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Other History and Cartography Inconsistencies

History - Cartography

History

First contact with the Borg The history of Federation-Borg encounters seems to change every time writers come up with new stories. Not to mention that "First Contact" as well as ENT: "Regeneration" predate this event by centuries.

When Q throws the Enterprise-D far into the Beta Quadrant in TNG: "Q Who" in 2365, evidently no one has ever heard of the Borg or recognizes their characteristic cubic vessel, not even Picard. Only Guinan knows them because her people has been assimilated by them. At this point it is easy to explain in that it was actually the first Federation contact with the Borg who come from an uncharted region far away.

"Star Trek: Generations" establishes the fact that the Borg invaded El-Auria in the 23rd century and El-Aurian refugees came to the Federation territory as soon as 2293, including Guinan and Soran. Someone must have told Starfleet about their fate, if not explicitly warned them of the Borg.

In VOY: "Infinite Regress", the Federation ship U.S.S. Tombaugh is mentioned which was assimilated 13 years before, which would have been in 2362.

VOY: "Dark Frontier" has the Hansens search for the Borg apparently on behalf of Starfleet in 2354. Even worse, young Annika plays with a Borg Cube™ toy, which indicates that the Borg can't be that mysterious. Agreed, the cube was obviously built by Magnus Hansen, but it must be based on descriptions by someone who encountered the Borg and survived. It is unlikely that Hansen, who was not really among the most renowned scientists, was the only one to know about it.

We may disregard the Tombaugh incident, since there are probably no records on the ship's assimilation and it may be simply denoted as missing in Starfleet files. Therefore the Q incident in 2365 would be the first encounter on record of Starfleet with the Borg, but there must have been reports about them before. This raises several questions.

Q:  Why didn't Guinan tell Picard about the imminent Borg danger in time, knowing that nothing could have stopped them?
A: The El-Aurians had come a long way from their home, and while they almost definitely told Starfleet about their oppressors, it was probably a report taken down by some minor officer and maybe it was filed as being of little interest. We cannot really know what kind of information would have been regarded as relevant, but perhaps, with so many imminent dangers, 2290's Starfleet wouldn't be too concerned with a vague threat on the other side of the galaxy. Explaining why Guinan didn't talk to Picard about this part of her past (of several hundred years) is rather easy, considering that it's not like she was totally forthcoming about anything else either. El-Aurians listen, they don't talk.

Q:  Why isn't Picard as a high-ranking officer informed about them, whereas civilian researchers were let into the Borg secret several years before?
A: It is possible that the Borg were not really a secret but, as suggested above, they were just forgotten 60 years after the events in "Generations". The Hansens may have been the first to dig up the old El-Aurian files since that time. Maybe it was not really that the Hansens were sent, maybe they were not even authorized to seek for the Borg. Would Starfleet allow two civilian scientists to go off with their infant child alone on a starship on a journey of many years, hunting a vague threat on the other side of the galaxy? Perhaps they actually misled Starfleet about what their true intentions were, and were given the ship for a simple charting mission in the near Beta Quadrant or some other unsuspicious purpose. Starfleet would have been aware that they would have had to cross the Neutral Zone as a shortcut and nevertheless stay away for years to seek for the Borg, so it is even less likely that this was their official mission.

Q:  Why didn't the Borg come looking for the Hansens' point of origin?
A: It was just one ship, from a long way away, and they probably didn't seem all that impressive. After all, the Borg didn't bother to assimilate the ship in months while the Hansens were following them. It was only 10 years later or so, when they met the Enterprise-D, which appeared suddenly in their space, was packed with goodies, and then managed to whisk its way back home by means unknown to the Borg (who didn't know it was Q), that they decided this was of sufficient interest to investigate in their own heavy-handed way.

The explanation becomes much harder if we take into account the events from "Star Trek: First Contact" and ENT: "Regeneration". Obviously human beings have seen the Borg and may have records of them three centuries before the alleged first "official" contact with the Enterprise-D in 2365. At least Zefram Cochrane, who was told about the "cybernetic beings" and Lily Sloane, who has seen them face to face, knew about the Borg. We may still excuse that in that no one may have believed them, even if they had told everyone about the Borg. This is confirmed in the ENT episode "Regeneration", where Archer mentions a speech at Princeton 89 years ago (that would have been in 2064), where Cochrane talked about the Borg. As T'Pol noted, obviously no one would have given the notorious drinker much credence. But "Regeneration" changes the whole issue. With the debris on Earth, the examination of the Borg biology and technology, the disappearance of the transport, the deaths of the research team, Phlox's temporary assimilation and the many eye witnesses on Enterprise, there is plenty of evidence about the Borg that should be still remembered or at least available in the 24th century. The Federation should have remembered the events rather than possible tales of the El-Aurians from a remote world. Moreover, scientists should have recognized that it was the same cybernetic race in both cases, which should have given the Borg threat much more relevance. Summarizing, it would be very hard to believe why the Hansens were chasing an apparent mystery and why no one on the Enterprise-D remembered reading of the Borg or bothered to look up the databases.

