Quadrant

Quadrant

Milky Way Galaxy QuadrantsA map of the Milky Way's four primary quadrants

In stellar cartography, a quadrant is a major region of space encompassing a portion of a galaxy.
Major quadrantsEdit

The Milky Way Galaxy was commonly divided into four equally sized, cubic quadrants, defined by one meridian passing through the galactic core and a second one perpendicular to the first, that also passes through the galactic core. These four quadrants are referred to as the Alpha Quadrant, Beta Quadrant, Gamma Quadrant and Delta Quadrant. The United Federation of Planets and its neighboring powers, including the Klingon and Romulan Empires were located in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, whereas the Borg Collective was located in the Delta Quadrant, and the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; ENT: "Regeneration"; DS9: "Rules of Acquisition")

The division into four quadrants was used by United Earth and the Vulcans as early as the mid-22nd century. (ENT: "Shockwave, Part II", "Regeneration") In 2152, after less than a year into the mission of Enterprise NX-01, it was remarked by Vulcan Ambassador Soval, that he considered the ship to be a danger to the quadrant. By that time, the Enterprise had involved itself in several armed conflicts and escalated the conflict between the Vulcans and the Andorians. (ENT: "Shockwave, Part II") In 2154, the subspace message sent by the Borg was determined to have a destination deep inside the Delta Quadrant. (ENT: "Regeneration")

In 2267, when Lazarus and anti-Lazarus began changing places between each other, the physical laws of the universe were distorted for a brief moment. Captain Kirk noted in his log, that the effects were felt throughout the entire quadrant of space. According to Commodore Barstow of Starfleet Command, the effect occurred in every quadrant of the Galaxy and far beyond. (TOS: "The Alternative Factor")

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