UFP - Cardassia first contact?

[Silverstreak]

They have to be wrong in some way, otherwise how could such a large intergalactic empire be so close to the Federation and yet they not even know it's there?

[jkp1187]

They have to be wrong in some way, otherwise how could such a large intergalactic empire be so close to the Federation and yet they not even know it's there?

To quote some wit: "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space...."

On a basic level, almost all of the star charts I've seen are "wrong". THe whole idea of a "Federation" space, "Klingon" space, etc., bisected by "Neutral Zones" of at least one light-year in width extending the full 500 ly up to the galactic edge is a bit silly. Why would any power would want to claim cubic light-years of empty space? Countries don't even do that on Earth with regard to the oceans, and there are actually be minerals and fishing rights worth having there! The cost of continually patrolling and scanning empty space would be great for no appreciable benefit. After all, it would be much easier to have patrol ships secure each star system individually (although still a great challenge given the distances that would need to be covered.) This is why I think it more likely that a "neutral zone" could exist around a star system and be reasonably enforced, but not in the middle of open, empty space.

Also: Any star chart that puts Qo'noS more than 1.4 light-years from the Solar System is wrong. Assuming that it only takes Enterprise NX-01 four days at w/f 5 to get there, and since w/f 5 (per OCU, which Enterprise *must* be using,) is 125x the speed of light, then Qo'noS is 1.4 light-years away. (There's also no way they could visit Rigel on the way, which our present-day astronomers estimate to be between 500 and 1000 ly from Sol.)

As for Cardassia, yes, given the ability of the UFP to intercept transmissions it seems odd that it could be located within, say, 200 l/y and not be contacted until the mid/late 24th century (because even transmissions travelling at the speed of light leaving Cardassia Prime in the early 22d century would have reached Earth by then, to say nothing of FTL transmissions.) The real problem is, however, that no date for first contact was ever specified. So, in reality, as a GM, you can have it however you'd like.

Again, my point is: nothing is "wrong" when it comes to Star Trek distances (cosmography, if you will,) because EVERYTHING is wrong on some level. If you're GM'ing, pick a story line that works with what you want to do, and make your players go with it. Otherwise, you just end up spending time arguing over contradictory sources like Muslim scholars arguing about whether or not 74 virgins can fit on the head of a pin.

[SIR SIG]

Is someone having a go at Star Charts? :P

jkp1187:

Have you not heard of the theories of Warp 'highways' using the Cochrane Factor etc. ???
There are a few explanations that allow Qo'nos to be quite some distance from Sol.

Aside from all that, Star Charts is ultimately a 2D representation.

Check out Jed Whitten's Star Map website:

http://www.whitten.org/starmap/index.php

[Imagus]

Yeah, I go with the "subspace highway" theory too! After all, I think we'd have to have noticed if there was another star only 1 and a half light years from Sol

I decided that Bajor has to be fairly close to Earth, since a Runabout can make the trip in about 48 hours, and I think an explicit distance was mentioned on a couple of occasions on the show. Hence my argument that the Federation was certainly aware of the Cardassians quite early on; but they may not have been seen as a threat. Is it not possible that the Cardassians took an essentially isolationist view towards the Federation for nearly a century before war broke out?

I like the Star Charts maps - they nearly all make sense. The somewhat nebulous nature of the Federation certainly explains why their neighbours are all so paranoid! I work on the basis that the Federation is the shape it is because it is essentially an alliance: worlds join on a voluntary basis, then Starfleet attempts to maintain the trade routes to them. There are plenty of neutral, and even hostile, worlds scattered in pockets of unpatrolled space throughout the Federation territory. Starfleet almost certainly limits its patrols to inhabited systems, except where there are other dangers, such as piracy and smuggling.

OTOH, Imperial powers such as the Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians probably try to maintain "solid" borders. With the level of technology possessed by these cultures ("Sir, I've detected a warp signature 3 light years off the port bow."), a grid of sensor buoys would not be that difficult to maintain. You just have to remember that such a grid would be two-dimensional, not a line.