UESPA The term "Star Fleet" is first used in TOS: "Court Martial". However, a few episodes later in TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday", Kirk mentions the United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA) to Air Force Captain John Christopher. All later Star Trek episodes of TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager assume that Starfleet already existed as far back as 2161. UESPA might have been Starfleet's predecessor prior to the foundation of both the Federation and Starfleet in 2161, as supported by the probe Friendship One (VOY: "Friendship One") from the year 2068 which is labeled with "UESPA". Prior to the new series Enterprise there used to be a good explanation for Kirk's statement. He might not want to confuse Christopher, a man from the 1960's, with the fact that Earth is part of an interstellar alliance with alien cultures. Thus it is possible that he remembers his history lessons and just chooses the UESPA as a convenient reference. However, even without Enterprise establishing that Starfleet is even older than the Federation, why wouldn't he just say "Earth Starfleet", rather than the much more complicated term UESPA? In this respect, it is a better explanation that in 2266 the UESPA might still exist as a (scientific?) department of Starfleet, so Kirk wouldn't necessarily lie about it.

UESPA/Starfleet emblem
(screen capture)

Enterprise establishes the name "Starfleet" as soon as 2151. This initially seemed to make Kirk's statement only more incredible, since he would refer to an organization that ceased to exist more than a hundred years ago, prior to the foundation of the Federation. But ultimately we are shown a seal with the clearly legible inscription "Starfleet Command - United Earth Space Probe Agency" in ENT: "Demons". In other words, Starfleet seems to be just a department of an even bigger agency called UESPA. This doesn't exclude that the UERPA was later abandoned or renamed to "Starfleet", but showing them in existence at the same time at least it reconciles the two names.

Symbols of Starfleet

Klingons in the Federation? While they are en route to Starbase 515 in TNG: "Samaritan Snare", Picard is talking of his early days in Starfleet and the incident with the Nausicaans, when Wesley poses a surprising question: "Was that before the Klingons joined the Federation?" Picard confirms that. So are the Klingons members of the Federation at the time of the episode (2365) and had already been for some time? A view of the bridge of a Klingon ship from TNG: "Heart of Glory" seems to corroborate just that. Here we see the Federation emblem along with the Klingon emblem. It is not something electronically inserted into the image, but the two logos are obviously openly displayed on the Klingon vessel. Why would the Klingons do that if they were not members of the Federation?

Dialogue from TNG: "Samaritan Snare" (source unknown)

Scene from TNG: "Heart of Glory" (source unknown)

On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence that the Klingons were definitely no Federation members at the time of TNG and DS9 and have almost certainly never been. Picard's encounter with the Nausicaans (which will be shown in detail in TNG: "Tapestry") dates back to the year 2327 or some time later, depending how much credence we give Picard's biography. In any case we know for sure from TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise" that by 2344 the Klingons were still not members of the Federation and not even allies because there was just a fragile peace between them that led to a devastating war in an alternative timeline. More evidence of the bad relations is that in 2346 Worf, after being rescued by Sergey Rozhenko, was not returned to Qo'noS where he most likely had relatives. Also, while the Federation didn't have any close contact with the Romulans since the Tomed incident in 2311, the Klingons were frequently at war with them which would be out of the question if they belonged to the Federation.

By the time of TNG relations seem to have improved, but not beyond the point of a rather loose alliance. Nearly all TNG and DS9 episodes involving the Klingons make it very clear that the Federation and Klingons were just allies, if at all. TNG: "A Matter of Honor" unmistakably shows that there has never been a regular exchange of officers before, and that there is a great deal of mistrust between Starfleet and the Klingon Defense Force even though they are supposed to be allied. In "Reunion" and "Redemption" it is obvious that the Klingon Empire is a separate entity where the Federation has no business and where interference is outlawed under the Prime Directive. In DS9: "The Way of the Warrior" the Klingons even fight against the Federation (before officially declaring war in DS9: "Broken Link"). Sisko says that the Klingons have not only called back their ambassador, but that they have even retreated from the Khitomer Accords, their mutual peace treaty. Logically the Klingons would have had to leave the Federation first before going that far. It is exceedingly unlikely that their membership ended soon after "Samaritan Snare" because this would have definitely been a major issue in the Klingon arc of TNG. On the contrary, the Klingon episodes of TNG and initially of DS9 showed how gradually the Federation earned the trust of the Klingons and vice versa, until the incident in "Way of the Warrior".

