Terminus of Bajoran Wormhole

[Photon]

It ended near Idran star system, 4.8 LY from it. Now was this in Dominion proper or in "neutral" space

I've seen 3 maps of the GQ, and 2 has it in neutral space and one clearly in Dominion space.
It could be simply when the maps were generated.

With the former 2 prior to the Odyssey incident and the later perhaps drawn during the war.

 

[Ra'min]

Something strange.

Before the wormhole was discovered, this star system had nothing noteworthy for the federatio. It was just a star dozens of thousands lights-years away from explored space, one among dozens of billions stars in the galaxy (no M class planet), detected by some deep space telescope, nothnig more.

But, when sisko arrives there, the runabout's computer names the star to him, and he reacts.

SISKO: Can you get a fix on our coordinates... ?

DAX: (checking) There's a star just under five light years away... no M class planets... Computer, identify closest star system...

COMPUTER VOICE: Idran... a ternary system consisting of a central supergiant and twin O- type companions...

SISKO: (reacts) Idran... that can't be right...



How is that possible?

How could this star have a name, and not some code like ADXS-4587_21 or so ? The number or "nice sounding" names you can make is limited to a few millions, several orders of magnitude too few to name all stars in the milky way.

Worst, how could sisko recognized this name ? He sure can't know all stars in the Galaxy by name !!

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I would wonder if Idran was of an unusual type...perhaps a cepheid variable or Wolf-Rayet star--something that might be used for mapping and thus be named and known. (Of course, if this is the case, you'd have some problems with the system being inhabitable--at least, I THINK so...we'd need a real astronomer to say something.)

 

[nx1701g]

How could this star have a name, and not some code like ADXS-4587_21 or so ? The number or "nice sounding" names you can make is limited to a few millions, several orders of magnitude too few to name all stars in the milky way.

Worst, how could sisko recognized this name ? He sure can't know all stars in the Galaxy by name !!

Perhaps Captain Sisko made a point of learning the names of the systems near Bajor on his way to the Station? It would make sense for him to know what stars were in the immediate area of the station. Too all of the previously encountered wormholes were unstable so they may have assumed, at first, that they were merely a few lightyears from where they originally were instead of 70,000+ light years (starcharts).

As for names, well the Quadros One Probe was in the area and transmitted data back to Starfleet. Maybe the probe specifically visited the planet?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Idran was on the Gamma Quadrant terminus, though, not the AQ one. The AQ terminus is in the Denorios Belt in the Bajor system.

Personally, I still think Idran is the name given to a cepheid variable or Wolf-Rayet star. These two types of stars can be used for stellar cartography and navigation. We have even identified cepheid variable stars (yep, individual stars) OUTSIDE the Local Group of galaxies.

Here's some stuff about variable stars, including the cepheid and Wolf-Rayet varieties...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star

I suspect Idran was a type of star in this article, which is why it was named, would've gotten extra attention from Starfleet stellar cartographers, and would've been easily recognizable to Sisko (likely as a major "landmark" of the Gamma Quadrant). Starfleet officers may even have been taught about certain very obvious, easy-to-identify stars once people first started finding spatial anomalies, in order to help them to get a fix on their location if they got thrown far from home.

 

[Photon]

Idran was on the Gamma Quadrant terminus, though, not the AQ one. The AQ terminus is in the Denorios Belt in the Bajor system.

Personally, I still think Idran is the name given to a cepheid variable or Wolf-Rayet star. These two types of stars can be used for stellar cartography and navigation. We have even identified cepheid variable stars (yep, individual stars) OUTSIDE the Local Group of galaxies.

Here's some stuff about variable stars, including the cepheid and Wolf-Rayet varieties...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star

I suspect Idran was a type of star in this article, which is why it was named, would've gotten extra attention from Starfleet stellar cartographers, and would've been easily recognizable to Sisko (likely as a major "landmark" of the Gamma Quadrant). Starfleet officers may even have been taught about certain very obvious, easy-to-identify stars once people first started finding spatial anomalies, in order to help them to get a fix on their location if they got thrown far from home.

I'll buy this, now for the OP.....originally Dominion or neutral space?

 

[happydave]

Ron Moore says it's neutral space...

In response to inquiries as to why the Federation continued to visit the Gamma Quadrant, Ronald D. Moore stated:

"The Dominion does not own the entire Gamma Quadrant. We had explored the GQ for two years before encountering the Dominion, so it's not as though the wormhole opens up in their living room. There are other races in the GQ that are not part of the Dominion and the Ferengi at least have established trade with some of them. When the Dominion told us to stay out of the GQ, it was as if China told the US to stay out of the Yellow Sea. China is the big boy in this neck of the woods, and you better take their warning seriously, but at the same time we have trading partners and allies there and hey, freedom of the seas and all that." (AOL chat, 1997)

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

 

[Admiral Shran]

Ron Moore says it's neutral space...