If you imagine that both the Klingons and Starfleet probably spent decades trying to outflank each other (and the area of Organian influence) along their mutual border, the extreme length of that boundary starts to make sense. Starfleet explorers probably passed within about ten light years of Union space and never noticed them, with all their focus on the Klingons. Then Betazed and Cait join the organisation, providing the necessary bases for further expansion, and there was no real need to expand "west". There's also a case for the idea that the Klingon/Federation border to the "south" is somewhat blurred, especially with treaty provisions like those that affected Sherman's Planet.

Imagine the Caribbean in the seventeenth century and you have some idea of the feel I'm trying to develop for my game.

"Aye, Jym lad, there be pirates off the Orion Main"

[jkp1187]

Is someone having a go at Star Charts? :P

jkp1187:

Have you not heard of the theories of Warp 'highways' using the Cochrane Factor etc. ???
There are a few explanations that allow Qo'nos to be quite some distance from Sol.

Aside from all that, Star Charts is ultimately a 2D representation.

Check out Jed Whitten's Star Map website:

http://www.whitten.org/starmap/index.php

Oh, lord, I'm not trying to go after anyone here, and I only briefly paged through a copy of "Star Charts" at Barnes & Noble a year or two ago, so I can't really comment in depth on it. (It looked nice, for what it's worth. Nice pictures.)

All I'm saying is that reality and consistency often collide to create a big mess in Star Trek, and that if you're going for either in your campaign (or both, as I am, as much as possible,) then you often just have to pick an idea and go with it.

As for theories of "warp highways"....well, I've heard of both of those words, and know what they mean in isolation, but I have to admit, I'm at a bit of a loss when you put them together in a sentence like that. Certainly not in Popular Science (although I shouldn't have let my subscription run out,) and definitely not in any of the various TV/Cinema incarnations of Star Trek. (Other than Borg Transwarp Corridors, which is clearly not what you're referring to here....)

But let's not get into a debate here. All I'm saying is: trying to find a consistent pattern for everything mentioned in five different TV series, (six if you count the cartoons,) ten different movies, countless books is wasted effort. A majority of the shows/movies were good, but they all don't necessarily hang together.

There are certain things that must be there. Starships. Space Stations. Earth. Phasers. Vulcans. New life, new civilizations. Boldly go, etc., etc. The rest can be whatever you want it to be. That's the beauty of Star Trek RPG. Just be consistent with yourself, and your players will forgive tinkering on the margins. In my opinion, Star Trek writers would do themselves a favor if they would quit worrying about making sure that every last throwaway line written in 1966 (or 1986) is rationalized, and instead take the attitude Arthur C. Clarke brought to the "Space Odyssey" series: these are similar people doing similar things in a similar, but not necessarily identical, universe. But I know I'm a minority there...

And last, if you want to have something called "warp highways", by all means, flesh it out, come up with some rules, backstory, and whatnot and let's put it in a Netbook, so the rest of us GMs can steal it if it looks good!

[Tobian]

Well much like warp drive bends the rules of the universe, so do warp highways bend the rules of warp drive

http://www.ditl.org/index.htm?daymai...scitech.php?17

To be honest It is a very good explanation based on what we've seen in the show, because why else would Captain Archer (In Enterprise) have needed Vulcan Star Charts... when they never went more than 50 odd lightyears, which is well within our current ability to detect (heck Hubble is detecting galaxies on the edge of the known universe in huge detail!) unless those charts contained something more...

Getting back to the Cardassians.. It's tenuous to say that they didn't know about each other if they were closer than 50 lightyears (the approximate distance of Bajor, and Cardassia primeis only a couple of lightyears away from it), they would probably have been reading each others comms signals, if only marginally.. No I imagine that in both cases it was simply a question of one more contact... Depending on What the Cardassians heard it was either they weren't interested enough to send ships all the way out there to investigate (being too busy subjugating their neighbours) or the Federation seemed too big of a target for them to chew off for the moment.. The Cardassians were a way beind the Federation technologically, but without a large empire I can't see that have exploding as fast as the federation did, so relativelly speaking the Federation came out of nowhere!