When TNG was first conceived it may have actually been the intention that there was more than just an alliance between the two galactic superpowers. In Roddenberry's eyes such a development would have been a quite palpable progress in the spirit of Star Trek. But with writers being fond of Klingons as mostly unpredictable, often mysterious and sometimes villainous alien allies, this idea was silently dropped and leaves us just with the two pieces of evidence from early TNG of which only one is definite. We may suppose that the Klingon commander in TNG: "Heart of Glory" demonstratively showed the Federation emblem to gain an advantage just because the two powers were only loose allies. What remains is Wesley's remark and Picard's confirmation about a Klingon membership in the Federation. Considering that Wesley is rather a science genius than a history buff and that Picard may have been preoccupied with his heart surgery, maybe this is something we should overlook. Unless we found a way to re-interpret "joined the Federation" as just "became friends with the Federation".

The conquest of Vulcan There are two contradictory statements about Vulcan history according to which Vulcan may have either once been conquered or never been conquered. The following is taken from TOS: "The Conscience of the King":

Dr. McCoy: "Would you care for a drink, Mr. Spock?"
Spock: "My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol."
Dr. McCoy: "Oh. Now I know why they were conquered."

In TOS: "The Immunity Syndrome", on the other hand, this conversation takes place:

Spock: "Their [the Intrepid's Vulcan crew's] logic would not have permitted them to believe they were being killed."
Kirk: "Explain."
Spock: "Vulcan has not been conquered within its collective memory. The memory goes back so far that no Vulcan can conceive of a conqueror."

As with nearly all statements about historical events, we need to take this with a grain of salt. There are always different perspectives. Fortunately the fact that two different individuals made contradictory statements facilitates the issue a bit. Whilst Spock may have indeed referred to an occupation of Vulcan with military violence like it has never taken place, McCoy may have meant the "conquest" of Vulcan after the planet has joined the Federation. On the other hand, there was practically no one and nothing alien on Vulcan in TOS: "Amok Time" or "Star Trek VI", so why would he talk of Vulcan being "conquered"? His remark may have referred to the regime of V'Les until 2154 that used to suppress mind melders, but that would have been too implicit for an outworlder like him. Anyway, while Spock's statement is so definite that it doesn't allow a different interpretation, it should be taken seriously, unless we pretend that Spock was lying, for which there would have been absolutely no reason. If anything, then McCoy's casual remark may not have been what it seems.

Stars and Stripes This is just an odd detail, rather than a historical error. In TNG: "The Royale" the crew finds the remains of an old NASA spaceship launched in the 21st century. The number of 52 stars on the American flag (which Riker is able to count at one glance, but he may rather have recognized the pattern) is an important detail of the story because it serves to identify the era in which the NASA ship was launched. This is why the Art Department created a special flag patch with exactly 52 stars, just in case some nerd would bother to count them. But ironically, while they got this detail right, they made an embarrassing mistake because the blue field with the stars borders a red stripe and not a white one. Actually, on the real US flag the blue field extends one stripe farther down (so it occupies a bit more than half of the total height and not a bit less). We could speculate that the arrangement would be slightly changed in the 21st century (like on the Malaysian flag which is based on the one of the USA but where the blue field is really adjacent to a red stripe). But this is a very unlikely scenario, considering that the traditional pattern never changed over the course of 200 years, and that it is the esthetically more pleasant solution to have the two darker fields separated by a white stripe. So whoever created the arm patch for 21st century NASA (perhaps just after the two new states, let's say D.C. and Puerto Rico, had joined the union), must have been ill-informed.

