Tarsas III and Beta Magellan

[fungun]

Sorry guys and girls, but i need your help again.

I am trying to figure out where the Tarsas and Beta Magellan systems are. I have searched the Star Trek Star Chart book and cannot seem to locate them.

I have not been able to get any clues from the Memory-Alpha site, Memory-Beta site, or the Star Trek.com site, except that they were close to each other and in the Beta Quad. I have read through the episode descriptions on all 3 sites also.

I can't believe that with the Bynars' starring role, that their planet and system would be overlooked and not included on the maps.
Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I can't believe that with the Bynars' starring role, that their planet and system would be overlooked and not included on the maps.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Bynaus

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Bynaus

Geoffrey Mandel tried not to create too much new stuff, so maybe the episode "11001001" just didn't give enough canonical information to make locating Bynaus worthwhile.

Did you notice?:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Starbase_74
"This particular starbase was also used in A Klingon Challenge, a Star Trek: The Next Generation interactive VCR board game. As with the events of '11001001,' the Enterprise-D once again gets hijacked from this starbase in attempt to start a war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire."

 

[mythme]

If memory serves, I think there are many planets mentioned in the first two seasons of TNG that do not appear in the Star Charts. However, if you look closely Pacifica is noted only on the Alpha Quadrant political map and Beta Rennar in the "expanded view" insert on the second fold-out. I believe there are other instances I could use that I just can't recall right now - but the point I'm making is that I believe that a lot of these worlds are located in the "south-west" area of the Alpha Quadrant, below Tholian and Talarian space where the Star Charts just doesn't reach.

HOWEVER - Star Charts was published during Enterprise's first season. But in "Regeneration" Phlox was aware of the Bynars which, canonically, would place Beta Magellan much closer to Earth.

 

[Finn]

^being aware of them doesn't necessarily mean they are close to Earth. Seeing how they appeared to be unaware of what was happening to their sun.... Denobulans may know of them through centuries of space travel, or 2 Bynars made their way to our neck of woods before that episode.

 

[Timo]

Venturing into the wild speculation territory, perhaps Tarsas is the same as Tarsus, another victim of the "ill-defined vowel syndrome" plaguing many Trek names such as "Nooni*n" or "Jenol*n"...

In that case, we're looking at a system where the fourth planet was an out-in-the-sticks colony that could be threatened by famine (hence probably not quite Class M) in the 2240s, but the third looks like Earth and has a giant orbital city next to it in the 2360s. It doesn't help us any (colonies from the mid-23rd century could lie as far away as Omicron Ceti), but it doesn't hurt, either.

...Indeed, Omicron Ceti reappears in TNG "Conspiracy", as the location of a mining enterprise, and doesn't contradict the TOS appearance in "This Side of Paradise". Apparently, nobody returned to the paradise planet plagued by those plants, but a neighboring planet was good for undersurface work despite the Berthold rays raining on the surface.

We could speculate that Tarsus IV was abandoned after Kodos, and that Tarsus III was and perhaps remains a hellhole despite Earth-like appearances, but that the space city on orbit may be related to an ongoing attempt to terraform Tarsus III.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[mythme]

^being aware of them doesn't necessarily mean they are close to Earth. Seeing how they appeared to be unaware of what was happening to their sun.... Denobulans may know of them through centuries of space travel, or 2 Bynars made their way to our neck of woods before that episode.

Phlox noted that he personally saw the procedure in which a Bynar was fitted with a synaptic processor. I'm sure such an occurrance is rare other than on their homeworld, so I think its reasonable that Phlox was either on their homeworld, or Byanus and Denobula had a close enough relationship that such a relatively "intimate" procedure (in a Bynar's viewpoint) would be shared.

On the first note, while we do not have any concrete information, the Denobulans do not seem to be very far traveled. We are not even sure if they had high-warp capability (they almost certainly didn't surpass the Vulcans in this, and were at least warp-5 like Earth during the 22nd century). This alone wouldn't allow for far journey's which the Enterprise-D was capable of.

 

[Timo]

...It wouldn't be the E-D doing the journeying, though. Apparently, Starfleet had built that massive space station in the next-door system some time before the Galaxy class ships began to roam space. And the dockyards within the station were processing a number of older ships, while a ship deemed "too small and slow" by our heroes was in the vicinity. So Starbase 74 probably wasn't on the extreme fringe of known space or anything like that.

OTOH, the Feds didn't know squat about Bynars at that point, despite Denobula probably being a member... And using Bynars as Starfleet contract workers seemed to be a novel thing in the episode, probably something the base commander had chosen to pioneer thanks to living next door to these people (and no doubt also thanks to receiving a rare Bynar offer that was part of their theft plot).

I'd go for a balance, then: a location at "medium range" but in an uninteresting direction where Starfleet has a token presence but isn't involved in major conflicts. Perhaps to the "northwest" in the Star Charts, away from Klingons and Romulans and Cardassians, but roughly at the same distance from Earth as those major enemies are.

We could also argue that "11001001" falls between certain episodes in stardate order: the preceding episodes do not involve any of the classic enemies like Klingons, and seem to deal with space that is poorly known yet already within the UFP sphere of influence. The meeting with Bynars is in good continuity with those. Yet the very next episode would be "The Last Outpost" where our heroes finally go where no man has gone before, and that's also the first episode where we get a fix on a real location: the action takes place in the direction of Taurus, to the "south" on the map. So perhaps Tarsas and Beta Magellan also lie in that direction? Of course, the name "Magellan" might hint at the Magellanic Clouds which also lie in the "southernly" direction - but then again, it might not, as the name could be common enough among Earth explorers / amateur star namers.

If we don't like stardate order, then the first season plays out differently: the preceding episode is "Angel One" and involves the Romulan Neutral Zone, while the following episode is "Home Soil" which takes place in the Pleiades Cluster. However, Pleiades are real, and they lie in the exact opposite direction from the supposed RNZ, so if Bynar is supposed to be in between, it's probably fairly close to Earth...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Finn]

^being aware of them doesn't necessarily mean they are close to Earth. Seeing how they appeared to be unaware of what was happening to their sun.... Denobulans may know of them through centuries of space travel, or 2 Bynars made their way to our neck of woods before that episode.

Phlox noted that he personally saw the procedure in which a Bynar was fitted with a synaptic processor. I'm sure such an occurrance is rare other than on their homeworld, so I think its reasonable that Phlox was either on their homeworld, or Byanus and Denobula had a close enough relationship that such a relatively "intimate" procedure (in a Bynar's viewpoint) would be shared.

On the first note, while we do not have any concrete information, the Denobulans do not seem to be very far traveled. We are not even sure if they had high-warp capability (they almost certainly didn't surpass the Vulcans in this, and were at least warp-5 like Earth during the 22nd century). This alone wouldn't allow for far journey's which the Enterprise-D was capable of.

Fair enough. Except in that episode with the Antarans, it was implied they were warp capable for centuries, more than enough time for them to spread out.

It was mentioned that Talaxians were warp capable (or close) 900 years before Voyager so I'd accept seeing a Talaxian in the background in a 22nd Century space outpost since there's more than enough time for a group of Talaxian family line to straggle down the Galaxy toward our neck of the woods.

 

[fungun]

Timo, thank you for your insites.
I have decided to go with your first suggestion, since Denoblua Triaxa is in that direction also.
So the stars i picked were-for the Tarsas System, Iota Piscium- and for the Beta Magellan System, Xi Pegasi.

Tim