Delta Quadrant

Warning!

This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Prodigy, and thus may contain spoilers.

For the reference book of the same name, please see Delta Quadrant (reference book).

"The Borg, telepathic pitcher plants, macroviruses – the Delta Quadrant is a death trap!"

– Kathryn Janeway, 2377 ("Shattered")

The Delta Quadrant was the common designation for one-quarter of the Milky Way Galaxy. This quadrant was adjacent to the Beta Quadrant and to the Gamma Quadrant. The quadrant's closest point to the United Federation of Planets was located in the galactic core, which was located approximately thirty thousand light years away. (Star Trek: Voyager, Season 7 production art [1])

The Delta Quadrant was home to thousands of species, including the Kazon, Talaxians, Ocampans, Borg, Vidiians, Hirogen, Krenim, Vau N'Akat, and many others.

History[]

Millions of years ago[]

Millions of years before recorded Human history, it was speculated that the Voth left Earth and traveled to the Delta Quadrant, where they established a powerful and reclusive civilization. (VOY: "Distant Origin")

45,000 years ago[]

Around 45,000 years ago, a humanoid species from the Delta Quadrant traveled to Earth, where they discovered a tribe of Humans. Though the Humans at this time had no language or tools, the humanoid visitors admired their respect for the land. The humanoids continued to visit Earth for thousands more years, seeing the tribe they visited become the Native American people, and they came to worship the humanoids as the Sky Spirits. The humanoids stopped visiting when European settlers started to conquer their land. (VOY: "Tattoo")

3rd century[]

Around the 3rd century, the epidemic known as Phage spread throughout the Vidiian Sodality, reducing a previously renowned culture to subsisting on organ piracy and slave labor. (VOY: "Phage", "Faces")

15th century[]

In the 15th century, the Vaadwaur controlled many colonies and exerted influence across much of the Delta Quadrant, if not further, via a series of underspace corridors. In 1484 an alliance of species led by the Turei destroyed the Vaadwaur empire and homeworld, forcing survivors to undergo cryostasis in the hopes of preserving their society. (VOY: "Dragon's Teeth")

20th century[]

Humans were first planted in the Delta Quadrant by a race known as the Briori around the year 1937 as a form of slave labor. The slaves rebelled and their descendants built a new civilization on a class L planet. (VOY: "The 37's")

21st century[]

Following a discussion between the consciousnesses of Agnes Jurati and the Borg Queen from an alternate timeline, the newly-amalgamated Borg Queen left for the Delta Quadrant aboard the CSS La Sirena, intending to start a new Borg Collective based on salvation rather than forceful assimilation in the search for perfection. (PIC: "Hide and Seek")

23rd century[]

Around 2248, the Federation probe Friendship 1 crashed on a planet in the Delta Quadrant. The native species reverse-engineered the probe's technology for their own use, developing antimatter weapons. (VOY: "Friendship One")

24th century[]

Jal Sankur united the Kazon sects in 2346 to overthrow their enslavers, the Trabe. Virtually all Trabe territory fell under the control of the various sects, which soon began fighting among each other. (VOY: "Initiations", "Maneuvers", "Alliances")

The Delta Quadrant was first visited by Humans of their own free will on stardate 32629.4, when the USS Raven followed a Borg vessel into a transwarp conduit. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

The first Starfleet mission into the Delta Quadrant occurred during an inspection of the Barzan wormhole in 2366. (TNG: "The Price")

In 2369, Q told Vash that there was still the Delta Quadrant for her to explore with him. (DS9: "Q-Less")

Transwarp conduit topology — The *Enterprise* tracks a Borg transwarp conduit's termination point to the Delta Quadrant

Later that year, the Enterprise extrapolated the termination point of a Borg transwarp conduit to the Delta Quadrant. (TNG: "Descent")

Prior to 2371, an entity known as the Caretaker, while not claiming any specific territory per se, was a major factor in the sociopolitical climate near the outer rim of the Delta Quadrant, in the midst of Kazon space. (VOY: "Caretaker")

Due to the considerable distance between the Alpha and Delta Quadrants (an Intrepid-class starship would take thirty years to reach the edges of the quadrant at its maximum warp velocity), the Federation knew very little about this region of space until 2371, when the starship USS Voyager was pulled into the quadrant by an alien force called the Caretaker. When contact was reestablished with the starship in 2374, hundreds of kiloquads of data on the region was received, increasing the Federation's knowledge of the quadrant immensely.

When Q discovered Voyager, he assumed Quinn was responsible for transporting it there, stating that Humans weren't supposed to be in the Delta Quadrant for another hundred years. (VOY: "Death Wish")

The Borg maintained at least one transwarp hub and thousands of exit apertures in the Delta Quadrant until 2378, when the entire transwarp network was destroyed by the USS Voyager. As later revealed by the Borg Queen, the Borg were decimated to the point of near destruction by a neurolytic pathogen that an alternate timeline Kathryn Janeway had infected them with at the same time, freeing the Delta Quadrant from their hold. (VOY: "Endgame"; PIC: "The Last Generation") The transwarp conduits were subsequently considered to be "abandoned Borg tech" with one falling victim to the tyranny of a rogue AI at the training facility belonging to the Kazon-Oglamar. (PRO: "The Fast and the Curious")

When Voyager subsequently returned to Earth, the Federation's knowledge of the quadrant was expanded considerably. (VOY: "Endgame")