Faulty US flag patch

Cartography

Warp factors and actual speeds From the very beginning of Star Trek the dramaturgical concept has been calling for a starship that was fast enough to provide sufficient adventures during a five-year mission - as opposed to the boring routine on a sleeper ship or generational ship that would always be somewhere between the stars. It seemed reasonable that the distance between neighboring star systems could be bridged within a few days which led to the "invention" of the faster-than-light warp propulsion. On the other hand, the warp drive didn't have to be too fast, since for dramaturgic reasons it was not desired that the Enterprise could arrive "at once" when receiving e.g. a distress call. Moreover, if the whole galaxy could be crossed within a few years, there would not be much left to be explored in future missions. These are the reasons why the TOS starships as well as the TNG starships are significantly faster than light, but slow enough to be restricted to the space of parts of the Alpha Quadrant and Beta Quadrant. With TOS-Warp 6 (216c) a star system 5ly away could be reached in eight days, which was shortened to one day with TNG-Warp 9 (1516c) - speeds from the Star Trek Encyclopedia.

Conjectural map with large Federation (created by Bernd)

Official warp speed diagram (STTNG Technical Manual)

The size of the Federation Few facts are known about the size of Federation space. A map in TNG: "The Chase" suggested that Prof. Galen crossed almost a third of the Galaxy. The most striking evidence was a map in Starfleet Headquarters in TNG: "Conspiracy" which reappeared in Keiko's class room on DS9, now showing many place names of Star Trek fame. Nearly a quarter of the galaxy of 100,000ly diameter was either known or even part of the Federation. According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia and other canon sources, the diameter of Federation space is about 10,000 light years, and Picard tells Lily in "Star Trek: First Contact" that it should be 8,000ly.

The two latter figures are roughly the same, but they have to be questioned, because they are still much too great. At Warp 9, it would take almost seven years to cross this distance as can be seen in the modified warp table in the TNG Technical Manual which is reproduced above. This duration appears to be much too long to hold together a complex political system like the Federation. The same applies to the Romulan Empire and the Klingon Empire that are supposed to be the same order of size. Moreover, only the most sophisticated starships are capable of achieving Warp 9, not even taking into account that they need to stop for maintenance or refueling after a few months of warp flight. Nevertheless, the Enterprise-D and her crew are running across Federation space in all directions. They reach Earth ("Conspiracy", "Best of Both Worlds", "The First Duty", "Time's Arrow") as well as Deep Space Nine ("Birthright"), the Klingon Homeworld ("Sins of the Father", "Redemption") and the Romulan Homeworld ("Unification"), all of which are supposed to be located on opposite edges of Federation space. If the extent of Federation space and the warp speed table are correct, these journeys would have taken more than a lifetime, still not taking into account that countless other destinations (with unknown absolute coordinates) may have been far beyond the Federation borders, for we know that the Enterprise-D is mainly a ship of exploration.

TPTB have obviously noticed that when DS9 was being produced. According to the DS9 Technical Manual the core worlds of the Federation are no more than 50ly from DS9. This was the only way to allow the crew of DS9 to visit Earth on their vacation, and to show stories like the Dominion War that involves the Federation as a whole and not only some remote outposts. Most of the given speeds and distances make sense again, if we reduce the diameter of the Federation to about 200ly. It is interesting that most of the real star systems mentioned in Star Trek, such as Altair, Aldebaran, Alpha Eridani or Gamma Trianguli are within this 200ly range. On the other hand there are a few notable exceptions, like Rigel or Antares which are both many hundred light years away. Maybe these are isolated colonies.

Something to be taken into account too is that there are supposed to be "only" 150 to 200 member planets, while we know that even in a diameter of 200ly there are most likely a few thousand inhabitable planets. In Enterprise, the radius of exploration is only 100ly as of season 2. Still, the ship has encountered dozens of different species within about one light year (sensor range) along its course. We may assume roughly one thousand inhabited worlds within the 200ly diameter. It would be only plausible if even in the 24th century many of these planets are still independent, although they are located inside what is referred to as "Federation territory". Still, the number of only 150 members seems to be quite low. At least, we can presuppose that this figure only comprises "full members". Mars, for instance, is colonized in the 24th century, but would be regarded as a part of Earth (or of the Sol system).

For much more on this topic, go to the incredibly detailed cartography section at Star Trek Dimension.

The population of the Federation The only figure telling us anything about the population of the Federation is the expected 900 billion death toll of the Dominion War (DS9: "Statistical Probabilities"). This figure seems exaggerated. It would give us a total population of the Federation of well above 1 trillion. Is this realistic?

Earth currently has a population of 6 billion. Although this figure will keep rising, it is not economic, much less desirable if it were much higher in the 24th century. So an average of 6 billion inhabitants per member planet may be a starting point, assuming that Earth is an average planet. With 150 member planets, this would give us 900 billion. Most colonies can be supposed to have a much smaller population, but we don't know their number. Anyway, according to this rough suggestion, a total Federation population above 1 trillion seems possible. Still, with "only" several billion humans (Earth plus colonies) among a trillion, it remains a problem why humans are that dominant in the Federation. Maybe it is just that humans like to travel and to explore that they are seen everywhere.

