Latest revision as of 11:32, 3 November 2024

Far from the heart of the Federation and beyond the edges of the Klingon and Romulan borders lies the Shackleton Expanse, a massive area of space deep within the Beta Quadrant. Informally named after the renowned ancient Earth explorer Ernest Shackleton, the Expanse has, as of late 2370, remained largely unexplored. The Federation Science Council and Starfleet Command have rarely committed resources to exploring the Expanse, preferring to focus on higher-priority regions closer to home. In addition, there are no reliable intelligence reports to suggest that either the Klingon Empire or the Romulan Star Empire have bothered to send reconnaissance ships or probes into the Expanse.

The existing data is a patchwork of probe telemetry, long-range sensor scans, and unreliable information and stories from independent captains and their crews who have traveled through the Expanse over the years. Additionally, the Shakleton Expanse is home to many varieties of spatial anomalies which make navigation and scanning difficult, if not impossible.

History of the Expanse

The Beta Quadrant, despite housing many Federation worlds, the Romulan Star Empire, and most of the Klingon Empire, in addition to countless other unaligned systems and species, remains only barely mapped, much less explored. The most recent update from the Federation’s Stellar Cartography Society estimates that a mere 7 percent of the Beta Quadrant is fully explored, with another 5 percent mapped to some degree of confidence.

Uncertain Research

Prior to the mid-24th century, what we knew of the Expanse was largely limited to whatever reports were gathered from prospectors and independent merchants plying the trade lanes through the Beta Quadrant. Sadly, most of these reports are unreliable, thanks to the poor standards of the crews’ data gathering processes – one cannot expect a simple merchant crew to conduct science with any degree of professional objectivity or competence. Surveys and personal logs from these traders are rife with unsubstantiated reports of subspace interference, electromagnetic waveforms, tetryonic storms, and more, in addition to a litany of anecdotes that veer far from the factual and well into the fanciful. That some of these “whispers in the Expanse” or “ghost ship” stories have rooted themselves into local popular legends is a scientific pain point that quality data and objective reporting seems unable to quash.

Tall tales aside, what the reliable data tells us is that for as long as captains and their vessels have traversed parts of the Expanse, there have been regular recordings of unusually powerful gravimetric and tetryonic disturbances. These “eddies,” for lack of a better term, are unpredictable in location, size, and intensity. This would suggest that they are either naturally-occurring phenomena, or possibly the product of an incredibly advanced and capricious alien mind.

If reports are to be believed, several transports and merchant freighters have been lost over the last several decades due to run-ins with these spatial phenomena. The phenomena are powerful enough to disrupt ship systems and even overload or destroy vessels unfortunate enough to get too close or foolish enough to investigate without taking precautions.

Sector and Planetary Surveys

The quantity and quality of data regarding the myriad solar systems and planets contained within the Expanse are likewise limited in scope and accuracy. No formal effort on the part of any known polity has attempted to map the Expanse. What information we do have about reliable space lanes and navigational hazards has been cobbled together over the last century or more by those same independent merchants mentioned earlier.

Long-range sensors and existing probe data indicate that the Expanse is packed with resource rich systems, planets, moons, and asteroid belts of all types, along with countless stellar phenomena and fixtures worthy of study. As word of these facts leak out into the Galaxy, a “gold rush” mentality could bring any number of species and ships to Narendra Station and to the Shackleton Expanse.

The Expanse encompasses a vast section of the Beta Quadrant, a sprawl of territory along the feathered edges of the Orion Spur of the Milky Way. Thousands of stars and star clusters are located within the Expanse, along with countless planets, planetoids, and stellar bodies of all shapes and sizes. We can only guess at how many sentient lifeforms or organized civilizations are contained within the Expanse. As a matter of anthropological interest, no known sentient species has claimed to hail from a world contained within the boundaries of the Expanse. One would think that such a large area of space would have generated at least a handful of talkative species willing to point us toward their home and to give us another clue about the Expanse, but no such luck. They’re either unwilling or unable to share that information with us, or perhaps we’re just not looking in the right places or asking the right questions.

Known Worlds and Locations

The Shackleton Expanse and the sectors adjacent to the Expanse contain thousands of planetary systems and locations, though most of them remain uncharted as of 2371. What few planets and locations known near and within the Expanse are enumerated below.

