It wasn't so much the only ship in range as it had been contacted directly by Regula, and Kirk wanted to find out for himself what was going on.
The only ship within 3 days' journey? (TMP)
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It wasn't so much the only ship in range as it had been contacted directly by Regula, and Kirk wanted to find out for himself what was going on.
Being the only starship nearby never seemed unreasonable to me. Starships are built to explore the galaxy and defend the Federation - any hanging around Earth, at the very center of the Federation during a time of peace for no good reason would be a waste of an extremely valuable and limited resource.
That's not what Kirk said. "I told Starfleet all we had was a boatload of children, but we're the only ship in the quadrant."
Ah. I forgot that line. One wonders how that type of quadrant is defined by Starfleet.
Not sure but there's also this line when Enterprise first encounters Reliant:
This seems to indicate that a "section" is a larger area of space, with a "quadrant" a subdivision of it.
Could a "section" be a TOS version of a TNG sector, being a cube 20 LY across?
Enterprise was the "only ship (available) in the quadrant" beforehand, so does a "quadrant" cover only 1 solar system or several?
So many questions!
I believe that each subspace communications beacon has a limited range. Maybe the wedges of space between beacons form each quadrant.
TOS quadrants are smaller sectors in space, perhaps spanning a dozen star systems each. Each are broken down to a three digit number suggesting around a thousand separate quadrants at most. A 20 lightyear cube sounds a little small, but possible. I think it is closer to a 100 LY cube. The Enterprise has been known to travel more than a 100 LY's in less than three days (if they avoid gravity wells along the way. 
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)^Re: #17
All references to quadrants in TOS had them numbered. TUC refers to Alpha and Beta. That may be the difference in designation that distinquishes between the two.
We also learn in TWOK that space is divided into sections. For example:
SULU: Now leaving section sixteen for section seventeen.
and
KOBAYASHI MARU VOICE: Gamma Hydra section ten.
I would theorize that in universe, at some point the term quadrant was replaced with section, as the galactic quadrants began gaining greater importance in interstellar politics and the lesser quadrant referent was seen as confusing. IRL, of course, the TWOK writers just used the language they wanted to.
All references to quadrants in TOS had them numbered. TUC refers to Alpha and Beta. That may be the difference in designation that distinquishes between the two.
We also learn in TWOK that space is divided into sections. For example:
SULU: Now leaving section sixteen for section seventeen.
and
KOBAYASHI MARU VOICE: Gamma Hydra section ten.
I would theorize that in universe, at some point the term quadrant was replaced with section, as the galactic quadrants began gaining greater importance in interstellar politics and the lesser quadrant referent was seen as confusing. IRL, of course, the TWOK writers just used the language they wanted to.
TOS quadrants are smaller sectors in space, perhaps spanning a dozen star systems each. Each are broken down to a three digit number suggesting around a thousand separate quadrants at most. A 20 lightyear cube sounds a little small, but possible. I think it is closer to a 100 LY cube. The Enterprise has been known to travel more than a 100 LY's in less than three days (if they avoid gravity wells along the way.
Your list of references is incomplete. In "The Trouble With Tribbles":
[
I note that TWOK is probably the only time "section" is used for a volume of space.
In TOS and TAS both "sector" and "quadrant" are used for various volumes of space many times. I t is possible that there could be different subdivisions of space called by the name of "quadrant" and/or by the name of sector".
I can think of a precedent for that.
In the 19th century the US army was composed of companies, with an authorized strength of about 100 men each. Each company was part of a regiment - an infantry regiment usually had ten companies. During the US Civil War of 1861-1865, a few regiments would be organized into a brigade, a few brigades would be organized into a division, a few divisions would be organized into a corps, and one or more corps would make a field army.
But there were also territorial commands. Each fort or post had a commander. Often several posts would be grouped into a district. A department would contain several posts and/or districts, and the commander of a department was usually also the commander of a field army with the same name as his department. A department was often part of a division.
Note that a (territorial) department could be part of a (territorial ) division, and a (territorial ) division would be subject to the War Department in Washington, DC. So the commander of a (territorial ) division would be both above several departments and below a department.
The commander of a (territorial) department during the civil war was usually also the unit commander of a field army, and a field army contained one or more corps, each corps containing several divisions. So a (territorial) department commander would usually have several divisions (units) under his command while also often being under the command of a (territorial ) division commander who was under the command of the War Department in Washington.