Khitomer The Federation looks like the host of the Khitomer Conference because the Federation President  welcomes the delegates of the other civilizations and the speaker's desk is decorated with the Federation emblem ("Star Trek VI"). Also, Sulu speaks of "Camp Khitomer, near the Romulan border". Considering that no one seems to know the place and Sulu bothers to add "near the Romulan border", wouldn't he mention if it were in Klingon territory? This is why Khitomer very likely does not belong to the Klingon Empire as of 2293. Four decades later, however, the planet hosts a Klingon outpost at the Romulan border (TNG: "Sins of the Father"). Would the Federation as the obvious winner of the cold war give away the planet?

This dialogue sheds more light on the question:

President: "We hope you will be our guests here on Earth."
Azetbur: "After recent events you will understand if I say I prefer a neutral site. And in the interest of security let us keep the location secret for now."

So the Federation and the Klingons have been looking for a neutral location. The Klingons seem to have chosen the location, and perhaps they left the honor of preparing it to the Federation. If Khitomer was neutral at that time, the Klingons may have conquered it later.

Vulcan's moon "Vulcan has no moon." This is what Spock tells Uhura in TOS: "The Man Trap". Yet, in the original version of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" there are two enormous celestial bodies visible in the kolinahr scene. Vulcans don't lie, and why should Spock lie to Uhura without reason? Obviously someone has noticed this apparent error, and in the Director's Cut DVD, a completely new scene was created. The two scenes would contradict each other. They might be views in different directions, but aside from the different landscape the sky is dark in the  original version, whereas it is a diffuse reddish brown in the Director's Cut. The latter is also closer to what Vulcan looked like in TOS: "Amok Time". The question is which of the two versions we should take as the true one. If we can simply change Star Trek history this way, I would have many more suggestions... On the other hand, we still have Tuvok's statement in VOY: "Unimatrix Zero" that he was born on "Vulcanis Lunar Colony". "Vulcanis" was a preliminary name used for Vulcan very early in TOS, and it is strange that it is suddenly resurrected here (especially since a Vulcan wouldn't use an alternative human name for his home planet).

Vulcan landscape in the theater version (image by Luther Root)

Corresponding scene from Director's Cut DVD (image by Luther Root)

A popular explanation for the TMP theater version was that Vulcan and a twin planet could be spinning around each other. The larger body would be the twin planet, the smaller one the twin planet's moon, the one Tuvok was born on. The Director's Cut, on the other hand, would comply with Spock's statement.

Rama Ramalingam suggests that the landscape in the TMP theater version does not have to be Vulcan: "The Kolinahr ceremony may have been conducted on a Vulcan colony planet. From ENT's "The Andorian Incident", we know that such worlds have existed for a long time. TMP never explicitly indicated that the planet was Vulcan. Another explanation is that Spock was on a Vulcan version of a holodeck. We never see him leave the scene, after all. It wouldn't be implausible that Vulcans use different landscapes & settings in practicing their mental disciplines." 

George Wade's take on the issue: "Actually it's pretty simple, looking at the scene on Vulcan from the theatrical release of ST:TMP we see a huge 'object' hanging in the sky, and a smaller object. The big object looks to have an atmosphere. My theory is that Vulcan has a twin planet, call it B, and they orbit each other around a common gravitational point. Vulcan and B are almost nearly of equal size but B is slightly larger so if one must be totally truthful Vulcan is more under the gravitational influence of B than visa versa. Therefore Vulcan is more a moon of B than B a moon of Vulcan, so Vulcan has no moon. But that scene in ST:TMP is perfectly explainable, it is simply B rising in Vulcan's sky. As for the third object, let's call it C, that is simply B's moon, and as for Tuvok being raised on a Vulcan Lunar colony, that colony could logically be located on C. You can also use the Romulans as a back up to this theory, Romulus and Remus are a twin planet system, if we assume, and I do as I don't think its ever been officially said otherwise, that they orbit around a central gravitational point. When the Proto-Romulans left Vulcan they settled on several class M planets but never stayed, they always pulled up stakes and left until they reached Romulus where they stayed? Why? I propose that they either originally set out for the twin planets or Romulus and Remus or settled there because they reminded them of the twin planets of Vulcan and B, there seems no other reason to go so far than to find a 'new home'."

Star Trek Cartography @ Star Trek Dimension

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