Once More, With Feeling

[Vinyl]

Due to outdated sensors and understandably inattentive patrols, the ME scout has been met and welcomed at gunpoint. A proxied secure comm link to the Board of Admirals, the supreme Hexalani authority, has been provided.

The Expeditionary Fleet has located 5 more habitable worlds in reasonable proximity to Hexalan. Colony ships have been dispatched.

With the shipyards unused, ships are being produced to increase Hexalani numbers. A run of 200 ships is the current goal.

[Ivan2006]

@Dayn: Sorry, it was me who fucked up, we already had our contact on page 15.

The ME scouts are establishing contact with Hexalan, asking to initiate diplomatic contact including the establishment of embassies.

With human traders continuously bringing democratic values into the ME, the government is now in a position where giving some legislative power to the people is being considered.

The Nivanshe request for cooperation in the field of psionics has been accepted.

Information on the other species known to the ME is being transmitted to the Scavs, but as the ME doesn't see them getting anything relevant out of it, the overall agreement is being cancelled.

[Vinyl]

The ME offers are tentatively accepted.

[cats]

Arugh shite Shadowcat said something smart. I know I won't really be able to post much of anything from now to Wednesday. Maybe we could use the lull to argue over a galaxy map.

Reference

Spoiler:

[Ivan2006]

We'll need a map of human factions and Strigiforme first before other alien factions can be adequately placed on the map.

[Archduke Daynel, PhD]

And since humans just started spreading out through space, no giant areas pls.

[Shadowcatbot]

*Curcles half of galaxy*
Mkay, Whatever you say bro.

[Ivan2006]

I'd say the UTA would be like the area around Sol/Perseus, with the oter factions dotted around that and the aliens (due to slow FTL making larger distances non-realistic) in the general vicinity.

[ACH0225]

I think we should leave the mapmaking up to Fen. I trust him to distribute things evenly to the basic idea of the story.

[Professor Fenway]

I will, give me a bit to lay things out. I need to consider all factors.

[Error]

I assume we all have factors we'd like to note; and that said, the Commonwealth is on the galactic edge, likely in the Signus sector.

[cats]

Remember that the galaxy is 100,000 LY in diameter. My faction has been in it's pre-contact colonization age for around 250 years and it's a little more than a dot (approx. 2800 square lightyears).

[Professor Fenway]

Ah, but there's a problem; effective territory. Let's do the math;
100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way (about)
Let's say an average of 5 planets per system. So 500,000,000,000 planets in the Milky Way.
Let's say only 0.1% of planets are habitable. That's about 500,000,000 habitable planets.
If the Milky Way is 100,000 LY in diameter, that's 10,000,000,000 square light years.
500,000,000 planets divided by 10,000,000,000 is 0.05 habitable planets per square light year. Since most empires are based on habitables, let's say habitable planets determine area. So about 20 square LY per habitable. If cats has 100, his area is 2000 square LY. Which is about right, right?

TL:DR- Math

[Ivan2006]

The ME is relatively tiny, I'd say it has 3 habitable planets at most.
The ME is doing a great deal of terraforming almost-habitable planets (read: something like Mars) and is setting up a colony in about every sixth system or so they get to.
I'd say the ME is at most a hundred square light years in effective size, including the defense perimeter most factions would have (aka where traffic control gets interested in your course and starts monitoring you)

I also say it would be a given that while this map-making thing is going on, time progression in the RP is halted.

[Error]

Effective territory would likely be fairly large - but that equates to "tiny" on the map. So I shall trust Fen's judgement.