The Federation was dealing with thousands of worlds, meeting greeting and negotiating: untill they made their presence felt on the galactic stage, the Federation may have simply paid them no heed. On the flip side of that the Federation may well have known about the Cardassians for years before first contact.. they agressivelly annexed Bajor, and no doubt several other civilisations you don't hear about on the show, on their side of the border. The Federation was hardly likelly to let them take over it's own space, or treat people like that, but they were probably wary of a confrontation when they were already feeling the heat from the Klingons and Romulans, hence first contact may have been deliberatelly delayed (officially) till the 2300's, (when hostilities with the Klingons had slowed and approached peace) though they may well have had several subspace antennaes and telescopes scrutinising them in great detail.

However it went, it was likelly quite cold at first.. each one probably sizing up the other: The Cardassians weighing up a potential new expansion (building up enogh forces to defeat the Federation would have taken allot of time, possibly explaining why they went through such harshness in the previous century.. Cardassia may have striped it's self bare in preperation for invasion) or proactivelly getting ready to defend it's self from Federation incursions (as they may have misunderstood their intent) and the Federation was probably a little too overconfident, probably falling for the first trap, and sucking them both in to a war, which the Cardassians lost (it was technically a draw, but I suspect the Federation decided to sue for peace rather than finish them off.). From their appearance on the show, I would say that the Cardassians would most likelly welcomed first contact with the Federation with diplomatic aplomb and a smile, the Cardassians seem to get a peverse satisfaction being overly polite: They most likelly figured out that they were the weaker side, so they would have probably gathered as much info as they could before making any decision.

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

Interesting theory Tobian.

I'm not sure I would go with technologically weaker so much so as resource poor and probably lacking the economic infrastructure for a prolonged war. While none of the books are canon, more then a few state that the Union had a higher level of technology then the Federation in several areas.

I never quite stomached that and I do not know if it was ever stated in any episode that this was the case but I tend to treat them as about equal in my campaigns for technology but coming nowhere near the Federation on an economic scale.

Regards,
CKV.

[Tobian]

Several episodes showed the Federation to have a good edge on technology over the Cardassians.. In the TNG episode 'The wounded' (I think it was) The Cardassian was greatly surprised when the Enterprise showed them an overlay showing them all of the ships in the local area, including what was what. In several of the early episodes of DS9 they constantly moaned about how low tech the station was.. the Cardassians still using active transporters (instead of pattern buffered) and the poor state of the technology aboard. Ok they are not likelly to have left all of their cutting edge stuff on board.. but they are hardly likelly to remove their EPS conduits, Computer core and transporter system... and then replace them, just before they leave!

During the wars with the Cardassians (pre DS9) the Federation did have a technological advantage, but the Cardassians were supreme tacticians

In the Post Dominion war setting there would be pockets of Cardassian scientists who would have handfulls of Dominion technology, however what they had and what was kept secret from them would be up to a GM, they were definatelly NOT equal partners.. I hardly imagine that the Dominion would hand over the tools with which the Cardassians would defeat them!

The DS9 technical manual directly stated that the Cardassians were lower in technology than the Federation (though they have some highs, it's not a smooth comparison) and a quick overview of their technology values shows the Federations general superiority, if slight) The DS9 manual also hinted that the Cardassians heavily 'borrowed' from the Federation, so once first contact had begun, I imagine these differences would have been ironed out a little more.. the Cardassians were known to place highly trained and skilled undercovered agents, so there is likelly allot of industrial espionage! However technically the DS9 technical manual is non Canon (and often wrong, especially with their ship sizes!)

[SIR SIG]

Good Lord, jkp1187, it was in jest. Seeing that i am the resident mapmaker and and helped with Star Charts as well.

Anyways, most of the Cardassion Union in a 3D perspective could be quite far from Federation space.