I also believe that a division was a term for a more or less temporary tactical unit of a regiment. If that is correct that type of division would be a part of a regiment which would usually be part of a brigade which would usually be part of a division (unit) which would usually be part of a corps which would usually be part of a field army which would usually be more or less equivalent to a (territorial) department which was often part of a (territorial ) division and all were part of the War Department.
So both division and department were used for more than one level in the military hierarchy.
Thus I can believe that in the era of TOS and TAS the galaxy, or the explored part of it, could have been divided into (large) sectors which were subdivided into (large) quadrants which were subdivided into (small) sectors which were subdivided into (small) quadrants.
Or maybe space was divided into (large) quadrants which were subdivided into (large) sectors which were subdivided into (small) quadrants which were subdivided into (small) sectors.
In "Space Seed":
So they are the first Earth or Federation ship recorded to have entered this sector for years.
And later:
If "this sector" is the same sector that hasn't had any flights into it for years, the people at Starbase Twelve must be very eager to be reassigned and eagerly counting the time until it is scheduled, because they would have been at that same outpost with little to do or little happening for years.
So did Kirk change their heading from the deserted sector to the more active sector containing Starbase Twelve? Maybe, but the way Kirk mentions the starbase as his command base makes it seem like the Enterprise didn't just now enter that sector and fall under the authority of Starbase Twelve, but instead that has been the situation for weeks or months.
So to me it seems likely that the deserted sector was a part of the much larger sector were the Enterprise was assigned to for some time before and after "Space Seed". Thus it seems likely that "sector" is used for two different sized volumes of space in TOS, with one size of sector being at least one level below the other size of sector.
The use of quadrants to refer to rather small volumes of space continued in the first season or two of TNG. The use of quadrant for a vast quarter of the entire galactic disc began in the third season episode "The Price", 11 November 1989.
After traveling through the wormhole, LaForge says:
That clearly establishes the vast size of the quadrants used in this episode and all later ones.
Just a minute or two earlier:
So there are at least 3,556 sectors in the Delta Quadrant.
Since our galaxy has a galactic disc that is about 100,000 light years in diameter, and about 1,000 or 2,000 light years thick, each galactic quadrant would be shaped like a quarter of a circle, and have a radius of about 50,000 light years.
Various more or less official maps produced for Star Trek indicate the galaxy has a radius of exactly 50,000 light years which could be the radius of the fictional galactic barrier.
We could assume that there are 9,999 sectors in the Delta Quadrant and that they are arranged in a square 100 sectors by 100 sectors, and thus many of the sectors would actually be beyond the official edge of the galaxy and have very few stars.
So as seen from "above" the galaxy as in a standard galactic map, each sector would look like square 500 light years by 500 light years. But they would be about 1,000 to 2,000 light years "deep" in the third dimension in the galactic disc, and even "deeper" in the galactic core.
If the 9,999 sectors in the Delta Quadrant had an average of 1,000,000 star systems each, the total Delta Quadrant would have about 9,999,000,000 star systems, and the total galaxy would have about 39,996,000,000 star systems. Since the galaxy is believed to have at least 100,000,000,000 star systems, the average sector in the Delta Quadrant should have a few million star systems, though the actual number in a sector would vary greatly between different regions of the galaxy.
It is possible that other episodes have sectors with much higher numbers than 9,999, which would imply that there are many more sectors in a quadrant and they could be much smaller and have many fewer stars.
if sectors have numbers like 11,284 or 62,972, for example, there could be up to 99,999 sectors in a quadrant, arranged in a grid 316 by 316 sectors, with each sector thus being about 158 light years by 158 light years, while still thousands of light years "deep".
if sectors have numbers like 141,984 or 624,927, for example, there could be up to 999,999 sectors in a quadrant, arranged in a grid 1,000 by 1,000 sectors, with each sector thus being about 50 light years by 50 light years, while still thousands of light years "deep".
I believe that in the TNG era a sector is officially supposed to be a cube 20 light years on a side. I don't know if that is canon. A quadrant could have 6,250,000 of those sectors arranged in a grid 2,500 sectors by 2,500 sectors. On a single level. Where the galaxy is 1,000 light years thick there would be 50 levels of such sectors, where the galaxy is 2,000 light years thick there would be 100 levels of such sectors, and so on.
