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In the Star Trek fictional universe, the Milky Way Galaxy is divided into four quadrants, which are further subdivided into sectors.
Alpha Quadrant
The Alpha Quadrant would be located between 6 and 9 o'clock positions if the plane of the galaxy were seen as a clock face with the 6 o'clock position bisecting Earth's solar system. The Alpha Quadrant serves as the usual setting for the television shows The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Enterprise as well as most of the Star Trek movies. It is home to the United Federation of Planets, the Cardassian Union, the Ferengi Alliance and the Breen Confederacy.
Beta quadrant
The Beta Quadrant would be located between the 3 and 6 o'clock if the plane of the galaxy were seen as a clock face with the 6 o'clock position bisecting Earth's solar system.
The reason why the United Federation of Planets and Earth are right on the border between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants is to retroactively offer consistency to references to "quadrant"s in the original series, its movies, and early episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which use "quadrant" and "sector" interchangeably.
The Beta Quadrant is home to the Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire, Gorn Republic, Son'a and Metron Consortium as well as a portion of the Federation, including Vulcan. Because parts of the Romulan and Klingon empires spill into the Alpha Quadrant, they are referred to as Alpha Quadrant Powers (possibly analogous to the former Soviet Union having been considered a western power, though it was physically located mostly in the east).
Gamma quadrant
The Gamma Quadrant is located between the 9 and 12 o'clock positions if the plane of the galaxy were seen as a clock face with the 6 o'clock position bisecting the Earth's solar system.
The Bajoran wormhole connects the Alpha Quadrant's Bajor-B'hava'el system to the Gamma Quadrant's Idran system. The Gamma Quadrant is primarily ruled by the Dominion, although large portions remain unexplored.
Delta quadrant
The Delta Quadrant is the is located between the 12 and 3 o'clock positions if the plane of the galaxy were seen as a clock face with the 6 o'clock position bisecting Earth's solar system. Most of the information about the Delta Quadrant comes from the show Voyager. Star Trek races in the Delta Quadrant include the Borg (the dominant species in this quadrant), the Kazon, Vidiians, Talaxians, Ocampans, and the Hirogen. Species 8472 is first encountered in this quadrant, although they are not native to this region or physical dimension.
Curiously, this arrangement results in:
| γ | δ |
| α | β |
The order of the quadrants is therefore neither clockwise nor counterclockwise.
An unaddressed problem is that the galaxy is not stationary and spins on its "axis," so how the boundries of the quadrants are maintained is unclear.
See also
External links
Star Trek terms | Star Trek regions of space
Kvadranty Galaxie | Quadrant Alpha | רביע אלפא | Podział galaktyki (Star Trek) | Galaktični kvadranti (Zvezdne steze) | Galaktiska kvadranter (Star Trek)
"Galactic quadrants (Star Trek)"