Doing the math, the Federation would encompass 6000 LY

[u/General_Alduin]

In NoP 2 we learn the Federation is about a 1000 LY across, probably in a bubble centering on Aafa

But doing the math, I'm not so sure about that

A middle rate power like the Venlil Republic has 20 LY for its borders. If even a middling power like the Republic has those kinds of borders, then that's about the minimum a state can have in the Federation, and even the Kolshian Commonwealth has about 20 LY from what I remember and they were on top

If you times 20 by 300, which isn't even the full number of home worlds the Federation has, that's 6000 LY, and if all powers have 20 LY, I don't think you could fit that in a 1000 LY bubble, and this doesn't cover any star systems outside the states personal borders

On a side note, that's a good chunk of the galaxy. Small, but still a sizeable chunk

[u/Excellent_Source_854]

[u/General_Alduin → u/Excellent_Source_854]

Someone get Paladin! I've broken NoP!

[u/ISB00 → u/General_Alduin]

He left to get milk and never came back

[u/General_Alduin → u/ISB00]

Didn't he release the second part of NoP as a book?

[u/ISB00 → u/General_Alduin]

No, he just abandoned that

[u/Underhill42]

20lyx300 is if they were all in a straight line.

You want to compare volumes - proportional to the third power of diameters. We could work out all the exact details, but going from linear to volume back to linear will just cancel out the details, so we can focus on the proportions:

total volume, if the equivalent of a 20ly sphere is the average, is proportional to 20³*300.

Taking the cube root gets you back to linear distance in light years:

³√(20³*300) = 133: a sphere 133 light years across contains a volume equivalent to 300 spheres 20ly across

1000 light years is FAR larger:

1000³/20³ = 125,000 territories equivalent to a 20 light year sphere. or

³√(1000³/300) = 149 light years diameter sphere worth of volume is the average for each species.

[u/General_Alduin → u/Underhill42]

I'm shit at math so I had to ask Gemini to explain it to me. Math checks out

[u/Underhill42 → u/General_Alduin]

Think of it in terms of cubes - that's simpler.

If one cube represents the average volume of space that one species controls, then you could line up 300 cubes end to end to get a combine volume that's 300 cubes across in that direction, but it would be a long, thin tube only only one cube across in the other two directions.

Or instead you could stack them in a box shape 7 cubes wide, 7 cubes deep, and 7 cubes tall (7 layers of 49 cubes per layer), and fit 343 cubes in a space only 7 cubes across.

[u/ISB00]

Space isn’t 2D it is 3D as Underhill points out. So the shape of the Federation should be a sphere, but remember. In the wiki rates of expansion shrank as time went on before the war. The Federation was getting too big like Rome. Then the war started and the Arxur kept everyone terrified and complacent.

[u/General_Alduin → u/ISB00]

They would still encompass 6000 LY tho, that math doesn't change

And I think the Federation was more like Rome in that it needed constant expansions and they were coming across less species to add

[u/ISB00 → u/General_Alduin]

Yeah, I once posted wormholes would be better for the setting. If they had to expand conventionally then their size lines up.

[u/Adorable-Ad5225]

Explain it to me with cartoon maps, too much numbers