Alpha Toryui II - Class M

A dead world orbiting a giant, unstable red star located near the Shackleton Expanse, Alpha Toryui II contains evidence of previous inhabitation by a long-lost alien species. A science team led by Doctor Mitchel Al’Malki operates an archaeological expedition on the planet.

Amir II - Class M/Yan

Located outside the Shackleton Expanse and far from the Federation and Klingon borders, the Amirii system is home to a dozen planets, of which only the second, Amir II, is habitable. While there are no native sentient lifeforms on the planet, Amir II teems with non-sentient life of all kinds. The planet is also rich in resources, particularly deep ore veins which were tapped early on to facilitate construction of Starbase 364. The joint Federation-Klingon task force has reviewed several plans for establishing colonies on the planet surface, though, as yet, it has failed to find a workable solution all sides can live with.

Array 3-5

Array 3-5 is a small deep-space research outpost located deep within the Shackleton Expanse, jointly staffed by Starfleet and KDF personnel. The station was built to study the “Washboard” effect prevalent within the Expanse, and so was constructed within some of the stronger electromagnetic and gravimetric eddies created by that effect. Convoys of supplies leave Narendra Station for the array on a quarterly basis and have long been targets for piracy in the area. Starfleet expects the vessels newly assigned to Narendra and to the Expanse will take on escort duties as needed to support the convoy runs to the outpost.

Cal-Mirra - Class M/Yan

Cal-Mirra is a small world, the only one in its system of the same name. The surface of the planet is almost entirely water, though there is a ring of rock pillars jutting from the ocean upon which a narrow planet-spanning city has been built. There are also massive stone spires on the planet that do not match any indigenous constructions and may be of alien design and purpose. The planet is home to the Cal-Mirrans, pacifistic crystalline water based lifeforms whose culture revolves around seeking truth and beauty in communal environments. While the Federation Science Council is eager to make contact with them to trade knowledge (and to learn more about the rumored Cal-Mirran physiology), the Federation has yet to make formal contact.

FGC-651218 IV - Class M/Yan

The FGC-651218 system, located within the Shackleton Expanse, was only recently charted by long-range probes. The fourth planet of the system is Class-M and contains a pre-warp culture. As it is in a region of the Expanse relatively light in gravimetric distortions, Starfleet has placed it near the top of the list of planets to survey in detail once the new flotilla arrives at Narendra Station.

Finally - Class M/TOQ

Finally is a small Class-M planet located just a few lightyears inside the Shackleton Expanse’s outermost perimeter. The Miranda-class U.S.S. Umbra and her crew limped to the planet in 2309, after suffering catastrophic damage to their warp nacelles due to the Washboard effect of the Expanse. The crew landed their ship on the planet and established shelter along the shores of the wide Lake Here’s Fine. The Federation Science Council, with the support of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, has since expanded the shelter into a small Federation waypoint between Narendra Station and the interior of the Expanse.

Orgun II and III - Class M/TOQ

The Orgun system is located within a highly unstable section of the Shackleton Expanse and is a bit of an oddity in that it is home to two Class-M planets. Long-range probe telemetry suggests that both worlds possess pre-warp cultures. The Federation has yet to commit any resources to studying the planet or its systems, though a variety of civilian operations have mounted campaigns to outfit independent research operations to study the many spatial anomalies near the planets.

Osarin and the Epsilon 19 Station

Osarin is a solar system located near the “southwestern” edge of the Shackleton Expanse. Its star is in a state of decay and is releasing strange triolic waves. Starfleet has established a small research station, Epsilon 19, in the system to record the wave emissions and monitor the health of the star.

Quazkey V

This uninhabited planet in the Shackleton Expanse is close enough to both Romulan and Klingon space that Starfleet installed a sensor array on the planet’s surface to monitor starship traffic in and out of the Expanse.

Setu - Class M/CHARGH

Some 30 light-years inside the Shackleton Expanse is Setu, a water-heavy planet in the FGC-694751 system. The planet is referred to as Setu by the indigenous population of humanoids, called the Akaru. The Federation has yet to make first contact with the Akaru, so any information on the planet and its people is limited to what has been collected from traders and merchants who braved the Washboard effect to make the trip to Setu and back. The Akaru are known to be in the early years of warp capability and are enthusiastic traders, though the leader of the people and the planet, the Iryax, is known to drive a hard bargain on behalf of the people under its rule. To date, no Akaru are known to have left the confines of the Shackleton Expanse.