Oh, lord, I'm not trying to go after anyone here, and I only briefly paged through a copy of "Star Charts" at Barnes & Noble a year or two ago, so I can't really comment in depth on it. (It looked nice, for what it's worth. Nice pictures.)

[SIR SIG]

Very good points bot Tobian and Cpt K Vaughn.

The poor resources of the Cardassians certainly wouldn't have helped in a War atleast until they had Bajor. Perhaps the vary reason of annexing Bajor was for a buffer state and extra resources? hmmm.

[Silverstreak]

First of all when you look at the shows and why certain places are where they place them it's for convient story telling.

Everything about Enterprise's trip to Qu'NoS in 4 day or 5 days is completely and utterly wrong. That show has far more flaws in it than TNG, DS9 and Voyager had altogether.

Also, my theory is that Bajor and Cardassia are so far from the core of the Federation that first contact would have been easily into the 2300's. If you look at many of the charts in Star Charts, I think while they look nice, are mostly incorrect. I personally think LUG's was on the right track with the maps they were using and developing. Especially since it left the Federation with no idea what was on the opposite side of Romulan Space, Unlike Star Charts which shows the Federation basically surrounds Romulan territory, which from watching the shows doesn't make a great deal of sense.

[Tobian]

Uhm well except then how do the principal characters get to Earth and Qo'nos and back to bajor within the space of an episode.. While an episode is of a lose lenght of time.. several weeks is NOT enough time to travel 100+ lightyears (there and back) as it is! These characters used Ferengi pods and Runabouts, which, while technically faster than Enterprise are still VERY slow compared to most Starships - the Runabout being clocked about warp 4.5 (new scale) - so if you're going to bash enterprise realise you are also bashing DS9 with a heavy boot also

[Silverstreak]

Uhm well except then how do the principal characters get to Earth and Qo'nos and back to bajor within the space of an episode.. While an episode is of a lose lenght of time.. several weeks is NOT enough time to travel 100+ lightyears (there and back) as it is! These characters used Ferengi pods and Runabouts, which, while technically faster than Enterprise are still VERY slow compared to most Starships - the Runabout being clocked about warp 4.5 (new scale) - so if you're going to bash enterprise realise you are also bashing DS9 with a heavy boot also

I'm not, as I said, those were used for story telling purposes. That's all. No matter how you look at it, they are still wrong.

[jkp1187]

Well much like warp drive bends the rules of the universe, so do warp highways bend the rules of warp drive

http://www.ditl.org/index.htm?daymai...scitech.php?17

To be honest It is a very good explanation based on what we've seen in the show, because why else would Captain Archer (In Enterprise) have needed Vulcan Star Charts... when they never went more than 50 odd lightyears, which is well within our current ability to detect (heck Hubble is detecting galaxies on the edge of the known universe in huge detail!) unless those charts contained something more...

(Arrgh...getting sucked back into this argument....)

Well, conservative astronomers say that they can only be confident of distances for stars within 20 l/y (though this is apparently open to debate). But even if you could get an Earth-based reading, it still would be useful to have precise information on relative position of the star system and (much more importantly,) the current velocity of the star itself. It's not going to be in the same position tomorrow that it is today. Any Captain worth his salt would want the most precise information possible, especially if it can be provided by people who have actually visited the place. (And, besides, it was a useful MacGuffin to get T'Pol on board!) So I don't take that throwaway line about "Star Charts" as definitive of anything....

By the way: the link didn't lead to a definition of anything. (If it did, I didn't see it.)

Getting back to the Cardassians.. It's tenuous to say that they didn't know about each other if they were closer than 50 lightyears (the approximate distance of Bajor, and Cardassia primeis only a couple of lightyears away from it), they would probably have been reading each others comms signals, if only marginally.. No I imagine that in both cases it was simply a question of one more contact... Depending on What the Cardassians heard it was either they weren't interested enough to send ships all the way out there to investigate (being too busy subjugating their neighbours) or the Federation seemed too big of a target for them to chew off for the moment.. The Cardassians were a way beind the Federation technologically, but without a large empire I can't see that have exploding as fast as the federation did, so relativelly speaking the Federation came out of nowhere!