The Tars Lamora prison colony, run by the Diviner, held many prisoners of many species from across the Delta and even other quadrants. In 2383, several of its prisoners escaped on the derelict USS Protostar. The ship had been on a return mission of exploration under the command of Captain Chakotay following Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant. (PRO: "Lost and Found", "Kobayashi")

In 2384, now-Vice Admiral Janeway returned to the Delta Quadrant aboard the USS Dauntless using a quantum slipstream drive in search of Chakotay after detecting the Protostar's proto-warp signature. Her search led Janeway to Tars Lamora where she found the Diviner who had been abandoned on the asteroid after the young crew of the Protostar had freed the prisoners. (PRO: "A Moral Star, Part 2", "Asylum")

The young Protostar crew later returned to the Delta Quadrant in the Infinity following the source of a mysterious message. The message led the crew to a Class O planetoid in the spiral nebula housing the Travelers' hidden time ziggurat where Wesley Crusher was waiting for them. (PRO: "Imposter Syndrome", "The Fast and the Curious", "Is There in Beauty No Truth?", "The Devourer of All Things, Part I", "The Devourer of All Things, Part II")

With the help of Wesley, the crew found the temporally-displaced Protostar on Ysida which was described as being "across the quadrant" from the time ziggurat as well as at the edge of whatever quadrant it was in, either the Delta or Beta Quadrants. The Protostar had been marooned on the planet since it arrived in 2374 due to the timeline being altered. After the ship was fully repaired, it set out to rendezvous with the USS Voyager-A 3,000 light years away. (PRO: "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part I", "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II", "A Tribble Called Quest")

Solum, the homeworld of the Vau N'Akat, became a place of great importance to the Federation shortly thereafter when Asencia began attempting to use temporal technology taken from Wesley's mind to destroy the Federation. Voyager and the Protostar, the only ships close enough, were sent to find the source of her temporal technology and stop it at all costs. As Asencia attempted to launch an attack on every major Federation base across the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Quadrants, Voyager and the Protostar attacked, helping the Vau N'Akat overthrow Asencia and destroying her fleet. Asencia's technology was then used to send the Protostar back in time to Tars Lamora, ending the temporal paradox that had been created. (PRO: "Ascension, Part I", "Ascension, Part II", "Brink", "Touch of Grey", "Ouroboros, Part I", "Ouroboros, Part II")

Political makeup[]

The greatest power in the Delta Quadrant, until at least 2378, was the Borg Collective. In addition to a vast swath of territory which they had completely assimilated, the Borg used a transwarp network to routinely visit different points scattered throughout the quadrant. Following the Borg-Species 8472 War, the insurrection led by Axum, the destruction of a part of the transwarp network, and the destruction of Unimatrix 01, it was unclear how the Borg's status in the Delta Quadrant had been altered. (VOY: "Scorpion", "Unimatrix Zero", "Endgame")

Other alien species that controlled significant areas of the quadrant included, among others, the Vidiians, the Devore, the Kazon, the Voth, the Hirogen, the Hierarchy, and the Malon. Species 8472 had also established a presence in the Delta Quadrant until they returned to fluidic space. (Star Trek: Voyager)

The political power of the Krenim Imperium depended largely on its temporal weapons, and as such its influence may have been altered dramatically by its own manipulation of the timeline. (VOY: "Year of Hell")

The Vau N'Akat Order, through the Diviner, had a degree of power in the quadrant from around 2366 to 2384, ruling the Tars Lamora prison colony using slaves of various races sold to the Diviner by a Kazon slave trader. However, the Diviner was from the future of an alternate timeline and the present day Vau N'Akat had no knowledge of life outside of their homeworld, Solum. (PRO: "Lost and Found", "A Moral Star, Part 2", "Preludes", "Into the Breach, Part II") Asencia, another Vau N'Akat from the future, later took control of the planet and built temporal weaponry that threatened to destroy the Federation throughout the galaxy before her defeat. (PRO: "Ascension, Part I", "Ascension, Part II", "Brink", "Touch of Grey", "Ouroboros, Part I")

Locations[]

Spatial landmarks[]

Homeworlds[]

Colonies and outposts[]

Other planets[]

Ysida (located at the edge of either the Beta or Delta Quadrants)
Unnamed Delta Quadrant planets

Appendices[]

Background information[]

The Delta Quadrant was originally suggested as the setting for Star Trek: Voyager by Michael Okuda. On 27 September 1993, he sent a memo to Rick Berman that stated, "Since the Gamma Quadrant is the province of ships from DS9, suggest that this new show be set in the Delta Quadrant. One of the few things we know about the Delta Quadrant is that the Borg homeworld is located somewhere there. This might present opportunities for the Borg to be recurring bad guys." (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 207-208)

The Delta Quadrant had first been depicted as being home to the Borg in the episode "Descent" that had aired earlier that year, as an okudagram graphic visibly noted that the Borg were from that area. The Delta Quadrant is the only named galactic quadrant referenced in Star Trek: Enterprise. It is referred to in "Regeneration", again in connection with the Borg.

Apocrypha[]

In the post-Voyager novels, Starfleet created "Project Full Circle", an initiative to return to the Delta Quadrant and further explore it with an expeditionary fleet consisting of Voyager and other ships that used Starfleet's perfected quantum slipstream drive.

In the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy novel The Delta Anomaly set in the alternate reality, there's a holo-karaoke bar called "The Delta Quadrant" located in San Francisco on Earth.

External link[]

Delta Quadrant at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works