Dominion War map

[McAvoy]

I am in the middle of creating a Dominion War map showing what the fleet movements may look like during the war. It will include gains and lost territory. However I am too lazy to create one entirely from scratch so I am using the Star Trek maps one as a starting point. I am currently in the process of editing and cleaning it up.

The big question is there anything that could be changed in that map or additional information I could add in there for that war. For example, the Romulans and the Klingons are on opposite sides of the Federation space vs. the Cardassians in the map. Klingons can get away with it since they are allies, but wasn't there a episode where the Dominion used Romulan space to attack the Allies?

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

Yes, I'm pretty certain there was mention of Jem'Hadar ships crossing the Romulan Neutral Zone to attack Starfleet vessels, though I can't recall what episode off-hand.

Would be great to see your finished map when its done though.

And thinking about it, the Romulan-Cardassian border was brought up in "Improbable Cause" when a Romulan build up along their common border was detected (which was due to the imminent attack against the Founder homeworld).

And the Klingons were still raiding Cardassian convoys after they withdraw from the Khitomer Accords. Obviously they could have been raiding from the territory they captured in the brief invasion, but I think its more likely that they already shared a border, as I doubt they would have been so aggressive with the forces there otherwise, as it would have been hard to reinforce them, although being Klingons maybe they just didn't care much about that, but you'd think they'd have the sense to at least try to hold the captured territory.

All I can think of right now, I need sleep, long day.

[Captain Seafort]

Yes, I'm pretty certain there was mention of Jem'Hadar ships crossing the Romulan Neutral Zone to attack Starfleet vessels, though I can't recall what episode off-hand.

In the Pale Moonlight:

BASHIR
Do you know what happened to the
Cairo?

SISKO
Just that they disappeared on
patrol near the Romulan Neutral
Zone. But I'll look into it.

DAX
(bitter)
Don't bother. I'm sure it's the
same old story -- the Jem'Hadar
crossed over the Romulan border
and caught them off-guard. It's
only about the hundredth time it's
happened.

BASHIR
I can't believe the Romulans are
allowing them to violate their
territory so brazenly. How do
they get away with it?

SISKO
The Romulans have a treaty of non-
aggression and friendship with the
Dominion. In practical terms that
means they're willing to turn a
blind eye to almost anything in
the name of "friendship."

WORF
(bitter)
It's an intolerable situation.
We should cross the Neutral Zone
and destroy the Dominion bases.

And the Klingons were still raiding Cardassian convoys after they withdraw from the Khitomer Accords. Obviously they could have been raiding from the territory they captured in the brief invasion, but I think its more likely that they already shared a border, as I doubt they would have been so aggressive with the forces there otherwise, as it would have been hard to reinforce them, although being Klingons maybe they just didn't care much about that, but you'd think they'd have the sense to at least try to hold the captured territory.

On the contrary - it makes more sense if the Klingons didn't have common border with the Cardies, otherwise it would make more sense for them to launch their invasion from their own territory rather than use DS9 as a jumping-off point.

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

On the contrary - it makes more sense if the Klingons didn't have common border with the Cardies, otherwise it would make more sense for them to launch their invasion from their own territory rather than use DS9 as a jumping-off point.

Ah, true. But then how would they be able to successfully maintain control of that territory after losing access to passage through Federation space? How would they reinforce their garrisons, and ships lost in combat?

[GrahamKennedy]

I am in the middle of creating a Dominion War map showing what the fleet movements may look like during the war. It will include gains and lost territory. However I am too lazy to create one entirely from scratch so I am using the Star Trek maps one as a starting point. I am currently in the process of editing and cleaning it up.

The big question is there anything that could be changed in that map or additional information I could add in there for that war. For example, the Romulans and the Klingons are on opposite sides of the Federation space vs. the Cardassians in the map. Klingons can get away with it since they are allies, but wasn't there a episode where the Dominion used Romulan space to attack the Allies?

I was actually in on some of the conversations that led to those maps - the guy credited in the front of the book, Timo Saloniemi, used to post on a newsgroup I was on about maps, and he got that credit because some of his work went into the book. I didn't contribute anything to the discussion myself, but I do recall a couple of the operating assumptions they went on so that might help you...

Basically, what he did was look at the various maps shown in the episodes themselves - you'd occasionally see actors mulling over lines on maps, especially the Dominion folks. However, those maps didn't line up well with some of the other sources we've seen so one of the assumptions they went with was that Dominion/Cardie maps are oriented differently to Federation ones. He reckoned a lot of the problems could be solved if the maps on the show were rotated by 90 degrees.

Another one they had to more or less ignore was the "cutting through Romulan space" idea. There just wasn't room to stick the Romulans in with everything else on that side of the map and make it work, so they pretty much ditched the idea.

[McAvoy]

It would make sense in since space is 3D and can't truly be shown in a 2D image very well since territory could wrap around someone else's border above or below it.

However, having the Cardassians on the opposide of Klingons and the Romulans with the Federation makes this awhole lot awkward. Especially with the Tal Shiar going through Federation space to get to the wormhole. We don't know if the warbirds were constructed with the Cardassian ships though.

[Jim]

It would make sense in since space is 3D and can't truly be shown in a 2D image very well since territory could wrap around someone else's border above or below it.

I was actually thinking about that last night after looking at the map in the other section. Even though it is still an incredibly vast distance… the galaxy is basically a disk, not an orb. Therefore the z-axis is relatively short compared to the x and y. It would not be too far a reach to believe that once a race expands laterally they would take control of the entire navagatable volume. I think that you could assume very little undercutting or hangover on the z-axis and be relatively safe.

[Captain Seafort]

I was actually thinking about that last night after looking at the map in the other section. Even though it is still an incredibly vast distance… the galaxy is basically a disk, not an orb. Therefore the z-axis is relatively short compared to the x and y. It would not be too far a reach to believe that once a race expands laterally they would take control of the entire navagatable volume. I think that you could assume very little undercutting or hangover on the z-axis and be relatively safe.

It's still over a thousand light years, and the fact that the E-D could cross pretty much the entire central cluster of the Federation in a fraction of a year demonstrates that said cluster is significantly less than that. Over Reunion, Data's Day and The Wounded she went from Klingon space on SD 44246.3, the Romulan NZ on 44390.1 to the Cardie border on 44429.6 - all three major neighbouring powers in a bit over two months. Even ssuming a constant cruising speed of 2700c, per Q Who?, that's less than 500 LY, and it's certain to be even less given that she obviously wasn't in constant motion, or travelling in the same direction.

[GrahamKennedy]

Frankly you're not going to get anywhere being concerned about distances and travel times in any but the most general terms. They just don't stick to these things in the show - and happily retcon them to as far as they want in the time that they want, whenever the plot demands. If Defiant can nip back to Earth in a day or two, then travel times between any of the major powers aren't significant as far as DS9 is concerned.

[McAvoy]

So either: A.) UFP is smaller than it we thought, or B.) there really is warp highways.

Or C.) ignore it and assume some sort of mathematical equation on the distances vs. dialogue.