Okay, getting back on the original point of this thread.... I'm not all that worried about distance -- if Cardassians had FTL communications, the Feds would know about them for a while -- maybe 50 to 100 years before actually meeting face-to-face. Sort of the position of Holland and Japan in 1550AD. The Dutch know that there's such a place as "the Japans" and have a _general_ idea of where it is, but no one on either side has devoted the resources to actually reach out to meet the other yet.

So, in short, ca. 2301AD is not a bad time to have that first actual face-to-face meeting by a long-range scout. I think I might try to work this into the campaign at some point.

[Tobian]

jkp1187 - Erm where were you looking.. on the one I sent there is a section labeled 'Warp highways'? I checked the link and it worked for me?? It is simply spelling out a condensed version of several people's interpretation of how warp drive can be made to fit the available facts.

yes I do agree with you to an extent however the maps themselvs VISUALLY have strange lines crossing them, which don't conform to local group gravity and matter bubling, implying warp highways, tenuous at best, but then what are they...

Silverstreak - erm you are! Sorry but this is a boring game, if you're going to build an argument about something don't just claim I'm wrong. My point was that you are NOT going to get ALL of the facts to fit in any way, DS9 contradicts it's self hugelly, by claiming it is on the 'edge of the federation' which has a STATED radius of at least 8000 lightyears, and you are saying they can go this far and back in the course of an episode? Sorry No you can't, hence people have proposed the joint theories of a) the Federation is lumpy, which does NOT contradict anything stated in the show and b) there are things known as warp highways, where for unknown reasons warp speed is rendered much faster. While never implicitly stated on the show: Transwarp conduits work in this fashion, as do Xindi drive technologies, and a known 'subspace sandbar' was identified in an episode, which if tenuous does imply that a cochrane factor is not always the same in every place.

NB: it is stated in the TNG technical manual that the reason they rebuilt the warp scale in the TNG era was because the speed did not always equal the warp factor so instead it simply represents the amount of 'cochranes' (as a measure of subspace distortion employed) applied to form the warp field.. so traveling at 'warp 6' is not always a specific speed, ergo for as much as there would be regions where warp speed is lower there could be regions where it is faster - hence warp highways and sandbars as in the above article.

Anyway I suggest you look at this -> http://www.stdimension.org/int/Carto...artography.htm which has a tremendous amount of information of gathered information on the relative location of things, including stated distances on the show.. and as you will see little of the stated facts of canon sit well together without tweaking heavilly, and by using the two precepts I mention. I am not just speaking off the top of my head but borrowing from far bigger geeks than myself

With regards to the subspace comms thread, and yes back on topic, I agree, but there are a number of factors.. Subspace comms use accelerated photons to convey information, but these rapidly degrade, so very long range comms are inplausible.. local comms are more or less real time, but even only a few hundred lightyears can render the signal into a lightspeed communique, as it looses speed (which will arive in.. a few hundred years! ) hence within the Federation (and others) they use booster relays, exactly as we do today, to boost signal noise gain, and amplify the signal (and in this case, retransmit it reaccelerated).. Outside of this network, what you actually get is going to be patchy at best.. Often times Kirk Picard et all couldn't get a clean signal home, simply because of distance.. to use a modern analogy, it's like trying to make a cellphone call nowhere near an antennae SO what the Federation would get would be patchy at best.. There is also the problem of frequency.. YES Federation devices can cope better than todays radio telescopes, but look at the work of SETI, and you will see how hard it is to spot anything, because there are billions of bandwidths.. and that's just subwarp!

I Imagine that the Cardassians might have been a little like the early Ferengi.. people had seen them, odd reports had come in, they knew they existed, and roughly where, but then how many other civilisations in the Federations space are just like that! Starfleet will send out a vessel, eventually, but once they had expanded outwards so fast in the 22nd - 23rd century, they had allot of empty space to explore!