If the system of sectors is a rectangle 100,000 light years on a side and 1,000 light years thick, it would have 1,250,000,000 of such sectors.
So I could imagine that in the era of TNG the galaxy could be divided into four quadrants, and each quadrant subdivided into 999 vast sectors, and each of those large sectors could be subdivided into other units, perhaps called quadrants, and each of those smaller units could be subdivided into smaller sectors 20 light years on a side. Or possibly there are even more levels in the system.
Thus it seems likely that during both TOS and TNG eras space is divided into many different levels of volumes of different sizes, even though the only levels named are quadrants and sectors, leading to speculation that the same designation might confusingly be used for different levels.
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I left it off on purpose. I took the reference as more joke rather that the Klingon was actually dividing the quadrant in half and stating facts about linguistic preferences. The Trouble with Tribbles at this point clearly established the concept of the quadrant with Kirk discussions with Nilz Baris, et. al.
Interesting that K7 was only one parsec (3.26 LY) from the nearest Klingon outpost. (Closest enough to smell them.
) Maybe the quadrant does straddle the Federation/Klingon space in the area with about half the area in Klingon space. This also assumes that the Federation and Klingon Empire now use the same quadrant system in dividing up space.
And from that one little line suddenly the galaxy is divided in quarters and The Federation is in 2 quadrants because of this.
Anyone that cared enough to bother knew "quadrants" in Star Trek were interchangeable with saying "area", now in the Movie/TNG era it's "a quarter of the galaxy". This is one of the reasons I don't pay too much attention to anything after the animated Star Trek was done. The thought that there wasn't another ship around to investigate isn't that hard to believe, saying Enterprise was the only ship in that quarter of the galaxy is just asinine. Fortunately, 90%+ of people wouldn't give this a thought.
The first references to the new quadrant system was in STVI:TUC movie:
So, the first five TOS movies used the old TOS sector/quadrant system. Sulu mentions they were in the Beta Quadrant and moved into the Alpha Quadrant during the STVI:TUC movie. He also said "sector", so, I think either a sector is a subset of a Quadrant or another dividing system overlaying the four Quadrants, probably the later. By definition, a quadrant is four equally divided pieces of a circle, sphere or other shape.
My theory is that in TOS, the galaxy was divided into sectors, and each sector was subdivided into four little "q" quadrants. Each quadrant was assigned a three digit number. (This gives a maximum of 1000 quadrants or 250 sectors for mapping known Federation space. Possible a 5 x 5x 10 arrangement? To cover known Fed space of about 1000 LY x 1000 LY x 2000 LY shape, each sector would need to be ~200 LY cube. Quartered, it makes quadrants ~100 LY in one or more dimensions which support my previous post that quadrants are about 100 LY in size.)
In TNG (and the last TOS movie), the galaxy was divided into the four big "Q" Quadrants (Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma) for big picture discussions, and for real navigation, the galaxy map was divided into many sectors. Apparently, they stopped the subdivision into four small quadrants. Fandom has put out maps with radial 10,000 LY wedges as a sector with it subdivided into 1000 LY and sub-sub divided into 100 LY pieces. Maybe TOS used the same system but we only see the 100 LY sub-sectors further divided into 4 small quadrants which makes a quadrant only about 50 LY across. I could live with 50 LY quadrants, but I still think 100 LY quadrants are needed to make more sense.
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There is no pressing need to think the smaller quadrants were discontinued (cf. "Morgana Quadrant"). Faster ships would simply have less need to mind the smaller units, except as point targets (again cf. "Morgana Quadrant").
The smaller a quadrant, the less likely it is for another starship to be present. But making the quadrant small does not directly carry the "penalty" of another starship making it to that quadrant quickly - quadrant A lacking ships other than the hero one does not mean that all the neighboring quadrants B through Z would have a ship.
Indeed, Kirk would seldom even know where other starships are supposed to be - even Starfleet often is content with knowing where they used to be six months ago when they last made contact. So all Kirk could tell is that no other ships are in the quadrant - claiming that none were in the sector might be beyond his means, even with small quadrants and sectors of TNG style. Plus, other ships in the sector might be too busy to deal with minor issues such as a Regula One bureaucratic conundrum, so only ships already at point blank range might be bothered to assist...
