History

The following is from a presentation by Dr Helena Taliaferro.

Introduction

Far from the heart of the Federation and beyond the edges of the Klingon and Romulan borders lies the Shackleton Expanse, a massive area of space deep within the Beta Quadrant. Informally named after the renowned ancient Earth explorer Ernest Shackleton, the Expanse has, as of late 2380, remained largely unexplored. The Federation Science Council and Starfleet Command have rarely committed resources to exploring the Expanse, preferring to focus on higher-priority regions closer to home. In addition, we have no reliable intelligence reports to suggest that either the Klingon Empire or the Romulan Star Empire have bothered to send reconnaissance ships or probes into the Expanse. Our Klingon allies apparently have no survey data to share, and the Romulan science corps is understandably unwilling to part with any data they may happen to possess.

What we do have is a patchwork of probe telemetry, long-range sensor scans, and unreliable data and stories from independent captains and their crews who have traveled through the Expanse over the years. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.

As we’re all reminded of literally every single day, and at the risk of sounding flippant, the Beta Quadrant is, in layman’s terms, really, really big. The Beta Quadrant, despite housing many Federation worlds, the Romulan Star Empire, and most of the Klingon Empire, in addition to countless other unaligned systems and species, remains only barely mapped, much less explored. The most recent update from the Federation’s Stellar Cartography Society estimates that we’ve fully explored a mere 7 percent of the Beta Quadrant, with another 5 percent mapped to some degree of confidence thanks to data gathered from dedicated deep-space probes, the occasional survey mission conducted via Starfleet over the last few decades, and what cartographic material we’ve been able to coerce out of our Klingon allies.

Uncertain Research

Prior to the mid-24th century, what we knew of the Expanse was largely limited to whatever reports were gathered from prospectors and independent merchants plying the trade lanes through the Beta Quadrant.Sadly, most of these reports are unreliable, thanks to the poor standards of the crews’ data gathering processes – once cannot expect a simple merchant crew to conduct science with any degree of professional objectivity or competence. Surveys and personal logs from these traders are rife with unsubstantiated reports of subspace interference, electromagnetic waveforms, tetryonic storms, and more, in addition to a litany of anecdotes that veer far from the factual and well into the fanciful. That some of these “whispers in the Expanse” or “ghost ship” stories have rooted themselves into local popular legends is a scientific pain point that quality data and objective reporting seems unable to quash.

Tall tales aside, what the reliable data tells us is that for as long as captains and their vessels have traversed parts of the Expanse, there have been regular recordings of unusually powerful gravimetric and tetryonic disturbances. These “eddies,” for lack of a better term, are unpredictable in location, size, and intensity. This would suggest that they are either naturally-occurring phenomena, or possibly the product of an incredibly advanced and capricious alien mind. My opinion is in support of the former, naturally, though my scientific curiosity is piqued at the possibility of the latter.

If reports are to be believed, several transports and merchant freighters have been lost over the last several decades due to run-ins with these spatial phenomena. I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of these claims, given that the vessels in question reportedly entered the Expanse and never returned. The phenomena have been studied enough for me to know they are powerful enough to disrupt ship systems and even overload or destroy vessels unfortunate enough to get too close or foolish enough to investigate without taking precautions.