Worlds and Realms of Other Universes

[Crazy McGee]

Hello Commanders!

I have been wondering for some time as to the realms of empires in other sci-fi universes. Thanks to E's computational models I can finally begin a project I have been thinking about for the better part of a month: where would the realms of popular (and not so popular) sci-fi universes be if they were plotted into a realistic (or as close as we can get right now) model?

Some universes that easily come to my mind right now are: Star Trek, Warhammer 40k (this one could take a while!) Babylon 5 and Macross (somehow...). Any help I could get on this would be greatly appreciated.

To get the ball rolling I have done a bit of research on a personal favourite of mine: Battletech. Using Sarna's x:y grid and cross-referencing with star classifications I have compiled a system list of the Inner Sphere's home worlds as well as those of the Clans (apart from Strana Mechty; that one might need a bit of coaxing). Note that the systems are not totally on the mark but are as close to the listed coordinates as I could get. Also note that some of these systems may not have the right number of planets - or any at all. I'm posting a "first draft" of systems to get the ball rolling.

Inner Sphere:

Luthien (Draconis Combine): Col 285 Sector BW-K C9-3
Sian (Capellan Confederation): HIP 3629
New Avalon (Federated Suns): Synuefe CR-L C24-7
Atreus (Free Worlds League): HIP 115279
Tharkad (Lyran Commonwealth): Col 285 Sector OZ-N C7-11

Clans (Pentagon Worlds):

Arcadia: Sphuedu PI-A D14-0
Babylon: Sphuedu RD-A D14-1
Dagda: Ushornt GU-A D0
Eden: Ushornt HU-A D1
Circe: Ushott ST-A D-1

If I can get to these systems I'll post pictures. To anyone who decides to help, good luck and thanks!

 

[Jackie Silver]

Bab 5 is at Epsilon Eridani 3 - there is a station there in Elite, I forget the name off-hand. Unfortunately most of the locations in B5 are... vague, to say the least. AIUI at some point they started using IP addresses of the early fan sites as sector names... ^^

The Alliance/Union universe of CJ Cherryh ("Downbelow Station" etc.) should work given they are largely set in real systems.
Linky

 

[Imperios]

Could be difficult for Star Trek as there own information regarding positions in the galaxy are often contradicting themself (to explain fast travels with the extremely slow warp drive)

 

[xtnsgo]

I love this idea![big grin] I don't know about how mappable it might be, but I would looooooove to see the galaxy of Prophet. Not the 90s stuff, but the completely awesome revival by Brandon Graham and Simon Roy. Also Mass Effect (natch).

I'm gonna be thinking about this one...

[smile] o7

 

[marx]

I like Star Wars's approach to this. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

That said, for WH40K, there have been some officials maps of the galaxy, no? Or are they fan-made? I don't really know all that much about their lore.

 

[Jackie Silver]

I'm working on the Alliance-Union ones now. Cyteen is at BR PISCUM. Slightly curious as to whether Union influenced Battletech's Clans at all.

Progress so far: Linky

 

[Crazy McGee]

Babylon 5, from what I can remember, is an extremely condensed universe. It has to do with the relatively slow speeds of hyperspace when compared to other universes' forms of travel (after all, B5 is practically located in Sol's backyard but the whole system is somehow considered neutral, and not EA, territory).

Star Trek is one of the weird ones...I'm not worried so much about the inconsistencies in drive tech as I am about locations. I do have a theory that the Founder's homeworld may be located in the Colonia nebula but I have little to back it up other than one map that might be wrong. (BTW, I have visited Wolf 359; I didn't know that the battle was that close to Sol...)

Warhammer might indeed be the trickiest nut to crack. It has little in the way of locations...only borders. Hell, even the borders change with Xenos incursions, Chaos manifestations or losing communication.

For any universe that doesn't have reliable maps I think it would be best for everyone if we could agree on a map to use as a common source before uploading systems.