My preference would be to defend the "default" position of unchanging sectors and quadrants/Quadrants, at the backstage-suggested dimensions even, and to troubleshoot individual contradictions case by case (such as Kirk's seemingly insignificant ST2 issue being extremely local compared to most of his adventures, and certainly to all of the multi-starship ones, and his TMP emergency involving such short timespans as to make it local, etc.). YMMV, especially considering the hard numbers. But again, case by case, and in defense of a single consistent pseudo-universe where TOS ships aren't actually faster than TNG ones...
Timo Saloniemi
The smaller a quadrant, the less likely it is for another starship to be present. But making the quadrant small does not directly carry the "penalty" of another starship making it to that quadrant quickly - quadrant A lacking ships other than the hero one does not mean that all the neighboring quadrants B through Z would have a ship.
Indeed, Kirk would seldom even know where other starships are supposed to be - even Starfleet often is content with knowing where they used to be six months ago when they last made contact. So all Kirk could tell is that no other ships are in the quadrant - claiming that none were in the sector might be beyond his means, even with small quadrants and sectors of TNG style. Plus, other ships in the sector might be too busy to deal with minor issues such as a Regula One bureaucratic conundrum, so only ships already at point blank range might be bothered to assist...
My preference would be to defend the "default" position of unchanging sectors and quadrants/Quadrants, at the backstage-suggested dimensions even, and to troubleshoot individual contradictions case by case (such as Kirk's seemingly insignificant ST2 issue being extremely local compared to most of his adventures, and certainly to all of the multi-starship ones, and his TMP emergency involving such short timespans as to make it local, etc.). YMMV, especially considering the hard numbers. But again, case by case, and in defense of a single consistent pseudo-universe where TOS ships aren't actually faster than TNG ones...
Timo Saloniemi
You'd never know it by watching TNG with their new warp scale. We find our heroes going between warp 9.74834t5 and 9.99u348 or something silly like this. I assume TNG ships are speed-of-plot faster than TOS ships. Hundreds or even thousands of lightyears are easy to travel in single episodes.
Even though I'm still not comfortable with the explanation that the ship was the only one of its class between V'ger and Earth, I still don't get why Starfleet wouldn't throw everything & the kitchen sink at something that had demonstrated itself to be a major threat, whether that meant responding with big ships or little ships. Obviously a military solution wasn't the answer, but if the ship had failed for whatever reason, it wouldn't make sense to have no backup whatsoever.
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Starfleet saw that there was no military solution, so, they sent their best, most experienced Starfleet Captain to pursue a first contact, diplomatic solution. I think Starfleet and Kirk underestimated the unreadiness of the Enterprise, but, it was only meant to be safe transportation to get Kirk to V'ger. Kirk was successful in opening initial contact and starting a dialog with V'ger (through Ilia-bot). Kirk even needed to educate V'ger on diplomatic communications, even by refusing to comply with a request. The art of give and take worked. In the end, Kirk (and crew) successfully maneuvered V'ger to a favorable solution for Earth. One last McCoy-Spock jab and fly off, never looking back, as usual.
I seem to recall the novelisation clarifying the situation a little in that due to the speed which V'Ger was travelling, the only vessel around Sol able to intercept it BEFORE the cloud arrived at its target was the Enterprise.
It was a last minute gamble, but the only one they had
It was a last minute gamble, but the only one they had
...Of course, it's not as if we would learn of "competing" or "backup" missions during the movie even if they did happen, as our heroes are cut off from Starfleet much of the time.
Perhaps lesser ships attempted intercept while Kirk was in the bowels of the intruder, and those other ships either didn't survive to tell the tale, or didn't have enough of a tale to tell. "We got digitized" would probably be terminal for those also-rans, while "We sorta bounced off" or "We blew up our engines trying to catch up" or "We did get there and almost saved the universe but then the whole thing disappeared in a flash of light" would not be included in the movie simply because there would be no point.
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps lesser ships attempted intercept while Kirk was in the bowels of the intruder, and those other ships either didn't survive to tell the tale, or didn't have enough of a tale to tell. "We got digitized" would probably be terminal for those also-rans, while "We sorta bounced off" or "We blew up our engines trying to catch up" or "We did get there and almost saved the universe but then the whole thing disappeared in a flash of light" would not be included in the movie simply because there would be no point.
Timo Saloniemi
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