Warning: contains spoilers for Star Trek: Defiant #17!

After 58 years, has forced the Federation and other galactic powers to devise a system of “quadrants” to divide it up, and now Star Trek: Defiant #17 reveals how and why it was created.

Thus, to allow computers to crunch the enormous amounts of data needed to navigate a starship, galactic powers, including the Federation, created a system of quadrants.

Star Trek: Defiant #17 is written by Christopher Cantwell and drawn by Angel Unzueta. Chief O’Brien, now a lecturer at Starfleet Academy, is lecturing on automata theory. O’Brien quizzes the students on the theory’s limits, stating that it breaks down when confronted with infinity. The galaxy is large and full of unpredictable elements. Thus, to allow computers to crunch the enormous amounts of data needed to navigate a starship, galactic powers, including the Federation, created a system of quadrants.

O’Brien concludes by stating it is a matter of acknowledging limitations and devising workarounds for them.

Star Trek's Quadrant System's Origins Have Never Been Explained--Until Now

The Star Trek Universe is Vast

The quadrant system is integral to the Star Trek universe, but it has not always been used consistently. In early episodes of the classic Star Trek series, the “quadrant” and “sector” were used in a seemingly interchangeable fashion. As Star Trek lore solidified, a consistent system was created based on four different quadrants: Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma. Quadrants are massive: in Star Trek: Voyager’s series premiere, the ship was hurled from the Alpha to the Delta. It was estimated it would take nearly 80 years for Voyager to get home–at maximum warp.

As a way to make the vast quadrants even more manageable, the Federation and other galactic powers divided them up into sectors, with Earth at the center of Sector 001. Creating sectors within quadrants allowed starship computers to run their calculations even more efficiently. Not only is it the perfect example of a workaround for the limitations of automata theory as explained by Chief O’Brien, but a testament to the creativity inherent in all species. Critics charge the system is very Earth and human-centric, but the quadrant system is still a useful tool.

Star Trek Producers Should Adopt This Origin for the Quadrant System

The Origin Is Real-World Plausible

The origin of the quadrant system is a neat bit of world-building within the Star Trek universe, explaining a key piece of lore. Since this revelation occurred in the comics, it is, per the policy of Paramount, non-canon. However, certain elements from licensed Star Trek media, such as novels, have made it into the canon, such as Sulu and Uhura’s first names. The origin of the quadrants, as laid out in Star Trek: Defiant #17 are grounded in real-world scientific theory, and future Star Trek showrunners could easily adapt this theory to the screen.

Star Trek: Defiant #17 is on sale now from IDW Publishing!