Size of the Dominion

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:53 pm

Unfortunately that still dosen't help us guess the size. I'd put half the quadrant as an upper limit personally.

Post by **Teaos** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:12 am

That still seems to big for me. I'd put it smaller but with high density. Lots of ships and people into an ara like 3 times the size of the federation.

Black Jesus · Post by **Black Jesus** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:40 am

Is that to say that anything is going to conclusively determine the size of the Dominion?

Post by **Teaos** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:46 am

We will never "know" but debate bring different points of view together so we can see it from different view points and make a better estimate.

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:44 pm

Like I said, consider it an (extreme) upper limit. Clearly their power is below that level, but how much we don't know and we probably never will.

Bryan Moore · Post by **Bryan Moore** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:46 pm

Mind you, this is all under the broad assumption that the galaxy's stars with habitable planets are relatively evenly distributed with. From a strictly scientific standpoint, is this a practical assumption?

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:55 pm

I don't think we really know how many habitable planets there are in what would be the Gamma quadrant. Since we have no info to go on, its simple enough to assume that all quadrants have roughly the same amount of stars, planets, etc.
They obviously don't, but we have nothing else to go on.

Post by **Teaos** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:32 am

I would think it would be evenly distributed. But I'm sure this is something astronomers would know. Anyone here into astronomy?

Black Jesus · Post by **Black Jesus** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:27 pm

Going by a site I found quoting a paper from the British Interplanetary Society (however credible that is), they give the estimate of the number of habitable planets in the Milky Way as being 10 million habitable planets with a mean separation of 110 light years. Divide that number by four quadrants and you get 2,500,000 habitable planets per quadrant.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1978JBIS...31..411B

I Am Spartacus · Post by **I Am Spartacus** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:30 pm

Teaos wrote:I would think it would be evenly distributed. But I'm sure this is something astronomers would know. Anyone here into astronomy?

No. Closer to the galactic core, there are far more planets packed closer together, so it stands to reason that there are far more habitable planets packed closer together as well. Don't forget, Earth is on the galaxy's fringe.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:35 pm

Also, I believe I read somewhere that the likelyhood of life developing on a planet is higher in the space between the spiral arms, owing to the higher radiation levels within the arms. Not sure about that though.

Bryan Moore · Post by **Bryan Moore** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:43 am

Captain Seafort wrote:Also, I believe I read somewhere that the likelyhood of life developing on a planet is higher in the space between the spiral arms, owing to the higher radiation levels within the arms. Not sure about that though.

Yeah, I believe you are correct. Similarly, closer to the core, the radiation would be immense, thus our particular region of the galaxy and similar locations throughout the varous spiral arms are believed to have far better odds of containing habitable life as we know it. Under that premesis, I'd say 1/4-1/3 of the quadrant as upper limit is far more likely.

Post by **Teaos** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:35 am

Also the stars and systems in the core area are old stars that have drifted in. Thats why the center of Galaxys have a red color to them. Something that old would be less likely to have M class planets.

Jim · Post by **Jim** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 7:31 pm

People said the borg can not assimilate a founder... is that known for sure? That would seem to be a MAJOR biological distinction to add to the collective.

Captain Peabody · Post by **Captain Peabody** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:48 pm

People said the borg can not assimilate a founder... is that known for sure? That would seem to be a MAJOR biological distinction to add to the collective.

I don't see how they could. The Borg nanoprobes rely on cells to attach themselves to, and DNA to rewrite, to do their job, and Founders have neither. But I can definitely see the Borg being very interested in the Dominion; not only for the Dominion's technology (which seems to be quite nice), but also for the Founders themselves, which would represent a major, major jump ahead in evolution for the Borg... And the Founders would definitely not take this lightly. So, really, it's only a matter of time before the Dominion and Borg start duking it out for control of the Galaxy....