I'm going to be working late for the next few days but I should be uploading pics from some of the Inner Sphere worlds by Wednesday. I can't wait

 

[Dr. Nagi]

Mass Effect would be interesting to see, as it uses many RL nebulae

 

[Orvidius]

(BTW, I have visited Wolf 359; I didn't know that the battle was that close to Sol...)

Yeah, they didn't do a great job of getting that point across, but Wolf 359 put it right on our doorstep.

Shortly before those episodes aired, I had been writing a small program that made a rotating view of some of the closest stars, as a small programming project. I think I was including everything out to about 10 or 15 ly (planned to later go to about 20 ly, I think). As a result, I was probably one of the few people watching who knew where that star was, and had a "wow" moment.

It would have been great if it were more common knowledge or if they had a way to succinctly show just how close that was.

 

[Jackie Silver]

This is pretty much the extent of the Alliance-Union equivalent of the Bubble:

Sol Station - SOL
Alpha Station - BARNARD'S STAR
Beta Station - ALPHA CENTAURI
Bryant's Star Station - 61 CYGNI
Glory Station - ROSS 154
Venture Station - KRUGER 60
Galileo Station - EV LACERTAE
Thule Station - ROSS 248
Olympus Station - GROOMBRIDGE 34
Eldorado Station - UV CETI
Pell Station (and Downbelow) - TAU CETI
Viking Station - EPSILON ERIDANI
Mariner Station - VAN MAANEN'S STAR
Cyteen Station (and Cyteen) - BR PISCUM
Esperance Station - GLIESE 841.1 (this is, I think, a case of Science Marches On, the star is further away than thought at the time)
Fargone Station - WOLF 25
Pan-Paris Station - ROSS 775
Paradise Station - ???
Russell's Station - ROSS 780
Voyager Station - LHS 1070
Wyatt's Station - WOLF 1329
Gehenna - ZETA-1 RETICULI
Eversnow - KAPPA-1 CETI
Haven - ???
Kesrith - ???
Cerdin - ALPHA HYDRI (permit locked)
Freedom - OMICRON-2 ERIDANI
Istra - BETA HYDRI
Merovin - ???

I've read most of the "Company War" period A-U books, but not some of the odder ones with aliens (except 40,000 in Gehenna, which ISTR was cool) so I'm not sure what Cerdin, Istra, Merovin etc. are like in the books.
I'll add them to my to-read list once I finish wading through the terminally snooty Virginia Woolf I'm on with...

Tau Ceti has a terraformed Earth-like world (Taylor Colony) matching Downbelow with Gilmour Orbiter above it for Pell Station, and is a busy system.
BR Piscum, alas, has no Cyteen equivalent, although there are a couple of small outposts.
Zeta Reticuli has a single uninhabited world with an outpost above it, so no Gehenna.

 

[Crazy McGee]

Nice work Jackie Silver! Looks like someone has been at this a while before me.

I decided to bookmark the Pentagon Worlds with the little time I have tonight. After a slight rotation spinward, I got this...

Starting at the top and moving clockwise: Circe, Arcadia, Babylon, Dagda and Eden. All in their correct positions. I shouldn't be that surprised, but come on, it looks like a ****** pentagon!

FASA, you win this round.

 

[Sapyx]

As for Star Trek, it's been much discussed. Star Trek is generally pretty vague about where in the real-world galaxy the various episodes are supposed to be taking place, except for the occasional real-world star name like Rigel or Wolf 359. Perhaps the best thread on the topic are the ones where people attempt to retrace the flight of the USS Voyager: this planning thread and this results thread. This thread has some useful discussion on real-world locations of several Star Trek and Babylon 5 worlds.

 

[Crazy McGee]

Thanks, Sapyx, I'll definitely check that thread out!

I've managed to take some stills of two of the IS home systems: Atreus and Tharkad.

Atreus is listed as having an F-type star. The system closest matching the special coordinates is a trinary; an F-, K- and M-type stars are present. Finding a world that could be terraformed gives two possibilities: the farthest planet orbiting the K-M pair or the extra-solar capture. Both would require extensive terraforming; the extra-solar capture is far enough away to not cook anything living on the world but would need a thick atmosphere to support life (it's about 4kls from the F-type and about 2kls from the K-M pair) while the other planet would be incredibly warm with a habitable atmosphere (~140ish ls from the pair), assuming it could support life at all.

