Talk: Stellar cartography (section)

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Department of Stellar Cartography[]

I seem to remember Luther Sloan calling it the Department of Stellar Cartography in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges". Am I mistaken? I haven't seen the episode in a while. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 01:46, 1 Dec 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that Sloan was probably referring to a department of Starfleet Operations or Starfleet Sciences - that is, a branch of Starfleet's administrative division. What this article is covering is the shipboard Stellar Cartography equipment and personnel, for which a more appropriate term might be "Stellar Cartography division. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.230.148.146

What's the difference...[]

between the stellar cartography lab and the astrometrics lab on Voyager? My guess is that Voyager, being a smaller ship, didn't have an SC lab at the beginning and had to build one and called it astrometrics. From what I've seen in ST:Generations movie, the two labs are used for the same thing. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.163.48.66

rename[]

It seems like the term "Stellar cartography department" was never used, and worse, it was never said to have department status. In Lessons, it is implied to be part of Stellar sciences, which is a department (its head being a department head). It is unquestionably treated as some kind of division (and a major one at that), so merging into the science would be wrong. But it doesn't seem to be a distinct department, so the current name is misleading. -- Capricorn (talk) 07:21, November 15, 2019 (UTC)

Is there even enough evidence to support this being separate from stellar cartography in the first place? That page looks like a mess full of incites and duplicated references and stuff about cartographers. --Alan (talk) 04:51, November 21, 2019 (UTC)

The division of information between the two articles currently is basically random, but there's evidence of both stellar cartography as a field, and as some kind of division/section/subsystem aboard the Enterprise-D and Voyager. It's mentioned pretty unambiguously as a field in "The Catwalk", and seems to be taught at Starfleet Academy per "Lifesigns", among some other slightly more ambiguous references. On the other hand, many episodes treat it as a starship section, like in "Emergence" where Picard orders stellar cartography to do something, or "Persistence of Vision" where stellar cartography is hoping to have their report reviewed, or "Parturition" where the people in stellar cartography are said to have nicknamed a planet. I'll see if I find time this weekend to look into reviewing references and sorting the articles along this kind of logic, it might be a step forward. -- Capricorn (talk) 15:56, November 22, 2019 (UTC)

TNG: "Realm Of Fear"
- "Look, there's Stellar Cartography. I thought that was deck eleven."
TNG: "Lessons"
- "Stellar Cartography has requested a communications blackout while they run an experiment."
- "Library systems have been allocated to Stellar Cartography."
- "Replicator systems are offline at the request of Stellar Cartography."
- "I'm sure that Stellar Sciences will find it a most interesting study."
- "I met the new head of Stellar Sciences last night. Lieutenant Commander Daren."
TNG: "Emergence" - "Well, let's move on to another survey region. Have stellar cartography begin a--"
Star Trek Generations - "...join me in Stellar Cartography."
Star Trek: First Contact - "What is on deck eleven?" -- "Hydroponics, Stellar Cartography, Deflector Control. All vital systems."
VOY: "Time and Again" - "...the Delany sisters in Stellar Cartography..."
VOY: "Parturition" - "The people in Stellar Cartography have already nicknamed it Planet Hell."
VOY: "Persistence of Vision" - "And Stellar Cartography was hoping for a review of their latest report."
VOY: "Death Wish" - "How about Stellar Cartography?" / "We could shut down Stellar Cartography with all the knowledge he'd bring to the job."
VOY: "Threshold" - "This telemetry is giving us an invaluable record of this sector. We can use it to make a star chart. Transfer the shuttle logs to Stellar Cartography for analysis."

"Threshold" marked the end of Stellar Cartography and the beginning of the Astrometrics lab.

VOY: "Revulsion" - "We'd like to enhance the Astrometrics lab. It hasn't been upgraded since Voyager left spacedock."
VOY: "Repentance" - "Astrometrics? What's that?" / "A laboratory where we observe stellar phenomena."

"Lessons" kind of established a distinction between Stellar Cartography and Stellar Sciences in that the former clearly falls within the latter, but all the references focus on a location. A script note helps verify that: Picard approaches the door to the Stellar Sciences Department. He EXITS to... CARTOGRAPHY LAB. The feel of the rest of the examples above do fit the idea that it is a lab, moreso that a dedicated department. I think this can also be supported by the idea that stellar dynamics and the stellar dynamics lab can also be one in the same. --Alan (talk) 03:53, December 4, 2019 (UTC)

Another interesting one that you haven't mentioned is TNG: "Liaisons": "This deck is devoted mainly to stellar cartography, biological research, and astrophysics". There's room for interpretation, but that gave me the impression that Stellar Cartography takes up a significant amount of space, much more then single room labs we've occasionally seen. Then again, with First Contact calling it a vital system, maybe that space includes the actual sensor systems. Overal, my impression is that "Stellar Cartography" is most often used to refer to a team of people, but obviously they need an area to work, and TNG refers to that space as well. What I'm not so sure about is if Stellar Cartography can be said to make up one lab, or if there's a larger suite of spaces. The latter possibility seems more likely, since it would explain for example why Seven is always alone in astrometrics; it's just one of the stellar cartography workspaces. I'm quickly starting to veer into speculation so I'll stop now, but you get the idea. -- Capricorn (talk) 11:53, December 4, 2019 (UTC)