In response to inquiries as to why the Federation continued to visit the Gamma Quadrant, Ronald D. Moore stated:

"The Dominion does not own the entire Gamma Quadrant. We had explored the GQ for two years before encountering the Dominion, so it's not as though the wormhole opens up in their living room. There are other races in the GQ that are not part of the Dominion and the Ferengi at least have established trade with some of them. When the Dominion told us to stay out of the GQ, it was as if China told the US to stay out of the Yellow Sea. China is the big boy in this neck of the woods, and you better take their warning seriously, but at the same time we have trading partners and allies there and hey, freedom of the seas and all that." (AOL chat, 1997)

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

I agree, I think it's just slightly outside Dominion space.

 

[The Librarian]

Ron Moore says it's neutral space...

In response to inquiries as to why the Federation continued to visit the Gamma Quadrant, Ronald D. Moore stated:

"The Dominion does not own the entire Gamma Quadrant. We had explored the GQ for two years before encountering the Dominion, so it's not as though the wormhole opens up in their living room. There are other races in the GQ that are not part of the Dominion and the Ferengi at least have established trade with some of them. When the Dominion told us to stay out of the GQ, it was as if China told the US to stay out of the Yellow Sea. China is the big boy in this neck of the woods, and you better take their warning seriously, but at the same time we have trading partners and allies there and hey, freedom of the seas and all that." (AOL chat, 1997)

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

I agree, I think it's just slightly outside Dominion space.

It would probably be most accurate to say, "It was outside of Dominion space, until the Dominion decided that it was actually inside Dominion space and informed everyone of this fact by blowing things up."

 

[Timo]

Sounds like a wrap. It doesn't seem as if anybody else would have been willing to claim that area of space, whereas the Dominion was in the very business of claiming space around there.

On the issue of Idran being a named system, yeah, I'd tend to think the star (or triplet of stars) was exceptional enough to be used as a fix point of some sort, named because it was interesting enough to be named.

Yet perhaps those sending the Quadros-1 probe didn't name it; perhaps Quadros-1 picked the name from star charts it had obtained by trading with locals? Sending probes across such major distances might not be worth the while unless those probes had a great deal of autonomy and intellect. If Quadros-1 didn't learn the name from locals, perhaps it personally chose it?

In light of "Whispers" where a runabout emerges from the Gamma end and within just a few minutes manages to reach another star system, one is prompted to think that Idran was not the nearest star system after all; merely the nearest star system the runabout's computers could recognize. Perhaps the wormhole actually is inside some other star system (because in "Destiny" we see a comet with a tail right next to the wormhole end), and the "Whispers" system with its intelligent and advanced but somewhat secretive inhabitants is the next star system over, just a lightyear or so away?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ra'min]

I'm not sure quadros-1 was "a probe".

The script says "ldran is based on the analysis conducted in the 22nd century
by the Quadros-1 probe of the Gamma Quadrant."

If the probe was a physical object, shouldn't it be "probe to the gamma quadrant"?


http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/probe

1- a device, or part of a device, used to explore, investigate or measure
Insert the probe into the soil and read the temperature.

2- an investigation or inquiry
They launched a probe into the cause of the accident.


I wonder if it's not an "investigation" of the gamma quadrant, base on long-range (subspace?) telescope
a physical probe lahnche in the 22th century to the gamma quadrant, flying warp 5 at most, would IMO still be en route in DS9 era.

 

[Timo]

Good point - but we already know of a 21st century reconnaissance robot that traveled across tens of thousands of lightyears, spanning a quadrant (or at least a half), in a matter of mere centuries.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Friendship_1

We might assume that by leaving the crew ashore, warp engineers can squeeze more speed, range and endurance out of the engine. Perhaps crewed designs suffer from limitations on warp field strength because said field may be hazardous to life and limb? Or perhaps they cannot accommodate the most powerful types of powerplant, because those pose a radiation hazard or an unacceptable risk of explosion or other catastrophic malfunction?

Or it may simply be that warp three is good enough for spanning (half) a quadrant in two centuries, and that Earth engineers knew how to build warp three engines from the very start. We never really learn when Earth starships first reached warp two or warp three or warp four; we only learn when NX-01 reached warp five, which was definitely a first.

(True, we also learn when a test rig for the NX program reached warp two, in "First Flight". But this was never said to be the first time an Earth design reached warp two - merely that it was the first time the NX engine reached said speed. Reaching the speed of sound was a major milestone for the Concorde program even though other aircraft had reached four or five times that speed already...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lindley]

Worst, how could sisko recognized this name ? He sure can't know all stars in the Galaxy by name !!

Sisko didn't need to recognize the name to know it wasn't the Bajoran sun. That would be surprising enough.