The system I thought was Tharkad was a no-show; the system was a G-type and nothing else. After a bit of searching I found a possible match. I made sure to highlight the system planet so commanders could see the system name:

My personal favourite. It has a world with the right earth mass (~1.08 if memory serves) and a distance within the life belt. It could potentially be terraformed.

Now, time to get onto the threads and start reading up! I wonder has anyone tried to collate all of these threads together? I wouldn't mind adding what has already been collected here into some sort of "master library" or something of that sort.

 

[Imperios]

As for Star Trek, it's been much discussed. Star Trek is generally pretty vague about where in the real-world galaxy the various episodes are supposed to be taking place, except for the occasional real-world star name like Rigel or Wolf 359. Perhaps the best thread on the topic are the ones where people attempt to retrace the flight of the USS Voyager: this planning thread and this results thread. This thread has some useful discussion on real-world locations of several Star Trek and Babylon 5 worlds.

Especially the voyager travel shows how vague and contradicting itself the star trek universe is. It's starting 70.000 ly away from "the federation" (which is sometimes a few hundred ly across, in other sources a couple thousand ly). There is no point in the milky way that far from earth and theres an episode where you see the flightpath on a galactic map (4th season) starting at a point ~5-10.000 ly south of the northern edge of the galaxy.
Even at max warp ships in star trek barely fly 1000 ly / year. A few episodes later romulans fly with an experimental federation ship "to the romulan empire" and cross a comm network on the southern end of the delta quadrant. Again you see it on a galactic map and they are at least 25.000-30.000 ly east of earth which would equal to the romulan empire being 20-30 years away from federation space even with 24th century warp speed. (not to speak of how far away they would be at warp 7 speed when they first showed up).

The same pattern goes through all star trek series and films. Things are described as far apart and yet they fly from one end of federation space to the other in a few hours to make certain storylines plausible.
Borgs travel at transwarp speed (which is a topic on it's own) but still picard manages to travel from the neutral zone (at the romulan empires edge, see above > it's meant to be years away from earth) to Earth in a few hours.

In the end based on official infos you can't even determine the position of klingon/romulan space better than "somewhere east/west of earth between 100 and a couple 10.000 ly"

 

[Jackie Silver]

Nice work Jackie Silver! Looks like someone has been at this a while before me.

Heh, I had been meaning to do those in Elite: Dangerous for ages! I seem to remember someone doing them with the Frontier: Elite 2 galaxy map that had the closest few real systems to Sol on it, the A-U systems are so close it was possible even back then.

I'm thinking that the Revelation Space universe would also be a good candidate but not sure how many systems are specifically located in that. Yellowstone might be Epsilon Eridani again?

 

[Crazy McGee]

Sorry about the long time in between posts...between work and home life I haven't had much time to explore. Now, let me check my previous posts...okay. Time to upload some more BattleTech systems:

Sian:

Probably the only Successor State home system populated in the E universe this system more or less matches the FASA data to a tee, minus the Earth-Like world; however, the world I have highlighted is in the correct position and is within the life belt. It may be hard to terraform though as it is tidally locked. If anyone has a better matching system please post it here; for now HIP 3629 is my candidate.

New Avalon:


This system in a few jumps outside of the Bubble, meaning that the BT universe probably favoured distant worlds with sparse populations over more densely packed systems (like E). This system has one major flaw to it: none of the planets listed could possibly be New Avalon as none of them have a moon in orbit, let alone three. My candidate for New Avalon is the third planet orbiting the second star (it has the yellow pointer over it); it has a water atmosphere, is almost bang-on for Earth masses and is within the life belt. Just like with Sian if anyone can find a more suitable alternative please post here.

I should have Luthien mapped soon. As for the Pentagon Worlds...I either need to collect enough Jumponium to power a fleet or rely on someone else to chart those worlds. If anyone has been to the systems listed on my first post please post and let me know! Any help would be greatly appreciated.