romulans don't at least accept the concept of how the Federation's divides borders. And at no point during DS9, is there any indication that any of the other major powers don't buy into the division of the galaxy into quadrants, even the Dominion doesn't object to the idea of the Federation's division of the Alpha and Gamma Quadrant. The Borg accept the division of being in the Delta Quadrant when discussing Voyager in private.

It just seems odd that in a Federation based on mutual cooperation and diversity that basically every other alien species said just let the humans go crazy and we'll accept their definitions about borders, maps, and customs. But it's one of those things you just have to go with. English (aka Federation Standard) is the defacto official language of an interstellar culture with hundreds of species. Starfleet, an organization with members from various cultures, it is still very human-centric with their vessels named mostly for human historical figures, battles, and the legacy vessels of human navies.

Except Earth is portrayed as within the core of Federation worlds. For the sake of argument, lets go with the idea that the line may of have been drawn for reasons beyond the idea of human arrogance to put themselves into an important position. What possible reason might justify the Sol System being that important?

During the Dominion War, Betazed was stated to be within striking distance of Earth, Vulcan, Tellar Prime, and Andoria. The reverse would be true too. If it's that close to what were major regional powers pre-Federation, one would think those powers would have considered the Sol System significant real estate. Especially, if you were the Romulans who were thinking of ways to plot those powers against each other.

 

Why? It happens in real life, too. The longitude system that is used by the entire world (AFAIK at least) is based on a fairly arbitrary null meridian that happened (*) to run right through Greenwich observatory, probably because some 18th or 19th century geographers simply chose that line as the 'null meridian' . So half of the Greenwich observatory (or parts of London, for that sake) would have been on the eastern hemisphere, and the other half (parts) on the western hemisphere by definition and nobody was bothered by that - and why would they be? It's just an arbitrary reference line for a coordinate system, after all, nothing more. Why couldn't the same happen for the border line between Alpha and Beta quadrant?

(*) of course, in modern times, a slight recalibration has taken place based on more considerations and more exact instruments, but in practice, the new 'null meridian' is still very close to the old 'Greenwich meridian' and clearly its direct descendant.

 

Wow thanks.

 

I'm going with the Earth is not only on the border, but sideways. So the Northern Hemisphere is always in the alpha quadrant and the southern in the beta.

Just cos.